Germany’s radioactive boars a legacy of Chernobyl

April 2, 2011, 12:09pm BERLIN (AP) – For a look at just how long radioactivity can hang around, consider Germany’s wild boars. A quarter century after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union carried a cloud of radiation across Europe, these animals are radioactive enough that people are urged not to eat them. And the mushrooms the pigs dine on aren’t fit for consumption either. Germany’s experience shows what could await Japan — if the problems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant get any worse. The German boars roam in forests nearly 950 miles (1,500 kilometers ) from Chernobyl. Yet, the amount of radioactive cesium-137 within their tissue often registers dozens of times beyond the recommended limit for consumption and thousands of times above normal. “We still feel the consequences of Chernobyl’s fallout here,” said Christian Kueppers, a radiation expert at Germany’s Institute for Applied Ecology in Freiburg. “The contamination won’t go away any time soon — with cesium’s half-life being roughly 30 years, the radioactivity will only slightly decrease in the coming years.” … In Austria, too, traces of radioactive cesium remain in the soil. Along with boars and mushrooms, deer have been affected — some testing at five times the legal limit, that country’s environment agency says. …

[Cf. Radioactive boars on the rise in Germany] Germany’s radioactive boars a legacy of Chernobyl