Radioactive Boar On the Rise In Germany 165
Germans who go out in the woods today are sure of a big surprise, radioactive boars. A portion of the wild boar population in Germany was irradiated after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, and the boars are thriving. In the last two years government payments to compensate hunters for radioactive boar have quadrupled. From the article: "According to the Environment Ministry in Berlin, almost €425,000 ($555,000) was paid out to hunters in 2009 in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated by radiation to be sold for consumption. That total is more than four times higher than compensation payments made in 2007." I think the Germans are overlooking just how much money there is to be made from regenerating bacon.
Re:What????? (Score:3, Informative)
Never heard of fallout [dailykos.com]?
Interesting factoid (Score:3, Informative)
Hunters also have to pay a fee to dispose of the boar carcass. So some let the animal go to a neighboring territory where the animals can be shot to be eaten.
Re:What????? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What????? (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you weren't around back then.
There was no fresh milk, fruit or vegetables for some time in most of central, east and northern Europe because everything had to be tested and much had to be trashed. People were warned against collecting berries and mushrooms for years.
The radioactive cloud went northwest to Scandinavia first and then southward to Central Europe.
Re:What????? (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's thanks to the Russian designers and managers who decided to build a crappy and unsafe nuclear plant.
Germany is next-door to France, which has tons of nuclear plants, and sells lots of power to the rest of Europe. In fact, you might be using nuclear-generated power from France right now, since you're so close to them. How many disasters has France had with their nuclear plants? Zero?
Cars can be very dangerous too, for instance if you put the gas tank in a place where it will rupture and explode in a small collision (like the Ford Pinto). Should we stop making all cars because of this? No, of course not; we stop making crappy, unsafe cars like the Pinto.
BTW, I don't think the nuclear lobby had anything to do with nuclear plants in the Soviet Union. They didn't have lobbyists there, and environmental concerns weren't very important to Communist ideology.
Re:What????? (Score:1, Informative)
It sucks that you were affected by Chernobyl, and you have my sympathy. But please, for the sake of the planet and our children, stop repeating this ridiculous idea that modern nuclear power is dangerous.
Chernobyl was a design that was theoretically known to have a problem, and that was run by a crew rushed into doing an experiment that they weren't trained for, and which they fucked up in a way such that the void coefficient problem caused a feedback loop. And even then the automated systems kept it under control until somebody got nervous and scrammed it, which blew shit up due to the utterly, obviously retarded design of the control rods. That can't happen in a modern reactor. Nothing like that can happen in a modern reactor, and even if it could, the way they are run absolutely precludes anything like Chernobyl happening.
Nuclear is the only clean power source that we can deploy right now and get all our baseline energy needs from. The known reserves are enough to last for hundreds of years assuming current growth, and thorium could potentially keep us going for thousands of years. We need to stop burning oil for electrical power as soon as humanly possible. There's no workable replacement for the internal combustion engine. There's no workable replacement for plastics. There is an EXTREMELY workable replacement for oil burning power stations, and we need to get rid of them so that we have as long as possible to figure out what we can do about plastics and petrol. And the more nuclear power is opposed, by people like you who hold opinions that are demonstrably contradicted by science, the sooner we run out of oil, the sooner we run out of plastics and petrol. God knows what will happen then, but I doubt it will be pretty. And I doubt anyone will care about wild mushrooms.
Re:What????? (Score:1, Informative)
I'm having trouble understanding how the Cherynobl meltdown [google.com] has anything to do with wild boar populations in southern Germany. The article specifically mentions Bavaria, a region a thousand miles (and several countries) away. I admit I'm just an ignorant American, but surely this doesn't make any sense? [google.com]
Yes, you are an ignorant American. Not your fault, it's the fault of US media. But you should visit more international news sites, because US media is extremely US centered and very low quality.
Many (random) parts of Europe was contaminated by radioactive rain caused by the Chernobyl meltdown (and the radioactivity won't magically disappear), thus contaminated wild boars (and mushrooms, berries, fish et.c.). Some of the radioactive rain caused by Chernobyl reached as far as the most northern parts of Sweden and Finland (where game, mushrooms, berries, fish et.c is no longer fit for human consumtion). If you look at an earth globe you discover that if the radioactive clouds would have blown as far to south, instead of north, they would have rained down somewhere in Central Africa. Nuclear power plant disasters is not a local problem, neither is any air pollution and most water pollution (e.g. the acid rain caused by coal burned in GB and Germany mostly fall over the Nothern parts of Scandinavia, the radioactive leeks in the sea from nuclear plants in Brittain finally end up in The Baltic Sea (where the radioactivity get higher and higher), much of the garbage dropped by Americans into the sea from the East Coast shores of USA end up in The Mediterranian Sea, half of the air pollution from USA end up in Canada) .
What this article is about:
Radioactive wild boars -> No one wants to eat wild boar meat -> No one wants to hunt wild boar -> More wild boars
Global Warming -> Warmer winters -> More wild boars survive winter -> More wild boars
Many wild boars -> Farming get impossible in the area + People and pets get attacked by wild boars -> Government pays hunters more to compensate for unsaleable wild bore meat
Re:Boar hunting (Score:3, Informative)
Wild boars cause incredible crop damage to farmers in Germany. In areas with a large wild boar population, farmers pay hunters a token fee to keep the damage at a minimum. Most of the hunters' compensations comes from selling the meat to restaurants. It's a delicacy and tastes delicious. The Frischlinge (baby wild boars) taste quite outstanding.
To hunt boars in America it takes cunning, patience, stealth, patience, an uncanny knowledge of the boars' habitat, a good aim, and more patience.
In Germany, the wild boar hunter builds a small tower at the edge of a farmer field. He then crawls up there with his weapon, and a thermos of coffee in the evening. At then waits for a wild boar to show up. And waits. And waits. And waits. So your comment about "patience" is the same for hunters in Germany. Being a outstanding shot, and being able to keep quiet in the hunter tower are nice traits to have as well.
So the reason why the German government is compensating them, is that if they can't sell the meat, the whole endeavor isn't worth it anymore. And the wild boars are considered pests (varmints).
In the northern part of Germany, they have a problem with rats, that chew their way through the dikes. Bad news if there is a flood. So old, retired men keep themselves busy by killing the rats, and get paid something like 5€ per rat tail by the government.