Scientists have found the origin of radioactive boars that live in German Bavaria. Earlier, the country recognized their meat as unfit for human consumption.
It turned out that testing was to blame. nuclear weapons. According to the original version, the catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 was called the reason for the presence of radioactive elements in the meat of wild animals. However, over the years, for most other inhabitants of the forest, it began to decline, while the Bavarian boars remained steadily radioactive.
In their study, German and Austrian scientists found that the reason is the love of these animals for truffle mushrooms, in which radioactive elements accumulate. They suggested that this is not only due to the Chernobyl accident, but also as a result of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, which peaked in the 1960s.
The author of the study, radioecologist Bing Feng and his colleagues tested the meat of 48 Bavarian wild boars and found that 88% of the samples should not be eaten according to German safety standards. Comparing the isotopic signatures of radioactive elements, they found that the meat of these animals can contain from 10% to 99% of cesium isotopes originating from nuclear bomb tests. They gradually settle in the soil, and from it are absorbed by mushrooms. Wild boars in the Bavarian forests feed on truffles mainly in winter, since at this time there are few other sources of food for them, and this is how radioactive elements enter their bodies.
On August 24, Japan released the water used to cool the reactors at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, affected by the tsunami in 2011, into the Pacific Ocean. The IAEA has said it won’t pose a threat to the environment, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ate a video of fish said to be from a nuclear power plant to show it was safe to eat.
