Radioactive Boar in Sweden?

[Kalahari]

I was reading the Daily Telegraph on Saturday and there was a report that Boar in area around Gavle had been found to be rather radioactive. Apparently this is a leftover from Chernobyl and the boar are so effected because they turn over the soil so much.

Any truth in this or is it just a good story? I must say it was a bit buried to be sensationalism.

David.

 

[JTO]

There was something about it on the TV, I think.

 

[Benji53]

Reindeer as well I believe

 

[75]

The effects from Chernobyl are still cropping up 25 yrs after the event.
The effects on humans has been played down but if you google it it is horrific.
Fukashima is said by some scientists to have been worse than Chernobyl. It spewed nuclear fissions into the atmosphere for 9 days. I read that the true death toll from this could be a million people globally !
unfortunalely only time will tell. No doubt there will be a cover up.
These nuclear fissions go into the atmosphere and drift with the wind and come down to earth as fallout.
Testing nuclear weapons, I imagine is hugely irresponsible as these fissions and the fallout is what causes many cancers and birth defects and subsequent deaths of innocent people across the globe every day.

None of that makes any sense! Nuclear fission is a process not a product. "Fissions" don't go into the atmosphere - some radioactive isotopes as a result of the fission process may do, but the above statement shows a lack of understanding and proves a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous!

As for your Fukushima deathtoll claims, Stanford University has estimated that the radioactivity release from Fukushima could cause 130 deaths from cancer globally (the lower bound for the estimate being 15 and the upper bound 1100) and 199 cancer cases in total (the lower bound being 24 and the upper bound 1800), most of which are estimated to occur in Japan. I'm not sure that an eminent university on a different continent to the disaster would be top of the list of those trying to cover up anything?!

I'm not saying it wasn't an awful disaster, but it needs to be taken in the context of a magnitude 9 earthquake and a massive tsunami which killed 230,000 people and is estimated to be the most costly natural disaster ever (I think it's been estimated at >$200 billion). There are tens of thousands of people still living in temporary accommodation 6 years later (as a result of the earthquake / tsunami and nothing to do with Fukushima).

 

[75]

And back to the OP - yes, there is probably truth in this. There have been lots of studies on mammal in the Chernobyl area, including the reindeer mentioned above. From memory, I think the particular pathway for them was from their diet of lichens, which absorbed one of the radioactive isotopes - probably caesium-137 which is the issue for the boar.

With regard to the boar, it's a due to a combination of factors:

• Northern Sweden received a significant amount of radioactivity in the days following the Chernobyl disaster (the first place to report the disaster was a nuclear power station in norther Sweden which picked up significantly elevated radioactivity during routine monitoring).
• Caesium-137 was one of the main isotopes and has a half-life of 30 years (so activity will be half what it was at the time of the disaster), but it stays present in the soil.
• Wild boar were released in Sweden (reintroduced) back in the 1970s, and have gradually worked their way north, so they are only becoming prevalent up there now
• Wild boar feeding habits (rooting through soil etc) exposes them to the caesium in the ground more than any other mammal. Deer etc feed on vegetation, and although plant can take up the caesium, it's not as direct a pathway as the bore rooting around in the soil.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Here in eastern Bavaria in the Bayrischewald area the shot boar have to be tested before public sale if they measure over 600 Becquerel per Kilo it is disposed of and a central government office pays the hunter a better price out than the sale price would have been, truffles seem to be the worst vector for passing the radioactivity into the boar, deer eating above ground greenery seem to be ok.

 

[ileso]

we will be haunted by chernobyl for centuries...

as for Fukushima.. well all the radiocative water that they spill into the ocean will make just about everything in the pacific radiocative... good luck with pacific tuna.

the problem with the disasters is that you can contain the waste if things go normally but when theres a huge spill of radioactive particles, either through the air or in the water then good luck containing the aftermath. the estimated contamination zone for both is massive. and my guess is the fukushima contamination zone is worse because the water in the ocean is constantly moving. and they are constantly releasing more water ...everyone fishes in the ocean so potentially a lot more people will be afected by it. to say there will be only 200 or 300 people getting cancer from it is ridiculous.

 

[mealiejimmy]

I'd tend to believe "75" on this one

From NW England - that wouldn't happen to be anywhere near Sellafield

Cheers

Bruce

 

[75]

Mods - feel free to delete all these off-topic posts if you see fit. There's a link to the OPs thread about radioactivity in boar, but it's probably a tenuous one!

75, I may have got the technical word wrong for the particles but I am not a nuclear scientist.
I do think you are deluded if you only think 2-300 will be effected by cancer from Fukashima.
the true figures of cancer cases caused by Chernobyl are still not clear 25 years later.
the info is on the net if you wish to read it.

No delusion here. I quoted the results of on independent study undertaken by a well renowned university (which is also available on the net!) , carried out by a bunch of folk well qualified in this field. As "not a nuclear scientist", what experience or evidence do you have to question the findings of the study?

No one will know the full effects of chernobyl for another generation or more, but we can predict health effects based on previous experience, mainly of weapons testing programmes and Hiroshima survivors. For example, we still monitor the health of veterans who were at the site of UK weapons tests.

The World Health Organisation has published some very detailed research as recently as last year on health impacts of chernobyl. It's a lengthy read though - I think it runs to nearly 200 pages! However, there's a good summary under FAQs on this page: WHO | Health effects of the Chernobyl accident

This is a direct quote:
"Apart from the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer incidence among those exposed at a young age [refers to increase of around 6,000 cases], there is some indication of increased leukaemia and cataract incidence among workers. Otherwise, there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukaemia due to radiation in the exposed populations. There also is no convincing proof so far of increases in other nonmalignant disorders that are related to ionizing radiation."

I'm in no way trying to justify accidents at Chernobyl or Fukushima, but both must be kept in perspective and scaremongering stories based on no evidence don't help.

Bruce - couldn't possible comment

 

[JTO]

I'd tend to believe "75" on this one
From NW England - that wouldn't happen to be anywhere near Sellafield

That was my first thought.

 

[JTO]

I've known quite a few people who worked at the Winfrith Heath atomic site, where there were seven or more reactors, I think.
They were all adamant about how safe nuclear power was. They are all now dead.
I worked with a chap whose wife worked in the local path lab. She had told him that the village of Wool, downwind from Winfrith, had the highest rate of childhood leukemia in the country, Seascale might have been up there with it.
Lots of Wool parents worked at Winfrith.

 

[Freeforester]

Recently I obtained rabbit pheasant and pigeon locally here for one research student from Uni of Stirling, his dept is doing monitoring/research over a number of sites in Scotland into residual incidence of Caesium 137 levels in wildlife, primarily edible game (I believe others are monitoring the domestic stock) concerning the ongoing post-Chernobyl 'fallout' (saw what he did there?); it might be a bit like the Chinese diplomat response when being asked of his opinion of the 1789 French Revolution - "Too early to judge"; not personally losing too much sleep, as it seems to me that anyone who ever wore a NBC suit, or not, all end up 'Joining the Majority', irrespective too of whether they smoked 60 a day, made inappropriate advances to their secretaries back in the day or only ever ate organic carrots?

 

[bullet chucker]

That's it 'NO' more Fish n Chips from now on!

BC.

 

[JohnT]

I agree. Just eat fish fingers