Radioactive Pigs Thriving Near Post-Meltdown Japanese Power Plant

Nothing like a little glow-in-the-dark pork to get a party started.

Well, maybe not. But how else can you lighten up a story like this one? Remember the Japanese nuclear power plant that melted down after the tsunamis a few years back? Well, it seems that wild hogs are now teeming in the tainted area around the disaster site, and containment efforts can’t keep up.

It’s been reported that the swine population has jumped from an estimated 3,000 to 13,000–apparently with no end in sight. And in just these few years, they have done roughly “$15 million worth of damage to local agriculture.”

The porkers aren’t exactly good to eat, containing a whopping 300 times more caesium-137 than is considered to be safe.

Government has tried offering bounties to local hunters for the swine, but even after filling mass pig graves capable of holding 1,800 boars, the carcasses just keep coming and the efforts apparently aren’t stemming the growth of the hog herd.

What’s next? Well, there’s just no telling. I would think the best bet would be to contain the destructive critters by fencing them in, but with a radius of 12 miles around the power plant, the exclusion zone may just be too large for a hog-proof fence.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.