Snipe from Chernobyl?

fathersymes

Spoke to someone the other day who warned about the dangers of eating Snipe as some of them would probably have migrated from the Chernobyl area.

never thought about this myself, any truth in this? as I must have eaten a dozen this past season.

TomBeckett

Well at least now you know what that strange green glow that you seen every time you looked in the mirror was!!:D

civdef

I wouldn't worry, the lead in the shotgun pellets will absorb any radiation!

Anyway, something tells me this has all the hallmarks of a classic "rural myth". Even if you were unlucky enough to shoot a Chernobyl snipe (do they migrate from that part of the world anyway?), the odds of getting one that had been exposed to a higher than normal dose of radiation are vanishingly small. Even if you did eat a snipe which had been exposed to a higher than normal dose, you would absorb very little radiation indeed through eating it.

Double Barrel

fathersymes,

Probally not snipe all that much as most of the Snipe breed in the Arctic regions of Iceland, Faeroes, Orkney and Shetland, north-eastern Scandinavia and northern Russia and winters throughout Ireland the British Isles and the Low Countries.

Woodcock on the other hand migrate from the northern regions of Europe and north of the Arctic Circle, many of our birds are also visitors from Ukraine and Belarus and other places within the former Soviet Union.
Following the fallout from Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s there were fears that woodcock number would drop off or plummet. Shot birds at that time were constantly monitored for contamination at the University in Galway.
While it was found that many birds were actually suffering from the effects of contamination only a few were above the danger level. Not sure if the tests are ongoing.

Clare gunner

Bit of an urban/rural myth.The snipe&woodcock have been monitored as have most of the plants and animals and mushrooms[the best filters of airborne crud] all over Europe where the radiation came down and there is no significant increase in the last twenty years since Chernyobl.It peaked for the two/ three years after the disaster,but dropped down to normal,or not significant ever since.Safe to eat as much as anything else these days.

johngalway

If it glows in the dark, speaks to you or has two heads, don't eat it!!

Lots of them around here, I think I'll get a geiger counter off ebay just incase.

Vegeta

I love hunting both snipe and woodcock, my bro got a left and a right one day but as there weren't 2 people who were not related to us out hunting he couldn't join that club thingy.