Wild Boar « nuclear-news

Fukushima wild boar leather baby shoes?

Date goes whole hog into boar leather business in Fukushima

[Translated by the Japan Times]Wild boar leather is said to breathe well and resist chafing. It is used in Date, Fukushima Prefecture, to make products like babies’ first walking shoes because it is soft and fits well.

The wild boar are captured by local hunters, and their skin goes through radiation testing before and after tanning to confirm safety.

The corporation initially wanted to sell the meat, but they had to give up on the idea because eating wild boar caught in the area was banned after the 2011 core meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

They came up with the idea of developing leather products after learning about a company in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward that tans wild animal hides. After repeated talks with representatives from the local tourism industry, the corporation began selling leather products in April 2015. It currently employs seven staffers and 16 artisans for the project.

As the government continues to ban shipments of wild animal meat from the region due to radiation concerns, the boar population is growing and causing serious crop damage. Over 1,800 of them have been captured in the city in the six years since the meltdowns.

http://www.fukushimaminponews.com/news.html?id=899&fbclid=IwAR2RKVIVXmmfDj6uh41yHPYgNmIpz_xfdeXh-bwYR_m_SMbv1XVeI18tyiE

March 1, 2019 Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima continuing | Fukushima, radiation, Wild Boar | Leave a comment

Gun control heartburn: Radioactive boars are amok in Fukushima

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The “most adaptable animals that you’ll ever find” are running rampant across parts of rural Japan in the wake of the 2011 nuclear catastrophe and strict gun laws aren’t helping.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, in which a boiling water reactor nuclear power plant largely went Chernobyl after a tsunami knocked it offline has left Japan with a host of problems to include radiation-induced health impacts, some 200,000 displaced locals and possible exposure of groundwater to melted down nuclear fuel for decades to come.

Oh yeah, and the wild hogs.

According to an article in The Washington Post last April, the boar population, lacking natural predators is booming. Worse, thousands of the animals roam an area where highly radioactive caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, has been confirmed.

Most agree that the best way to eradicate the rapid population of would-be Orcs is through hunting, but in gun control-friendly Japan, that is easier said than done.

“Something that complicates wild boar management in Japan is the exceptionally restrictive ownership, use, and access to firearms,” says Dr. Mark Smith, a forestry and wildlife professor at Auburn University, told Outside online. “This includes not only the general populace, but also with researchers, wildlife biologists, and natural resource managers.”

According to the Australian-based Small Arms Survey, the rate of private gun ownership in Japan is 0.6 per 100 people with only 77 handguns in circulation and just 0.8 percent of Japanese households containing one or more legal guns, most often shotguns.

Smith went to Japan to study the problem in 2013.

“Although [recreational] hunting does occur in Japan, it is very limited,” says Smith, “and hunter numbers are declining by the year, so there are fewer and fewer hunters out there harvesting wild boar.”

Plus there is the problem with the meat. In short, there is no good way to make caesium-137 infused pork a balanced part of your complete meal without the diner glowing in the dark, no matter how much BBQ sauce you use.

In Japan, they have to incinerate the carcasses (at 1,771 degrees Fahrenheit) then obliterate the fragments left over with hammers and box them up. Carefully.

Furthermore, the animals are very smart.

“They are the most adaptable animals that you’ll ever find: we call them the ‘opportunistic omnivore,’” says Smith.

http://www.guns.com/2017/01/03/gun-control-heartburn-radioactive-boars-are-amok-in-fukushima/

January 4, 2017 Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima 2017 | Fukushima, radiation, Wild Boar, Wildlife | 1 Comment

Radioactive Boar Are Thriving And Causing Havoc Near The Fukushima Power Plant

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It’s been over five years since tsunami waves crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi power plant and led to its nuclear meltdown. While 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the land around the plant remains a dangerous exclusion zone, the area’s wildlife is taking full advantage of the peace.

Since the nuclear disaster, the population of wild boars has rocketed, much to the dismay of surrounding communities, The Times has reported. In the four years following the disaster, the population of boars is thought to have boomed from 3,000 to 13,000. You might think this ancient Japanese symbol of prosperity and fertility might be welcomed, but it’s estimated they have caused $15 million worth of damage to local agriculture.

Assistant ecology professor Okuda Keitokunin told the Japanese Mainichi newspaper that wild boar, along with racoons, have been using the abandoned houses and emptied buildings in the evacuation zone as a place to breed and shelter.

However, this post-nuclear meltdown town isn’t exactly a safe haven for the boars. It’s thought their diet of roots, nuts, berries and water all contain particularly high concentrations of radiation. The animals show no immediate signs of harm from the radiation, however samples from Fukushima’s wild boar meat has shown they contain 300 times the safe amount of the radioactive element caesium-137. Another study on the area’s fir trees showed evidence of growth mutations.

Hunters have been offered rewards to cull the boars by local authorities. However, the animals are breeding so quickly they can’t keep up. The city of Nihonmatsu, around 56 kilometers (35 miles) from the Fukushima plant, has dug three mass graves capable of holding 1,800 dead boars. Recently, these have become overfilled and authorities are now struggling to cope with the influx of culled beasts.

The boom in boars is a similar story to Chernobyl’s post-meltdown wildlife. A study from late last year showed that the populations of deer and wild boar are thriving in the area surrounding the Ukrainian nuclear power plant.

In a statement Jim Smith, one of the authors of the Chernobyl study, explained, “It’s very likely that wildlife numbers at Chernobyl are much higher than they were before the accident. This doesn’t mean radiation is good for wildlife, just that the effects of human habitation, including hunting, farming, and forestry, are a lot worse.”

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/wild-boar-are-thriving-and-causing-havoc-near-fukushima-power-plant/

August 28, 2016 Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima 2016 | Fukushima continuing, radiation, Wild Boar, Wildlife | Leave a comment

960 Bq/kg of Cs-134/137 detected from wild boar in Fukushima

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According to MHLW (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare), 960 Bq/Kg of Cesium-134/137 was measured from the meat of wild boar in Fukushima.

The sampling date was 6/11/2016. This reading is over 9 times much as food safety limit.

Cs-134 density was 154 Bq/Kg to prove it is contaminated from Fukushima accident.

From this report MHLW released on 7/19/2016, significant density of Cs-134/137 was detected from all of 33 wild boar samples and it exceeded the food safety limit (100 Bq/Kg) in 2/3 samples.

MHLW reports none of these wild boar meat was distributed for sale.

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/04-Houdouhappyou-11135000-Shokuhinanzenbu-Kanshianzenka/0000123667_18.pdf

http://fukushima-diary.com/2016/07/960-bqkg-of-cs-134137-detected-from-wild-boar-in-fukushima/

July 27, 2016 Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima 2016 | Contamination, Fukushima continuing, radiation, Wild Boar, Wildlife | Leave a comment