[ RadSafe ] Birds and radioactivity

Tue Mar 6 08:40:06 CST 2012

Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Moeller (funny o, the one with the line through it) of the University of Paris-Sud

> Karen
> 
> Is this Moeller one of the Moeller who belong to the HPS?
> 
> John
> 
> On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 5:52 AM, Karen Street <Karen_Street at sbcglobal.net>wrote:
> 
>> Bjorn,
>> 
>> I'll be interested if you learn more, and if the authors respond. Here is
>> some added perspective—
>> 
>> Moeller has run into trouble before, according to a Scientific American
>> blogger (
>> http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=scientific-meltdown-at-chernobyl-2009-03-24).
>> And one of the participants in their Chernobyl study said that they ignored
>> big variations from region to region in habitat. And Moeller manages to
>> acquire boucoup data and write a lot, 30 articles in 2008. My guess is that
>> all of his work is in fields where others are unlikely to run confirming
>> experiments, because bird brain size is not of major interest to most
>> researchers.
>> 
>> 
>> Science has a better track record and more respect in fields where people
>> care a great deal about the numbers and check them extensively (physics and
>> climate change), not so much in fields where a single person or group
>> follows its bliss with no check from the greater community.
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> When I saw this paper last week I first noted that the article mentioned
>> that 14 bird species were common for Chernobyl and Fukushima. The article
>> did not give the species names however. Instead they appear in an attached
>> appendix (separate file).
>>> The appendix triggered my attention further because it was a long list
>> of bird names in Latin. I decided to go through the list and see which the
>> 14 species were. Numbers in parenthesis below = the number of observations,
>> "neg" means negative slope = decline, I have here added the names in
>> English:
>>> Acrocephaus arundinaceus (17, neg), great reed warbler
>>> Aegithalos caudatus (46), long-tailed tit
>>> Alauda arvensis (3), skylark
>>> Buteo buteo (10, neg), common buzzard
>>> Corvus corone (103, neg), carrion crow
>>> Delichon urbica (1), common house martin
>>> Garrulus glandarius (8), eurasian jay
>>> Hirundo rustica (144, neg), barn swallow
>>> Motacilla alba (8, neg), white wagtail
>>> Parus ater (17), coal tit
>>> Parus major (56), great tit
>>> Parus montanus (1), willow tit
>>> Passer montanus (294, neg), euroasian tree sparrow
>>> Troglodytes troglodytes (1), eurasian wren
>>> 
>>> In other words, six "common" species which have a negative slope
>> dominated by the following three: carrion crow, barn swallow and euroasian
>> tree sparrow. Most of the 14 species above are quite common in northern
>> Europe. In addition, a field sparrow, Emberiza cioides (Meadow Bunting or
>> Siberian Meadow Bunting) and Cetthia cetti (Cettis warbler) showed a
>> decline.
>>> 
>>> The first three of these are clearly associated with humans to some
>> extent. I would not be surprised if that also to some extent is true for
>> the Emberiza species whereas I know nothing about the Cetthia except that
>> it is a migratory bird.
>>> 
>>> So I have a question here: If people are evacuated from some of these
>> areas - doesn't that then also mean the the life conditions for these birds
>> also change? I doubt that this has anything to do with radiation dose as
>> the doses are far too small to be expected to affect bird behavior. The
>> slope in Fig. 2 in the paper - I wrote one of the authors and asked about
>> the units - it is log(abundance) as a function of log/microSv/hour). From a
>> strict point, the unit should not be in microSv as the sievert only is
>> defined for humans.
>>> 
>>> Does RadSafer know anything about the behavior of the Cetthia species?
>> Was it particularly cold in northern Japan last year or just "normal" (I'm
>> thinking about the migratory pattern)? In addition, what does it mean for
>> all these bird species that large areas were flooded?
>>> 
>>> I do not have the background material with me at this moment of writing
>> but if I recall correctly, all Parus species and the related Aegithalos
>> caudatus showed an increase in numbers. It may also be commented that the
>> buzzard partly is associated with humans (like waiting along highways etc
>> looking for road kill - something they probably won't do when the car
>> traffic ceases).
>>> 
>>> My personal comment only,
>>> 
>>> Bjorn Cedervall, Stockholm, Sweden
>>> 
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>>> From: Karen_Street at sbcglobal.net>
>>>> The Economist has an article saying that more radioactivity, fewer
>> birds, and the problem is twice as bad at Fukushima as Chernobyl.
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.economist.com/node/21548920?frsc=dg|a
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> One problem is that the reason they give at the end is so unlikely
>> (different composition of radionuclides). Another is a question about who
>> is doing the inventory at 35 µSv/hour locations, and how good the inventory
>> is.
>> 
>> --
>> Best wishes,
>> Karen Street
>> Friends Energy Project
>> blog http://pathsoflight.us/musing/index.php
>> 
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--
Best wishes, 
Karen Street
Friends Energy Project
blog http://pathsoflight.us/musing/index.php