By Hillary Vossler

Carcasses of pets and farm animals cover the area surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The twelve-mile radius is forbidden to the public; all that remains is ghost towns and abandoned farms.[1] Because of high levels of radioactive contamination, the area around Fukushima Dai-ichi is off limits. Even a year later, humans are forbidden for going there, and the entryway is guarded by police officers and large, flashing signs.[2] About 78,000 people used to reside in the towns around the Fukushima prefecture, but everyone quickly evacuated after the March 11, 2011 disaster, leaving behind everything, even their pets and farm animals. Residents of the area thought they would come back in a few days after it was deemed safe to return home. As a result, animals were left tied up and in cages. It was never deemed safe to return home, so animals were abandoned with no one to care for them.[3]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcvzxmINZLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvXofBre7dk

These videos serve as visuals to what exactly the abandoned and barren area looks like in the Fukushima prefecture. The town shown is called Minamisoma and lies about 30km from the nuclear plant.

Animal activists have been angered by what the abandoned animals have gone through, and are demanding change in animal rights and politics. Japan’s Environmental Agency claims it has been trying to rescue the animals left in the contamination zone, but it poses too much of a risk for the humans who have to go in and do it. However, in December 2011, the Japanese government allowed for some agencies, like the United Kennel Club Japan, to enter the exclusion zone and rescue the animals. UKC Japan has rescued nearly 250 dogs and 100 cats, and they all lived in the UKC shelter near Japan. Additionally, the UKC have tracked down about 80% of the owners. However, as happy as the owners are to be reunited with their pets, some of the owners are homeless themselves and don’t have the means for caring for a pet. Additionally, some of the rules of the temporary housing units don’t allow pets to live there.[4]

Hiro Yamasaki is the founder of the Animal Rescue System Fund. He is originally from Kobe and first became involved in animal rescue after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. He opened a clinic in 2006, called the No More Homeless in Kobe to perform sterilizations on animals. He was inspired to open this clinic because of the increasing number of feral cats around the Kobe area after the Hanshin Earthquake. In the years following the disaster and his efforts, he saw a decrease in the number of euthanizations performed by the city.[5]

The kyuen honbu was an emergency coalition that consisted of the Japan Animal Welfare Society, the Japan Veterinary Association, Nihon Doobutsu Aigo Kyookai, and Nihon Aigan Doobutsu Kyookai. The goal of the coalition was to rescue animals from the disaster and to raise money to help those animals. From Japan and overseas, about 700 million yen was collected. However, there has been controversy over how exactly this money was being used, which has caused media attention and lawsuits from those who donated.[6]

It’s been reported than animals can suffer post traumatic stress disorder like symptoms after a disaster like this. Dogs found roaming around ghost towns suffer lingering effects of PTSD. A paper published reported than stray dogs that have been recovered and found near the Fukushima Dai-chi nuclear power plant had higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol than the average Japanese dog. Additionally, the dogs exhibited greater difficulty in learning and forming attachments to humans. Despite the intensive retraining care they received, the dogs’ symptoms only continued. Impaired learning and an inability to form relationships with others are symptoms of PTSD that are seen in humans. People are able to recover from PTSD through long term care and recovery; the same with dogs is still in question.[7]

In the area, there used to be around 3,400 cows, 31,500 pigs, and 630,000 chickens according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. Online news reports that those numbers have decreased considerably, to about 1,300 cows, 200 pigs, and it’s estimated that most of the chickens are probably dead. Thousands of animals have starved to death as a result of being abandoned by their owners. The government is trying to deal with this problem by slaughtering the animals. At first, this rule just applied to those animals that were suffering and on the verge of death. But now, the rule may extend to all of the contaminated animals in the twelve-mile radius zone. The government has been trying to persuade the owners of the cattle with generous financial incentives, but most of them refuse to comply.[8]

Farmers have been hit heavily effects of the disaster hindering their work. About 20,000 livestock farmers in the Fukushima prefecture have been asked to refrain from grazing cattle because of the amount of radioactivity in the air. The cattle that graze in farms around the Fukushima prefecture consume grass from the ground. Grass has shallow roots in soil and is more likely to absorb radioactive substances.[9]

Family farms in the Fukushima prefecture also suffer from the economic effects of the nuclear disaster. Before the disaster, the Fukushima prefecture used to thrive on a huge farming economy, being Japan’s second largest producer of peaches, third largest producer of Japanese pears, fifth largest producer of apples, and twelfth largest producer of grapes. After the disaster, no one was interested in purchasing anything grown in Fukushima. Orders of all of these fruits plummeted as the public was afraid of receiving effects from radiation by consuming these products, despite the fact that the fruits measured radiation levels well below government limits. On farmer claimed that this peaches were valued at seventy percent lower than they were the year before.[10]

For the first time in their lives, some family farmers claim that they are actually afraid of eating their own crops for fear of radiation. One farmer, Eiichi Fukuda, is a third generation farmer who now has to buy all his food intended for consumption from the market, where he is sure that there would be no effects of radiation. To compensate for the radioactivity on his crops, Fukuda planned to only grow broccoli for the season because they are known to have a slow absorption rate for cesium. When he tries to sell the broccoli to the public, he has to indicate that it was grown in Fukushima, which alone will already bring it down forty percent market price.[10]

Now the future of Fukuda’s family farm is up in the air. His son is reluctant to stay around the farm to learn the trade because of potential long term radiation effects, like cancer, and because the public just isn’t buying things from Fukushima, so there is no money to be made. For forty years, Fukuda has put his faith in the land to provide for his family and community, but now, because of a single disaster that has spawned an unfortunate series of events, all of that is in peril.[10]

In a town in the Fukushima prefecture, one man returned to his farm to care for his animals, despite the radiation. Naoto Matsumura is the one resident who lives in the ghost town of Tomioka, a town that was once home to about 16,000 people. Tomioka is about eight miles from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The whole town was abandoned by its inhabitants after the nuclear disaster. Initially, Matsumura fled Tomioka with all of the other residents, but he felt bad about leaving his farm animals alone to fend for themselves and eventually die. Instead of spending his time in overcrowded shelters, Matsumura made the decision to go back to his family farm and live and care for his animals. In addition, Matsumura found other homeless animals in the town and brought them to his farm.[10]

With donated funds, he’s able to care for the animals by feeding them. Matsumara is aware of the risks that come with his decision; however, he has a refreshingly optimistic view on it. Despite the fact that he is exposed to seventeen times the amount of radiation a normal person is, doctors have discovered that it won’t be until thirty or forty years that he actually becomes sick from the radiation. Matsumura claims that he will probably be dead by then anyways. Matsumura has no intentions of leaving anytime soon, and says that the animals are doing well.[11]