Six years after a devastating earthquake and tsunami ravaged Fukushima's power plant and caused nuclear contamination, its residents are slowly coming back. However, they find themselves with new and radioactive neighbors: wild boars.
Like a scene from Japanese animation Spirited Away, wild boars have run over the deserted towns in Fukushima after it was abandoned by residents in the aftermath of the devastating 2011 earthquake.
These wild boars of Fukushima have made themselves at home, much to the chagrin of local residents who plan to return but can't out of fear of the radioactive swine. The government has given residents the go signal to return, despite warnings about still-high radiation levels.
Nuclear Meltdown Spelled Disaster For The Boars, Local Fauna
In 2011, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake rocked the northeastern part of Japan, the fourth most powerful earthquake in history.
The event, which became known as the Great East Japan Earthquake, caused tsunamis to form on the Pacific side of Japan. Giant waves about 30 feet high swept through the coastal town of Fukushima and damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, resulting in one of recent history's most alarming nuclear disasters since the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.
Although the reactors automatically shut down during the quake, the tsunami destroyed the emergency generators that would power the coolers to the reactors. This loss of power led to reactors getting insufficiently cooled, which ultimately caused three nuclear meltdowns. Subsequent hydrogen-air explosions spewed radioactive materials into the surroundings, irradiating everything within the 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) exclusion zone: the water, air, soil, vegetation, and even the stuff people left behind.
This nuclear meltdown forced the Japanese government to evacuate the residents. During the hasty evacuation process, many pets and livestock were left behind. The level of contamination affected them, as well as the local flora and fauna within the power plant's vicinity. These unlucky creatures that got bathed in nuclear windfall included the wild boars living in the area. These wild boars forage for food, which could have added to their exposure to radioactive material.
The Hunt For Radioactive Pigs
Groups of local hunters have been tasked to hunt down the radioactive boars to make way for the return of Fukushima's original residents. In the town of Tamioka, a group of 13 hunters hunted down these wild boars using rifles, 30 cage traps, and rice flour baits.
"After people left, they began coming down from the mountains and now they are not going back," said hunter Shoichiro Sakamoto, whose squad has captured about 300 irradiated pigs. "They found a place that was comfortable. There was plenty of food and no one to come after them."
"It is not really clear now which is the master of the town, people or wild boars," said Tamotsu Baba, the mayor of the seaside town of Namie. "If we don't get rid of them and turn this into a human-led town, the situation will get even wilder and uninhabitable."
Tests on these wild boars showed that the animals have high levels of the radioactive cesium isotope cesium-137 - 300 times higher than what was considered safe. The meat of these feral pigs are considered a delicacy in Northern Japan, but because of the dangerous levels of contamination, they are unsafe to eat as cesium-137 can cause radiation sickness and increase cancer risk.
