'Severe abnormalities' found in Fukushima butterflies

By comparing mutations found on the butterflies collected from the different sites, the team found that areas with greater amounts of radiation in the environment were home to butterflies with much smaller wings and irregularly developed eyes.

"It has been believed that insects are very resistant to radiation," said lead researcher Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa.

"In that sense, our results were unexpected," he told BBC News.

The team concluded that this higher rate of mutation came from eating contaminated food, but also from mutations of the parents' genetic material that was passed on to the next generation, even though these mutations were not evident in the previous generations' adult butterflies.

The team of researchers have been studying that particular species butterfly for more than 10 years. They were considering using the species as an "environmental indicator" before the Fukushima accident, as previous work had shown it is very sensitive to environmental changes.

Fukushima vs. Chernobyl: How Have Animals Fared?

For a little bird, bee or butterfly trying to make it in the world, which is the worse place to land: Fukushima or Chernobyl? On the one hand, there’s the risk from the release of radioactive materials that occurred in Japan just over a year ago. On the other, there’s the threat of mutations from accumulated environmental contamination over the past quarter-century from the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. New York Times

Bluefin tuna contaminated with Fukushima Daiichi cesium documented on U.S. West Coast

Bluefin tuna can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh 1,000 pounds. They can swim 45,000 miles in a 16 month time period.Common Dreams, Reuters, and the Guardian (including a videoof the Japanese government's response to the news) have reported that bluefin tuna which had migrated from Japan's east coast to the U.S. west coast tested positive for elevated levels of radioactive cesium in August 2011, about four months after massive radioactively contaminated water releases to the Pacific Ocean took place at Fukushima Daiichi. Bluefin tuna is a prized seafood. Although the levels of radioactive cesium-137 and cesium-134 are reportedly lower than Japanese and U.S. permissible levels for consumption, the U.S. National Academy of Science has long maintained that any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how low the dose, carries a health risk of cancer, and that these risks accumulate over a lifetime.

The Reuters article gives the false impression that radioactive cesium-137 is somehow naturally occurring. While Cs-137 was released from atmospheric atomic bomb tests for decades beginning in 1945, and thus can be termed a part of "background" radioactivity levels, this should not be confused with "natural background," for atomic weapons blasts, and their radioactive fallout, are far from "natural." Cs-137, with a 30 year half-life and 300 to 600 year hazardous persistence, was released in large amounts by the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, especially in March and April 2011. Cs-134, with a 2 year half-life (and 20 to 40 year hazardous persistence), contamination in bluefin tuna is unmistakably of Fukushima Daiichi origin.

Update on May 31, 2012 by admin

In a segment entitled "Charlie the Tuna Glows in the Dark?", Thom Hartmann, host of The Big Picture, interviews Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps about Fukushima's radioactive "chickens (of the sea) coming home to roost," along the California coast.

Update on June 5, 2012 by admin

While NPR (Nuclear Power Radio? National Plutonium Radio?) saw fit to downplay the significance of Fukushima's radioactive cesium-137 in bluefin tuna on the California coast to the point of downright denial, the Chief Cabinet Secretary of the Japanese Prime Minister admitted that a global monitoring network may be needed. Robert Alvarez of Institute for Policy Studies also rebutted NPR's trivialization.

"Uncanny Terrain," a documentary about organic farmers facing Japan's nuclear crisis

"Uncanny Terrain" is a documentary in progress, about organic farmers facing Japan's nuclear catastrophe. A Chicago-based, Japanese American film making team will spend up to a year in the radioactively contaminated regions of northeast Japan downwind of the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which is still releasing radioactive steam onto the winds nearly five months after the radioactive catastrophe began. Fukushima and neighboring prefectures are famous for their small, family-run, independent organic farms. Husband and wife team Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski have already captured powerful video testimonies, such as of a dairy farmer, just 14 km from Fukushima Daiichi, who refuses to kill his herd, despite repeated orders to do so, as his "only protest against the government and TEPCO." The film makers are requesting monetary donations to enable them to continue their work.

Wildlife threatened by "biggest man-made release ever of radioactive material into the oceans" at Fukushima

Naturenews reports that "Leaked isotopes likely to affect marine ecosystems more than terrestrial ones," given Fukushima Daiichi's ocean side location as well as the seasonal timing of the catastrophic radioactivity releases. Naturenews had earlier, on April 12th, reported that the Fukushima "Radiation release will hit marine life," and that "Researchers call for extensive surveys to gauge ecological effects of Fukushima" -- making the Obama administration's dismantlement of emergency radiation monitoring by FDA, NOAA, EPA, etc. all the more baffling and ironic. After all, as Ken Buesseler, a marine geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, is quoted by Naturenews as saying: "...this is the biggest man-made release ever of radioactive material into the oceans. We haven't yet seen enough data to assess what's going on, so anything that can be done in terms of further monitoring would be very welcome."