Exclusion Zone Ecology — Radiation vs. Human Pressure

A radioactive exclusion zone like Chernobyl's sounds like the last place wildlife should thrive — yet population surveys there show many species rebounding. This simulator makes the mechanism visible: two identical landscapes evolve side by side over simulated years, one still shaped by ordinary human activity (hunting, farming, roads, pollution) and one abandoned to radiation alone. A spatial contamination heatmap marks a genuinely lethal hotspot where radiation harm dominates locally, while the rest of the zone stays mostly sub-lethal. Watch the zone's total population trend upward even as its hotspot population struggles — because removing everyday human pressure outweighs sub-lethal radiation almost everywhere except the worst-contaminated ground.