[ RadSafe ] US's Dr. Dade Moeller vs. European Moeller bird researcher -RE: Birds and radioactivity

Tue Mar 6 17:05:44 CST 2012

Dr. Dade Moeller had nothing to do with bird research in the vicinity of
Chernobyl. Dr. Dade Moeller was a respected scientist who was on the faculty
of the Harvard School of Public Health. I heard him speak several times,
many years ago,  as part of programs organized by the New England Chapter of
the HPS. 

I have no doubt that Dr. Dade Moeller, as an expert in radiation bioeffects
in humans,  would have been very skeptical about claims that radiation
exposure to birds [and certainly primates] of a few tens of rads/year of
total external radiation [ much less than 1 Sv/year of total exposure] could
have any short term effects on either particularly sensitive individual
birds, and especially bird populations, or any other species. 

Whole body counting of some sample of birds in the highest contaminated
areas around Chernobyl to see if they were taking up extremely high levels
of Cs-137 for example from their diets would be interesting and germane. An
external gamma exposure, or dose from internal uptake of Cs-137 would have
to be huge to have any effect on biota like birds, based on a large body of
scientific evidence showing no short-term effects at < 1 Sv/year in every
vertebrate species ever studied. 

Stewart Farber
===========================

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of John R Johnson
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2012 11:50 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Birds and radioactivity

Ed

FYI, his son worked for me at PNL (now PNNL).

John
On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 7:25 AM, <edmond0033 at comcast.net> wrote:

> For those who knew Dade, he has passed away.  His son works for Dade's
> company.
>
> Ed Baratta
>
> edmond0033 at comcast.net
>
> -----Original Message----- From: John R Johnson
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2012 9:34 AM
> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Birds and radioactivity
>
>
> 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<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<http://www.economist.com/
node/21548920?frsc=dg%7Ca>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> 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<http://pathsoflight.us/musing/inde
x.php>
>>
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