Radioactive hybrid pigs reportedly discovered in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster zone

Tokyo, Japan | Xinhua | Radioactive wild hybrid pigs have emerged near the Fukushima nuclear disaster zone in eastern Japan which suffered a nuclear catastrophe in 2011, according to recent news reports.

In a study published Wednesday by the Royal Society journal, the new radioactive swine hybrid was created when wild boars that roamed the evacuated disaster area bred with domestic pigs that escaped from farms.

“While the radiation hasn’t caused a genetic effect, the invasive domestic pig species has,” Donovan Anderson, a researcher at Fukushima University, told the media.

“I think the pigs were not able to survive in the wild, but the boar thrived in the abandoned towns, because they’re so robust,” Anderson was quoted as saying.

Scientists studied DNA samples from 243 local pigs, finding that 16 percent of the wild boars in the abandoned wasteland were hybrids.

The researchers predicted that people who have begun to move back into the radioactive area over the past few years now have a new potential danger to take care of.

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Xinhua