Radioactive wild boars are running rampage across northern Japan after being contaminated in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The animals are causing hundreds of thousands of pounds in damage to local farms, having been allowed to breed unhindered in the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The number of boars in Fukushima has increased by more than 330 per cent in recent years, as local hunters cannot kill off the radioactive animals fast enough.
Even a tincture of radiation kills everything according to Greenpeace. Turns out not to be quite so…..
“The radioactive animals”. Lol.
Hasn’t the “exclusion zone” round Chernobyl turned into a thriving wildlife reservation?
Is this like the porcine version of Godzilla?
A future Avengers movie will have the irradiated green and purple Hulk battling the irradiated green and purple wild boars in Japan.
Aren’t those boars 27 feet tall with two heads though?
Ultimately I expect this is a story about gun control.
If this took place in rural Britain, I would think British gun laws are still sufficiently lax that there would be some inbred yokels who would be able to solve this problem. Whether or not you could eat them.
Hunting wild boar in the area of a disaster zone is the opening act of a film just begging to be made.
The Japanese are famously long lived so there must be crew members with solid Godzilla movie experience who are still spry enough to make the miniature sets and monster costumes.
Dan – “Hunting wild boar in the area of a disaster zone is the opening act of a film just begging to be made.”
I think the Australians have already made it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razorback_%28film%29
If cooking meat can stop mad cows disease why won’t a little bit of time over the coals of a nice barbeque help with radiation?
If as reported the boar have a radiation level 330 times the limit for human consumption, that’s a good indication that said limit is an order of magnitude or two too low.
After all the boar are thriving
It not just Greenpeace getting over excited about radiation levels.
Pat, don’t forget we’re a top predator, so we can accumulate in our bodies the contents of multiple other animals.
So a dose that doesn’t bother the prey can accumuluate and harm the predator- especially if the predator has a long life.
I don’t know enought to do even a back-of-an-envelope calculaton, but I’d be wary of concluding that an animal that’s alive is automatically safe to eat.
TheJollyGreenMan – “If cooking meat can stop mad cows disease why won’t a little bit of time over the coals of a nice barbeque help with radiation?”
Are you the one who keeps insulting TW’s intelligence? Because as trolling goes, this one is not that good.
Roasting might not help with radiation. But cooling to near zero may or may not reduce radiation. It is hard to say but mildly interesting. Of course being cooled down to near absolute zero may affect the flavour of the meat.
Indicates, but does not prove. Hopefully someone will will pop up applying for a research grant as clearly more work needs to be done.
Man is an omnivore as is a pig so there’s not much difference there. However man needs to live eighteen years or so before he reproduces, and a decade or so beyond that if the offspring are to be supported to maturity.
A pig could live fo four years and still leave adult offspring
If the effects of radiation take say ten years to show that would mean that the pigs thrive and mankind doesn’t.
Have they made anime real?
When the last tin mine closed in Cornwall, were the Greens out celebrating the final freedom of Cornish mine workers from excessive radiation doses?
actually, radiation + everyone avoids the area + wild boars, meaning they become wilder and more violent sounds like top horror stuff.
You have a nuclear accident. No-one goes near the area. Then it gets opened up and a group of hunters go in. Classic ‘gang gets picked off leaving 1 man standing’
SMFS,
do me a favour and educate yourself.
Start with reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/151350.Wolves_Eat_Dogs
Then you might just catch the drift of my comment.
I never go pig sticking without my dogs and my geiger counter.
Seriously, I’m prepared to believe these boar have been irradiated, but struggle to see how they can be radioactive.
Still, when they radiate out due to overpopulation we’ll have another go at panic.
Almost everything, you, me, wild boars and especially bananas are measurably radioactive if you are willing to wait long enough for the click.
The important question is, how many bananas to the Japanese boar?
What super-powers would one get after consuming one of these boars. ?
Coming soon: Boarman and Piglet and the Search for the Truffles of Doom
They don’t put any useful numbers on this story, of course. Cs-137 has a fairly short biological half life (the radioactive half life is another matter; it’s the most annoying fission product as it’s a gamma emitter with a half life short enough for its specific activity to be high, but long compared to human life spans).
The problem is probably the fact that human have been forcible removed from the area, removing a primary predator of the wild boars. With that in mind, the boars step to the top of the food chain since there isn’t anything around big enough to actually eat them, and they eat EVERYTHING.
I finally understand why ‘green’ groups are anti-nuclear. ‘Green’ leadership know perfectly well that radiation isn’t nearly as dangerous as they claim. They simply want people to be afraid to go into areas. I have to admit it is a beautifully designed conspiracy to create better nature reserves.
We can get more than just horror movies out of this story line. As a freebie I will throw in the Boar Barbarian, a cartoon targeted at children loosely based on the Lion King.
BnliA wins the thread!