Wildlife have been thriving and expanding their ranges around the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant since 2011, giving researchers a glimpse of nature’s resilience… The Japan Times reported March 5 .
There has been an increase in the number of wild animals here since Fukushima residents were forced to evacuate after the accidents at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant 12 years ago.
“There are always quite a few animal tracks here,” says Keisuke Kume, a local priest at the old Yamatsumi Shrine, located on the northern outskirts of Iitate, Fukushima prefecture.
“Returned villagers complain about the damage caused by the wild boars,” says Kume, who has inherited the stand at the shrine from her uncle since it was rebuilt after a fire in 2013.
The fire claimed the life of his uncle’s wife and destroyed the temple’s famous ceiling paintings depicting a Japanese wolf. The beast, believed to be extinct since 1905, was worshiped in parts of the country as a divine messenger and protector of farmland, exterminator of crop enemies, pests that have become a growing problem in the region since the disaster. from 2011.
“That’s why we now have fencing to keep animals off the pilgrimage route that leads to the honden shrine,” says Kume.
Cleanup work is ongoing, and while evacuation orders have been lifted in many communities, with more expected this spring, over the years of human neglect, the landscape has become a rare site of natural regeneration, with many breeding mammals and teeming bushes and vegetation. houses and open spaces in hard-to-reach areas near the damaged reactors of the nuclear power plant.
The unusual circumstances in which this boom in nature unfolds have generated considerable interest, leading researchers to study the long-term effects of a nuclear accident on animals and nature’s resilience.
As with Chernobyl in the Ukraine, the area around the damaged reactors provides insight into how radiological contamination and a lack of human intervention are affecting wildlife populations.
Abandoned and dilapidated houses and shops still dot the streets of towns like Futaba and Okuma, which have fallen under the government’s designated “hard-to-return zone.”
In a study published in 2020 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a team of scientists led by University of Georgia researchers showed how wild animals have colonized areas devoid of human life. More than 100 camera traps have been installed in areas with different levels of contamination and human presence, and more than 20 species have been identified in 267,000 photographs.
“Our results represent the first evidence that numerous species of wildlife are now abundant throughout the Fukushima evacuation zone, despite the presence of radiological contamination,” James Beasley, a wildlife biologist at the University of Georgia, said in that paper. moment.
As an expert on the Asiatic black bear, Koji Yamazaki began studying its population in the northern regions of the Abukuma Mountains in 2018. Also known as the moon bear due to its distinctive V-shaped chest patch, it was historically not thought of as the moon bear. that the animal’s range included areas east of the Abukuma River, which flows through Fukushima’s central Nakadori region, which would have brought radiation-affected areas closer along the coast.
Yamazaki, a professor at Tokyo Agricultural University, set up surveillance cameras and traps at 32 locations to record video and collect bear hair samples for DNA extraction. So far, four bears have been captured for the lenses, a small number, but nonetheless proof that this species is active in the area.
“DNA analysis of one of the bears shows that it belongs to a widespread group in neighboring Niigata Prefecture,” he says, implying that at least some of the large omnivores migrated east. Human sightings of the bear in the area are also becoming more frequent, raising concerns that it may be expanding its habitat.
It’s not just bears that are growing in number. As of 2019, Yamazaki has deployed camera traps along four trails that stretch from the foothills of the Abukuma Mountains to the Pacific coast. Placed at 2km intervals, the traps captured more than 4,000 images of animals, including wild boar, macaques, Japanese serows, tanuki (raccoon dogs), raccoons, hakubishin (masked palm civet) and deer.
He found that in traps closer to the hard-to-retrieve area near Fukushima No. 1, wild boars were recorded more frequently. Meanwhile, surveillance cameras set up further north in large tracts of the forest also caught more images of voracious pigs, showing that these animals now roam the vast area.
“Exotic species like hakubishin and raccoons are moving inland from the Hamadori coastal region, while we see more deer near Route 6, which runs along the coast,” he says.
Meanwhile, the Japanese serow, a goat-like mammal that normally lives far from human communities, also seems to descend to lower-elevation areas.
As evacuation orders are lifted, communities regroup and residents rebuild their lives, the impact wildlife has on agriculture and the other damage it causes has become a hot topic.
In 2021, Fukushima Prefecture recorded 140 million yen (77.5 million rubles) of crop damage by birds and wild animals, almost 70% of this figure was caused by wild boars, palm civets and macaques And while the animals are shot by local hunting associations, Yamazaki warns that they can multiply rapidly if effective measures are not taken.
“Wild animals are invading coastal areas much faster than I imagined,” says Yamazaki.
One institution that locals turn to for moral support is Yamatsumi Shrine. A Shinto shrine that burned down in 2013 was rebuilt in 2015, and by the following year, a group of students from the Tokyo University of the Arts had reproduced some 242 wolf paintings on the ceiling.
The shrine, originally built during the Heian period (794-1185), pays homage to the mountain gods and their messenger, the white wolf.
Legend has it that the snowdog helped the nobleman Minamoto no Yoriyoshi to find the cave where the infamous bandit who robbed the town was hiding. Since then, parishioners from all over the region have worshiped the wolf to scare away thieves, fire and other scourges, which have not been lacking since 2011.
In an article published in the annual scholarly journal Modern Religion, Natsue Ikeda, a priestess of Yayoi Shrine in Kanagawa Prefecture, reflects on the delicate balancing act that residents of affected areas are undertaking to restore order and coexist with nature. after one of the worst. nuclear disasters in history.
“This place (Yamatsumi Shrine) reflects two phenomena at the same time: the threat of radioactive materials and the power of science and technology, as well as awe and faith in nature and the strength of the wolf.”
Source: Rossa Primavera
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