In 1986, a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded, irradiating the surrounding region, including Belarus, Russia and the rest of the Ukraine, and sending a cloud of radioactive material over northern and central Sweden. At the time, Swedes were warned against eating potentially nuclear berries and mushrooms. But no one told the wild boars about irradiated fruits and fungus, and three decades later these Swedish animals show exceptionally high levels of radioactivity because of mushrooms rooted deep in ground that remains radioactive. [...]
Boars in the north of Sweden were hunted to extinction two centuries ago because they were destructive to agricultural land. But their population has exploded since then: “After being reintroduced and extinct a few times, the present wild boar population in Sweden descends from animals escaped from enclosures in the 1970s and probably from illegal releases,” posits a 2010 report by the Swedish University of Agricultural Studies (pdf). Now, about a quarter million wild boars are estimated to live in the wilderness throughout the country, where they are hunted for food and sport.
Frykman expects to see more boar with extreme radiation levels as populations continue to increase and more such animals make their way north over the years. “There are more and more of them, and when they come, they come in large numbers,” Mia Brodin, a northern farming association representative told the Telegraph. “They dig deep holes in the fields, [which] destroy your tractor. The crops are destroyed and they eat food you put out for your livestock.”
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