IOL: German pigs still radioactive after Chernobyl
IOL: German pigs still radioactive after Chernobyl: "German pigs still radioactive after Chernobyl
24/08/2005 - 17:37:22
Mushroom-rooting wild pigs in southern Germany still have abnormally high levels of radioactivity, 19 years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, scientists said today.
The radioactivity in the wild pigs, which live in the forests of the southern German state of Bavaria, can be attributed to their diet of a kind of wild truffle that grows underground and absorbs high amounts of radioactivity, said Florian Emrich, a spokesman for Germany’s federal office for protection against radioactivity.
Other forest animals that primarily eat vegetation do not have abnormally high levels of radiation, Emrich said.
Bavaria suffered particularly bad radiation exposure from a nuclear cloud that formed after the Chernobyl reactor exploded in 1986. Winds blew the radioactive material over southern Germany.
Scientists said the wild pigs were expected to maintain the high levels of radioactivity over the next decade, but noted that levels were not dangerous for people seeking to eat them.
Effects from the occasional meal of boar “would not be dramatic”, Emrich said.
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24/08/2005 - 17:37:22
Mushroom-rooting wild pigs in southern Germany still have abnormally high levels of radioactivity, 19 years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, scientists said today.
The radioactivity in the wild pigs, which live in the forests of the southern German state of Bavaria, can be attributed to their diet of a kind of wild truffle that grows underground and absorbs high amounts of radioactivity, said Florian Emrich, a spokesman for Germany’s federal office for protection against radioactivity.
Other forest animals that primarily eat vegetation do not have abnormally high levels of radiation, Emrich said.
Bavaria suffered particularly bad radiation exposure from a nuclear cloud that formed after the Chernobyl reactor exploded in 1986. Winds blew the radioactive material over southern Germany.
Scientists said the wild pigs were expected to maintain the high levels of radioactivity over the next decade, but noted that levels were not dangerous for people seeking to eat them.
Effects from the occasional meal of boar “would not be dramatic”, Emrich said.
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posted by Greta Jane at Friday, August 26, 2005
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