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Radioactive Wild Boars Still Roaming the Forests of Germany
An anonymous reader writes 28 years after the Chernobyl accident, tests have found that more than one in three Saxony boars give off such high levels of radiation that they are unfit for consumption. In 2009 almost €425,000 ($555,000) was paid out to hunters in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated to be sold. "It doesn't cover the loss from game sales, but at least it covers the cost of disposal," says Steffen Richter, the head of the Saxon State Hunters Association.
"Wild boar are thought to be particularly affected because they root through the soil for food, and feed on mushrooms and underground truffles that store radiation. Many mushrooms from the affected areas are also believed to be unfit for human consumption. "
That's pretty interesting. Chernobyl was a long time ago.
Ann Coulter. Not even up to politician level of smug idiocy, she's a Fox News talking head/moron.
1) germany apparently forbid anything above 700 bq/Kg , whereas otehr country do it at 3000 Bq/Kg.
2) Average contamination in 2009 was 7000 Bq/Kg in the highiest contaminated area.
I wish the article could have told that.
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Apparenlty Cs-137 is the radionuclide of concern and 600 Bq/kg is the threshold for safety. The committed dose equivalent per unit intake for ingested Cs-137 is 1.35e-8 Sv/Bq (Eckerman, Limiting Values of Radionuclide Intake and Air Concentration and Dose Conversion Factors for Inhalation, Submersion and Ingestion, EPA-520/1-88-020, September 1988, Table 2.2, p. 166). This works out to be 8.1 uSv/kg at the threshold. To accumulate an effective dose of 1 mSv (100 mrem) a year, which is the US limit for a dose to the general public and apparently also the German limit, would require eating 123 kg of wild boar. That's a lot of pig.
Also I'm sure that idiot Merkel decided to close all their nuclear power stations because she thought they'd get nice cheap gas from russia. Hmm, wonder how thats working out for her now...
At the peak, German nuclear generation was 133 TWh in 2011. Since then, German renewables generation has grown from 47 TWh/year to 178 TWh/year, Germany can now meet demand without any nuclear and without additional gas imports.
I'm sorry the facts broke your narrative.
Ann Coulter. Not even up to politician level of smug idiocy, she's a Fox News talking head/moron.
Ann Coulter is a political Kim Kardashian. She thrives on drawing attention to herself by acting like an idiot. But her statement is a tiny kernel of truth wrapped up in a big ball of stupidity. Slightly higher levels of background radiation may actually be good for you. There is some evidence, in both animals and humans, that slightly higher levels of external (not ingested) radiation, over extended time, can reduced cancer rates and improve health. One hypothesis is that the radiation "exercises" the cellular repair mechanism, and keeps if functioning well.