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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-are-their-biggest-threat dept.

Animal life thriving around Fukushima: Researchers document more than 20 species in nuclear accident zone:

The camera study, published in the Journal of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, reports that over 267,000 wildlife photos recorded more than 20 species, including wild boar, Japanese hare, macaques, pheasant, fox and the raccoon dog -- a relative of the fox -- in various areas of the landscape.

UGA wildlife biologist James Beasley said speculation and questions have come from both the scientific community and the general public about the status of wildlife years after a nuclear accident like those in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

This recent study, in addition to the team's research in Chernobyl, provides answers to the questions.

"Our results represent the first evidence that numerous species of wildlife are now abundant throughout the Fukushima Evacuation Zone, despite the presence of radiological contamination," said Beasley, associate professor at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

Species that are often in conflict with humans, particularly wild boar, were predominantly captured on camera in human-evacuated areas or zones, according to Beasley.

"This suggests these species have increased in abundance following the evacuation of people."

The team, which included Thomas Hinton, professor at the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity at Fukushima University, identified three zones for the research.

Photographic data was gathered from 106 camera sites from three zones: humans excluded due to the highest level of contamination; humans restricted due to an intermediate level of contamination; and humans inhabited, an area where people have been allowed to remain due to "background" or very low levels of radiation found in the environment.

The researchers based their designations on zones previously established by the Japanese government after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident.

For 120 days, cameras captured over 46,000 images of wild boar. Over 26,000 of those images were taken in the uninhabited area, compared to approximately 13,000 in the restricted and 7,000 in the inhabited zones.

Other species seen in higher numbers in the uninhabited or restricted zones included raccoons, Japanese marten and Japanese macaque or monkeys.

Anticipating questions about physiological condition of the wildlife, Hinton said their results are not an assessment of an animal's health.

"This research makes an important contribution because it examines radiological impacts to populations of wildlife, whereas most previous studies have looked for effects to individual animals," said Hinton.

The uninhabited zone served as the control zone for the research.


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 09 2020, @01:40PM (12 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday January 09 2020, @01:40PM (#941406) Journal

    After the same thing happened in the Chernobyl exclusion zone (which we've discussed a number of times on Soylent), a different theory about pollution and the human effect on the environment has been growing. If our economic practices damage the environment as it is, life on Earth, with the exception of humans, will be fine and will adapt. Microbes have already been found that have figured out how to eat plastic, a man-made material that hasn't even been around for a century. We irradiate a swath of land, and the animals say woo-hoo and move into the instant nature preserve humans unwittingly created.

    So maybe the main reason to change our ways is not to "Save the Earth" or "Think of the Animals!" but rather, "Save Human Civilization as Currently Constituted."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @02:15PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @02:15PM (#941416)

    Then the primary goal should be preventing or planning for the next ice age.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:20PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:20PM (#943169) Journal
      I submit the northern hemisphere plan - move south, if there's a kilometer of ice. Please thank the internet for solving yet another weighty problem before lunch.
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 09 2020, @03:15PM (6 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 09 2020, @03:15PM (#941434) Journal

    I wonder if PETA has considered the possibility of irradiating most of the planet?

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    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 09 2020, @04:54PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 09 2020, @04:54PM (#941494) Journal

      This only works while people stay out. All it proves is that people are more dangerous to wildlife than the levels of radiation around those areas. Not, e.g., that they don't develop cancer after awhile. But with a short enough life span, this may be less of a problem. A species that starts reproducing at two years of age may be a lot less damaged by radiation than are humans.

      That said, the radiation in the "exclusion zones" is, indeed, rather minimal. So the main effect is probably people staying away.

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    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:41PM (4 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:41PM (#941614) Journal

      Maybe PETA and others worried about overpopulation could participate in Carrousel. Or maybe they could volunteer for cryo-freezing in Antarctica, to be thawed when the climate crisis has passed. Or they could report to our secret facility to be processed into information; we could call it "SoylentNews."

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      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:52PM (3 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:52PM (#941658) Journal

        Doesn't Carrousel keep the population equal?

        A PETA member reborn.

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        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 10 2020, @01:55AM (2 children)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday January 10 2020, @01:55AM (#941737) Homepage
          So is carousel just like ZPG was? One in, one out.

          In my experience, NPG is more fun. So far.
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          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 10 2020, @03:12PM (1 child)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 10 2020, @03:12PM (#941890) Journal

            My assumption was that Carrousel was a reference to the 1976 movie Logan's Run.

            There should be a survey of PETA members to determine how many would volunteer to be ground up into animal feed.

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            • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 10 2020, @11:33PM

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday January 10 2020, @11:33PM (#942081) Homepage
              It could be, it's honestly over 30 years since I saw it. Ditto the g/f. We might queue it up for a rewatch some time soon. Thanks for the nugget.
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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:56PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:56PM (#941623)

    life on Earth, with the exception of humans, will be fine and will adapt

    Rise like a Phoenix, eh?

    All depends on your concept of "fine" and acceptable timescales. Would be interesting to see what the next post-technological dominant species is. I suspect that some level of human habitation and technological know how will survive long into the future, if our successors learn how to copy our technology, then we're really screwed.

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    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:37PM (1 child)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:37PM (#941651) Journal

      Well, we know that speciation occurs and can work rapidly to fill a void left by some catastrophe. If humans are no longer in the picture, does it really matter in the larger scheme of life if the species that speciates to fill those voids is the squirrel?

      We do know that human civilization can recover from setbacks, also. The Mongols swept Asia and into Europe, but those places recovered. The Dark Ages followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, but Europe recovered. Emo happened, but we recovered. We've also passed through the Dark Night of Hipster, and can see the dawn on the horizon. We have to live in hope, JoeMerchant, we have to live in hope.

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      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:50PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:50PM (#941682)

        Even worse than Emo, I believe an ice age is supposed to have dropped human population numbers to around 30,000 globally... at least based on some genetic analysis technique.

        If the squirrel evolves into the next globally dominant species, it will have to adapt to use tools and technology to keep future humans down - otherwise just a core group of a few hundred humans can "break out" like wildfire and take over again. Even I can take down a squirrel with a crappy crossbow pistol bolt. Unless they're zombie biting squirrels like the humans in a Will Smith movie...

        Now, killer deer with knife-sharp antlers, intelligence and attitude - that would be tough.

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