A warmer climate is providing ideal breeding conditions for the swine as higher temperatures cause oak and beech trees to overproduce seeds and farmers grow more crops the boars like.

Torsten Reinwald of the German Hunting Federation says that the number of boars in Germany “has quadrupled or quintupled over the last years, as has the number of boars shot.”

And the exploding population of the wild game has resulted in more and more of the boars rooting and feeding on mushrooms and truffles that tend to store radioactivity the most.

Nearly a quarter of a decade after the nuclear plant explosion, the cesium-137 contamination has now seeped into the soil to the exact level where the truffles grow most.

The radioactivity doesn’t appear to be harming the boars, but German hunters in Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg must have their kills checked for radioactivity before the meat can be consumed or sold.

Game that has levels considered too high are purchased by the government and burned.

Cesium-137 has a half-life of roughly 30 years, and officials point out that radiation has ceased to be a problem on cultivated crops across the region.

Photo: File