REAL LIFE NEWS: BEWARE THE RADIACTIVE BOARS
by Hazed
It was twenty-eight years ago that the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded, spewing radiation out to contaminate the surrounding area. Even after all that time, the effects are still being felt far from the site of the original disaster.
In Germany, the effects take the form of radioactive boars.
The forests of Saxony are home to roaming wild boars, which are hunted for their meat – it’s considered a delicacy. But the state government recently carried out tests and found that more than one in three of the wild boars gave off such high levels of radiation that their meat was unfit for human consumption.
Saxony may be around 700 miles from Chernobyl, but wind and rain carried radioactivity across western Europe. Even further away, in France, the soil was found to be contaminated.
The boar are particularly affected because they root through the soil and feed on mushrooms and underground truffles which store radiation.
Given the level of radiation found, experts say it could continue to be a problem for 50 years. This has economic implications, because hunters who sell their kills as game are being paid hundreds of thousands of euros by the government to compensate for the boar that have to be destroyed.
Meanwhile, we have to hope that the radiation doesn’t cause one of the boars to mutate into a super-boar.
