Overview
- Dogs of Chernobyl volunteers documented at least three animals with vivid blue fur during an Oct. 6 field mission, later sharing geo-tagged images and video.
- The dogs appear active and healthy according to the team, but repeated humane capture attempts, including sedative darts, have not yet succeeded.
- Veterinary lead Jennifer Betz says the leading hypothesis is contact with a spilled dye, possibly from an old portable toilet found nearby, with confirmation pending laboratory tests.
- The organization has rejected claims of staged photos and reiterated that radiation or genetic mutation is not believed to be the cause.
- The sightings occur within a long-running effort caring for roughly 700 feral dogs in the exclusion zone, with a similar blue-dog incident reported near a Russian chemical plant in 2021.