---
title: "Fukushima Now Home to Radioactive Boar-Pig Hybrids"
description: "The evacuated area around post-meltdown Fukushima in Japan is being overrun by \"relatively\" radioactive boar-pig hybrids."
date: "2021-06-30"
modified: "2021-06-30"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/fukushima-radioactive-boar-pig-hybrids"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "feral pigs"
  - "Fukushima"
  - "Japan"
  - "pigs"
---

# Fukushima Now Home to Radioactive Boar-Pig Hybrids

![The evacuated area around post-meltdown Fukushima in Japan is being overrun by "relatively" radioactive boar-pig hybrids.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/fukushima-radioactive-boar-pig-hybrids.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wild_Boar_Habbitat_2.jpg" target="\_blank"\>Richard Bartz via Wikimedia Commons/Futurism\</a\>\</em\>*

It's been just over a decade since a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that caused the meltdown of a nuclear reactor in Japan's Fukushima region.

The ensuing evacuation has allowed local plant and animal species to thrive, reclaiming nature in the absence of humans. Included among the thriving fauna: domesticated pigs that have bred with wild boars to create new hybrids, as [*Inverse* reports](<https://www.inverse.com/science/abandoned-places-fukushima-boars>).

Even stranger is that some of the wild boars present in the area may be "relatively" radioactive, according to a [June 2020 study](<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66362-6>), and are [now being hunted](<https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/03/the-wild-boars-of-fukushima/519066/>) to allow residents to eventually return home.

It's a vivid illustration of what happens when humans are forced to flee following a natural disaster, allowing animals to adapt to their newly hospitable environment.

"While humans cannot return, wildlife did return and even thrived in this human abandoned landscape," Donovan Anderson, PhD student at Fukushima University and co-author of a [new study](<https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.0874>) on the emergence of boar-pig hybrids in the Fukushima region, told *Inverse*.

According to Anderson and his colleagues' analysis — the team studied muscle samples of 243 wild boars, pigs, and boar-pig hybrids — 16 percent of local wild boar from the evacuated zone were hybrids after local populations bred with abandoned domesticated pigs.

"The greatest number of hybrids detected, or relatively 75 percent of all hybrids, were within the initial 20 km radius evacuation zone," reads the paper.

The hybrids aren't likely to stay hybrids in the long term. The hybrids had only eight percent of pig DNA on average, indicating that pig genes aren't lasting across generations.

"In case of the invasive species — pigs that were released from the \[Fukushima\] event — we think they had poor adaption or survival characteristics in the wild," Anderson told *Inverse*. "We do not expect these adaption changes in boar, likely caused from the absence of people, to maintain in populations especially as \[human\] disturbance returns," Anderson told *Inverse*.

**READ MORE:** [Fukushima's boar-pig hybrids reveal how nature can heal after humans](<https://www.inverse.com/science/abandoned-places-fukushima-boars>) \[*Inverse*\]

**More on Fukushima:** *[Dumping Radioactive Water Into Sea Won’t Solve Japan’s Issues](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/dumping-radioactive-water-into-sea-wont-solve-japans-issues-turns-out>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)