A lot of people are talking about warming trends and chemical dispersants today, but try explaining this environmental news.
So far this year, Berlin has only had to pay out €130,000 for radioactive boar.
Why is the German government spending money on radioactive boar-meat? Are they trying to create some kind of pig-man? Well, no, actually it’s more complicated than that. A warming climate is apparently having a favorable effect on boar fertility, leading the German government to encourage boar-culling activities. However, due to fallout from Chernobyl, the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine, much of the vegetation in Germany is radioactive. Boars are especially susceptible because truffles and mushrooms (boarian delicacies) soak up more radiation than other grazing materials.
Indeed, whereas radioactivity in some vegetation is expected to continue declining, the contamination of some types of mushrooms and truffles will likely remain the same, and may even rise slightly — even a quarter century after the Chernobyl accident.
“In the regions where it is particularly problematic, all boar that are shot are checked for radiation,” reports Andreas Leppmann, from the German Hunting Federation. There are 70 measuring stations in Bavaria alone.
How radioactive are these boar?
Many of the boar that are killed land on the plates of diners across Germany, but it is forbidden to sell meat containing high levels of radioactive caesium-137 — any animals showing contamination levels higher than 600 becquerel per kilogram must be disposed of. But in some areas of Germany, particularly in the south, wild boar routinely show much higher levels of contamination. According to the Environment Ministry, the average contamination for boar shot in Bayerischer Wald, a forested region on the Bavarian border with the Czech Republic, was 7,000 becquerel per kilogram. Other regions in southern Germany aren’t much better.
Germany’s Atomic Energy Law, which regulates the use of nuclear energy in the country, mandates that the government in Berlin pay compensation to hunters who harvest contaminated animals.
Someone needs to substantially update the Wiki on Chernobyl’s impact on flora and fauna.
Meanwhile, what’s on your plate?