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  • 2016-09-26 (xsd:date)
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  • Fukushima Radiation Causes 100% Infant Mortality Among Orca Whales (en)
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  • Fear-mongering articles reporting that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (triggered by the tsunami that followed the Tōhoku earthquake of 11 March 2011) had caused a 100% infant mortality among orca whales born since then have been circulated online for several years. The web site Humans Are Free renewed interest in that rumor in September 2016 when they published an article with the clickbait title Radiation from Fukushima Now Causes 100% Infant Mortality Rate in West Coast Orcas: The Humans Are Free piece was sourced from an article by the disreputable Natural News web site that employed a similarly misleading title (West Coast Orcas Experiencing 100% Infant Mortality Rate as Radiation from Fukushima Drifts Across Ocean) even though the text of that article plainly admitted that there was no proven connection between the Fukushima disaster and the mortality of infant orcas: Natural News listed several sources about whale deaths at the bottom of their article, but none of those sources mentioned radiation from Fukushima as likely or definitive cause. Quotes from Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington, were also misleadingly reproduced out of context by Natural News to bolster a claim that Balcomb's statement didn't support: While Balcom did say that we haven't had any survivals in babies for a couple of years, he was talking about the local Puget Sound orca whale population only, and he didn't in any way connect a 100% infant orca mortality rate to radiation from Fukushima. His quotes originated with a story published by the Seattle Times in December 2014 about a baby orca whale that had died in the Pugent Sound, and while the exact cause of that whale's death was unclear, Balcolm suggested that the whale likely died due to a diminished food supply (and not radiation): Although apparently no baby orcas survived long after birth in Puget Sound in 2013 or 2014, that wasn't the case in the immediately following years, as 2015 saw nine successful orca births in Puget Sound: While radiation from the Fukushima disaster did have a major impact on marine life, the leak of radiactive material from the plant leak did not cause a proven 100% infant mortality rate among orca whales. Moreover, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration do not list nuclear radiation (from any source) among the threats currently facing the world's whale population. (en)
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