In 1998, 31 Przewalski’s horses entered Chernobyl and reached 137 by 2018

After the Chernobyl disaster, an abandoned radioactive landscape became an unlikely refuge for Przewalski’s horses, a species once lost from the wild.

Introduced in 1998–99, the population suffered transport deaths and poaching but continued breeding.

By 2018, 137 horses were documented in Ukraine, with others established across the Belarusian border.