Reindeer are strangely radioactive 30 years after Chernobyl

[Marlin]

   This article was in the Nukeworker news feed but there is a slide show circulating on Facebook about the issue and I responded with the comparison of Norway's limit of 3000 Becquerel's of radioactivity per kilogram to the banana equivalent dose derived from 3100 Becquerel's of activity per kilogram in bananas. Puts the Norwegian limit being higher than Europe's activity limit in perspective. Different isotopes but without being too complicated a good layman's guide to relative risk.

Reindeer are strangely radioactive 30 years after Chernobyl

http://www.techinsider.io/chernobyl-radioactive-reindeer-2016-2?op=1

Chernobyls Reindeer

http://www.rferl.org/fullinfographics/infographics/chernobyls-reindeer/27575578.html


  If you find yourself in a discussion about this here is a good source of common sense for laymen.

Your Coffee Is Radioactive, And That's Okay

http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/02/your_coffee_is_radioactive_and_thats_okay.html

[Marlin]

   Cesium contaminated deer is not new' I personally saw a couple of incoming whole body counts that were traced back to consumption of deer due to Chinese nuclear testing in the 70's and 80's.

[rlbinc]

My understanding of Cesium persistence is that the lichens which grow on trees concentrate Cesium.
Deer chew on lichens for mineral intake.
Cesium ends up being one of the ingested minerals. Cesium is on the same column as Potassium on the periodic chart. So the Cesium, if uniformly dispersed, has a biological half life far shorter than the vector associated with the concentrated Cesium in our friend the lichens.

Venison in the US shows similar Cesium tenacity.

[Marlin]

My understanding of Cesium persistence is that the lichens which grow on trees concentrate Cesium.
Deer chew on lichens for mineral intake.
Cesium ends up being one of the ingested minerals. Cesium is on the same column as Potassium on the periodic chart. So the Cesium, if uniformly dispersed, has a biological half life far shorter than the vector associated with the concentrated Cesium in our friend the lichens.

Venison in the US shows similar Cesium tenacity.

Yes but is has been declining with the cessation of above ground bomb testing. Scandinavia was in the primary Chernobyl plume, we were not immune but significantly less impact. I remember the cloud circumnavigating the world a few times with detectable spikes in environmental samples.

[OldHP]

It wasn't too many years ago (OK! 30'ish) when a neighbor and I would hunt deer on the lower portion of SRR.  If you got one you had to stop on the way out and turn over the internals.  Just for grins and giggles I brought a pancake with me one week and found highly elevated count rates from the heart down, before I stopped to turn over the internals.  (Never got the heart of a SRR deer)!

[Bonds 25]

Who fu*king eats Reindeer anyways?

For the record......Reindeer are pro-Chernobyl, as is all the other wild life.

[GLW]

It wasn't too many years ago (OK! 30'ish) when a neighbor and I would hunt deer on the lower portion of SRR.  If you got one you had to stop on the way out and turn over the internals.  Just for grins and giggles I brought a pancake with me one week and found highly elevated count rates from the heart down, before I stopped to turn over the internals.  (Never got the heart of a SRR deer)!

So, does SRS still contract out feral & wild hog culling?

That was one of the better "nuclear" contracts to dabble in once upon a time,....

I never worked that contract, the earnings potential was about 20% below my minimum threshold,....

And I have not mused about it for years until I saw your post,....

BUT, for the semi-retired, ..........maybe?!?!  

[Rerun]

It wasn't too many years ago (OK! 30'ish) when a neighbor and I would hunt deer on the lower portion of SRR.  If you got one you had to stop on the way out and turn over the internals.  Just for grins and giggles I brought a pancake with me one week and found highly elevated count rates from the heart down, before I stopped to turn over the internals.  (Never got the heart of a SRR deer)!

By internals do you mean just the organs? Or does that include the meat too?

[GLW]

By internals do you mean just the organs? Or does that include the meat too?

IIRC ruminant's Cs137 equilibrium in skeletal muscle is about 2 to 2.5 times the concentration as internal organs or heart tissue,...

but, it gets complicated for PETA (people eating tasty animals) because of assimilation and retention of various constituents for organ meat versus skeletal muscle (ref: gout),...

plus, humans eliminate Cs137 more akin to omnivores such as pigs (urine elimination) whereas ruminants are fecal eliminators,...

and then there is the lovely habit that pigs have of ingesting ruminant feces, dead ruminant carcasses, et al, which makes those studies of eating wild game doped with man made sources of radioactivity a variables nightmare,...

so,...

common sense must prevail,...

is it (man made nuclide doped wild game) safe to eat?!!?

define safe,...

should it be avoided?!?!?

I avoid it, I also avoid high fructose corn syrup and adding table salt to my foodstuffs,...

I also have LOTS of other choices available to me,..

maybe there's a hormesis value, maybe not,...

it's a choice,...

like being an occupational exposure worker,...

Who fu*king eats Reindeer anyways?

these guys:

Reindeer meat is as healthy as fish

February 24, 2013 - 06:04

http://sciencenordic.com/reindeer-meat-healthy-fish

If you want your diet to be low in fat and high in B-12, omega-3, omega-6 and essential fatty acids, you might think your only choice is a trip to the fish market. But a recent study from the University of Tromsø shows that reindeer is one of the healthiest kinds of meat you can put on your plate.

"Reindeer meat is very healthy," says Ammar Eltayeb Ali Hassan, a PhD candidate at the university's Faculty of Health Sciences. "It contains more than double the values of some nutrients than other meats, and comparable to chicken in fat."......

.....Hassan has also looked into possible drawbacks to eating reindeer meat.

"The only thing we found was cadmium in the liver, which was at a higher level than the maximum limit set by the EU. After we had discovered this, we went ahead and looked at SAMINOR, the Health Interview Survey in areas with Sami and Norwegian settlements, but it turns out that liver consumption even among those who eat a lot of reindeer is so low that there is no health hazard," Hassan says.

The cadmium levels in reindeer liver are only dangerous if you eat more than 2.7 kg of this type of liver per month, and it is extremely unusual for anyone to eat this amount of reindeer liver.....

.....Today the average Norwegian eats 300 grams of reindeer meat per year. Hardly any reindeer meat is exported.

[OldHP]

So, does SRS still contract out feral & wild hog culling?  That was one of the better "nuclear" contracts to dabble in once upon a time,.... I never worked that contract, the earnings potential was about 20% below my minimum threshold,.... And I have not mused about it for years until I saw your post,.... BUT, for the semi-retired, ..........maybe?!?!

I don't know what they do now!  When I went after the little southern deer I lived in Charlotte!

The only time I worked there was to complete 10CFR835 upgrades for Rad-Con and EP, and only because I had two months before I was going to do the same for Mound, agree one of the lowest, below my standards even as semi-retired.

By internals do you mean just the organs? Or does that include the meat too? 

Most of the count rate went away after they took the organs, however, the remaining CR was enough that in a NPP you were sent for a trip to the shower.  The meat also had radioactivity, however, look at beef, hog, sheep, etc.!  At that time we liked real deer (venison)!  That's why normally when I took a weekend to go hunting it was normally north.  But, SRR was convenient when we didn't have the time

[GLW]

....Most of the count rate went away after they took the organs, however, the remaining CR was enough that in a NPP you were sent for a trip to the shower.  The meat also had radioactivity, however, look at beef, hog, sheep, etc.!...

that's a function of geometry,...

~25% of the live weight (deer) is concentrated in the body cavity before you dress it out,...

there will be more activity in the muscle tissue, that activity is spread throughout the surface area and volume of the remaining carcass,...

.....That's why normally when I took a weekend to go hunting it was normally north.  But, SRR was convenient when we didn't have the time

eeyup,...

I grew up in central FLA,...

lizards were big,...

hogs were big,...

deer?!?,.... why bother?,...

I did not appreciate that until I moved north and dressed out my first Saratoga County 10 point buck,...

[Marlin]

   Here we go again, another article that provides a very negative view while not looking at real risk. The limit on Cesium in this case is set at 100 Becquerel/kg for fish even recreational fish far below the Scandanavian limit or even the more restrictive European limit. Still less than the activity in bananas.  They are proposing ever decreasing detection levels so they can track the spread of contamination  . I guess to get continued funding for tracking inconsequential dose not even on the radar compared to natural background.

Five years later, Fukushima's contamination is slow to fade

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/five-years-after-fukushimas-contamination-is-slow-to-fade/

[GLW]

......I guess to get continued funding for tracking inconsequential dose not even on the radar compared to natural background....

[Marlin]

   Here we go again, another article that provides a very negative view while not looking at real risk. The limit on Cesium in this case is set at 100 Becquerel/kg for fish even recreational fish far below the Scandanavian limit or even the more restrictive European limit. Still less than the activity in bananas.  They are proposing ever decreasing detection levels so they can track the spread of contamination  . I guess to get continued funding for tracking inconsequential dose not even on the radar compared to natural background.

Five years later, Fukushima's contamination is slow to fade

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/five-years-after-fukushimas-contamination-is-slow-to-fade/

It is always nice to get confirmation from a medical proffesional

Fukushima Radiation: Is It Still Safe To Eat Fish?

-A typical restaurant-sized portion of Pacific bluefin tuna (200 grams, or 7 ounces) contains about 5% of the radiation you would get from eating one uncontaminated banana and absorbing it's naturally occurring radiation. All foods on the planet contain radiation. Like every other toxin, it's the dose of radiation (rather than its simple presence) that determines whether it's toxic to humans.

-Levels of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes (polonium-210 and potassium-40) in bluefin tuna are greater by orders of magnitude than levels of radioactive isotopes from Fukushima contamination (cesium-134 and cesium-137). In fact, levels of polonium-210 were 600 times higher than cesium. This suggests that the additional radiation (in the form of cesium) from Fukushima is insignificant from a health perspective.

-Even at very high intakes (3/4 of a pound of contaminated bluefin tuna a day) for an entire year, you'd still receive only 12% of the dose of radiation you're exposed to during one cross-country flight from LA to New York.

-Assuming the very high levels of fish consumption above, the excess relative risk of fatal cancer would be only 2 additional cases per 10 million similarly exposed people. And there's reason to believe that number is no more than chance. Statistically significant elevations in cancer risk are only observed at doses of radiation that are 25,000 times higher than what you'd be exposed to by eating 3/4 of a pound of bluefin tuna per day.

-Some bottom-feeding fish right off the coast of Japan contain much higher levels of radiation (i.e. >250 times more cesium) than those found in Pacific bluefin tuna. Even if you consumed 1/3 of a pound per day of this highly contaminated fish, you'd still be below the international dose limit for radiation exposure from food.

http://chriskresser.com/fukushima-seafood/