While the scientists are looking to find new ways of repopulating the nuclear disaster-hit Fukushima, Japan, they certainly are fighting an uphill battle. Adding to the host of problems is the latest news of wild boars contaminated with radioactive particles roaming the neighborhoods of Fukushima, which makes it nearly impossible for former residents to return to their homes, reports The New York Times.
The 2011 Tsunami led to the meltdown of Fukushima’s nuclear power plant that forced over 300,000 people to evacuate their homes. With the lack of human activity, local wildlife started to become more prevalent oblivious to the killer radiation. Scores of rats, dogs, foxes, and wild boars are now roaming around the ghost-town, using the abandoned homes as their shelters and the overgrown farmland and grass as their fodder.
Just a few weeks ago the scientists said that the radiation levels have significantly dissipated over the last six years which tempted the Japanese officials to lift evacuation orders on the four towns and allow people to safely return to their homes.
But now it has been revealed that direct contamination is not the only obstacle, since the wild animals, especially the boars living in houses and storefronts have become both territorial and highly radioactive, making them extremely dangerous neighbors.
The local authorities are now reverting back to Japan’s long history of hunting animals, as they have called upon their experienced hunters to cull the boars and has even put a guidebook of boar-elimination tips that includes setting traps and using drones.
One official quoted in The New York Times said,
“It’s important to set up an environment that will make it tough for the boars to live in.”
In fact, the campaign has been going on since 2014, and the hunters have killed over 13,000 boars with the bodies been buried en masse or incinerated in furnaces that filter out the radioactive particles. But the threat of radioactive animals roaming around is too large to deter people from coming back to the city for many years to come.
