White crow in Iwate

White crow in Iwate


大きな地図で見る

9/27/2011, they found a crow with white feathers in Miyako Iwate.

Experts say it’s not an usual albino and don’t know “what caused it”.

(Source)

白い羽のカラス 宮古・閉伊川河川敷 2011.9.27
宮古市の閉伊川河口に近い河川敷に白い羽のカラスが現れ、話題になっている。専門家によると、一般的なアルビノ(白化)とは異なる突然変異で原因は不明。市民は「震災のストレスかも」と想像を巡らせる。(岩手日報)

  1. More on Radiation and Bird Albinism in Chernobyl and what it may mean for humans…

    From NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
    Chernobyl Birds’ Defects Link Radiation, Not Stress, to Human Ailments
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070418-chernobyl-birds.html
    ” The team’s results, published online today in the journal Biology Letters, show that abnormalities are much higher in birds from the Chernobyl population. For example, more than 13 percent of the Chernobyl birds had partial albinism—tufts of white feathers—compared to levels of around 4 percent in the control birds.
    “Abnormal features [like albinism] are extremely rare in nature,” Møller said.
    Recapturing the same birds year after year showed that birds with abnormalities were four times less likely to survive and that breeding success was reduced by over 50 percent.
    The findings support the team’s theory that even the low levels of radiation around Chernobyl are enough to cause the higher than average rates of abnormalities and birth defects reported in humans living in the region.
    “Based on the bird data, we think there is likely to be a plethora of human ailments associated with the Chernobyl radiation,”
    Keith Baverstock, an environmental scientist at the University of Kuopio in Finland and co-author of a 2001 United Nations report on human health around Chernobyl, agrees that the results of the bird study are worrying.
    “It confirms that even relatively low levels of exposure to radioactive fallout can result in genetic effects,” he said.
    If Møller and colleagues are right, then millions of people living in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia are still at risk.
    “With proposals to increase the use of nuclear energy,” Baverstock said, “this is a matter that needs urgent attention.”

    From WORLD WILDLIFE FEDERATION
    Colorless in a World of Color
    New research provides rare insight into the often-difficult lives of albino animals
    08-01-2000 // Peter Friederici
    http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2000/Colorless-in-a-World-of-Color.aspx
    “Occasionally, researchers have pinpointed particular causes for such color aberrations. Ornithologists have documented, for example, scattered cases in which birds grew white feathers following a sudden shock or injury, or as a result of old age. In the Ukraine, where the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986 caused large-scale radioactive contamination, barn swallows subsequently showed a much higher rate of partial albinism than other, uncontaminated populations. The rate of partial albinism among swallows near Chernobyl jumped from 0 percent before 1986 to 15 percent in 1991.”
    “Wherever they range, albinos do face a lot of obstacles to survival. Many albino birds, for instance, have brittle feathers that may be worn away more quickly than usual. Lacking a full complement of eye pigments, true albinos often have poor eyesight and are unusually sensitive to sunlight. What´s more, in many social species, odd-looking individuals are not accepted by their peers.”

    1. That’s interesting and noteworthy! Japan definitely needs to refer to the precedents of Chernobyl more often now! I have no idea why so many people can’t draw the clear parallel to Fukushima.

  2. Did you know that if you are kind and respectfull, leave them som food, if you have. Bread and dinner residues, they love it.
    Talk and treat them as freind and good nabos, they can suprise you. If tyour cat or other pets are gone missing, and if ou ask politly, they may find them, and lead them home or tell your pets to go home.
    I have asked them, but luckely rearly.
    But they stunned me and indeed helped, me.

    Dont push them to faar, if not they may revard you with their assistance, wise birds indeed and they can even simple math and counting.
    And also exstremly fast learning.

    Magnificent creatures, crows.

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About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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