Chernobyl: Scientists solve mystery of why wild boars are more radioactive than other animals

The 1986 Chernobyl disaster forever changed the face of the forest in Central Europe.

Pine trees died and turned russet from the radiation - coining the new name of ‘Red Forest’ for the area where saplings regrew. Plants crept into abandoned buildings in the Exclusion Zone, creating eery images now embedded in humanity’s collective psyche.

Animals joined the resurgence: boar, elk, and roe deer populations have boomed in the decades since the disaster, as well as rarer species of lynx, bison and wolves.

But while we’re all aware of the startling visuals that have emerged from the region in Ukraine, far less is known about the inner life of this world, shot through with radioactivity.

Scientists are still largely in the dark about how healthy Chernboyl’s animals are. And one paradox in particular has puzzled them for years: why are the wild boars still so much more radioactive than other species like deer?

Now, more precise measurements have enabled researchers at the Vienna University of Technology and the Leibniz University of Hannover to solve this “riddle”.

In a new paper published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, they explain that it has to do with nuclear weapons tests that predate the disaster - and the pigs’ penchant for a certain truffle.

After the accident, people were discouraged from eating local mushrooms and the meat of wild animals because of high radioactive contamination.

The contamination of deer and roe deer decreased over time as expected. But the measured levels of radioactivity in wild boar meat stayed surprisingly high, SciDaily reports.

To this day, some samples of wild boar meat - from populations that have spread across the region - still contain radiation levels significantly over