Wildlife contaminated by Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Catastrophe

Before the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, Japan did not have limits for radioactive contamination in food. "Provisional" standards were rushed into place, which are still on the books. The Japanese federal government's limit for Cesium-134/Cesium-137 contamination in food is 500 bequerels per kilogram (the Canadian and U.S. standards are weaker by the way -- 1,000 bq/kg and 1,200 bq/kg, respectively!). It should be borne in mind that just because the Japanese federal government has "provisionally" declared 500 bq/kg of Cs-134 and/or Cs-137 in food to be "acceptable" or "permissible," this does not mean it's "safe."

The following 18 different types of food products sampled in Japan in December and January violated those limits: log-grown Shitake mushrooms (up to 2,390 bq/kg); greenling fish (up to 1,540 bq/kg); goldeye rockfish (up to 1,630 bq/kg); common skate (up to 640 bq/kg); rockfish (up to 2,130 bq/kg); bitter melon tea (up to 1,020 bq/kg); boar meat (up to 13,300 bq/kg); dehydrated taro stalk (up to 750 bq/kg); righteye flounder (up to 1,380 bq/kg); Yuzu citrus fruit (930 bq/kg); Japanese smelt (591 bq/kg); dried Japanese radish (800 bq/kg); Asian black bear meat (1,110 bq/kg); sika deer meat (573 bq/kg); dried yacon leaf (570 bq/kg); lefteye flounder (540 bq/kg); fox jacopever fish (1,310 bq/kg); dried oyamabokuchi (570 bq/kg).

See the IAEA Fukushima update dated Jan. 27, 2012, pages 7 to 9, for more information.

While the data above was collected in the context of the human food chain, it nonetheless shows that both wild plants and wild animals (various species of fish, and even mammals such as bear, boar, and deer) have been radioactively contaminated by Fukushima fallout.