Reindeer and Radioactive Fallout: A New and Old Chapter in the History of Arctic Contaminants

Caribou (from the Porcupine Herd, northern Canada)

There's now news that reindeer in Norway are newly vulnerable to radioactive fallout � 28 years after Chernobyl, and 51 years after the Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibited above-ground nuclear testing.  Almost eight times as much Cesium 137 is now present in the reindeer, compared to two years ago.  The source is likely gypsy mushrooms, which readily accumulate radioactive matter, and that with warm weather are become more common on the reindeer range.

This is yet another unexpected twist in the history of northern contaminants.  Repeatedly over the last sixty years, contaminants have been found in the Arctic, often surprising scientists and other observers more accustomed to viewing the region as one of the last relatively pristine places on the planet.

It's been known since the early 1950s (thanks to secret research by the United States Atomic Energy Commission) that American and Soviet nuclear bomb testing had spread radioactive fallout, including Strontium 90, all over the world.  And by the end of that decade it was also known that reindeer and caribou were particularly vulnerable to fallout.  The reason was ecological: lichens are peculiarly able to accumulate fallout, and they are among the favorite foods of reindeer and caribou.  Thus, the chain of vulnerability: lichen accumulate fallout, caribou eat lichen, and many northerners eat caribou.

Fallout concerns diminished after the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty.  What remained was an awareness that contaminants could travel long distances � a lesson that echoed powerfully in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, even in her use of the term "fallout" to describe the threat of pesticides and other contaminants.

But in this most recent episode, we can see how climate change is now rippling through the history of northern contaminants, by changing northern ecosystems, and their capacity to move and concentrate materials.  Yet another unexpected chapter in this history � and one that shows how Arctic history links nature and people, and the north with the rest of the world.