OT: #Fukushima I Nuke Plant Mascot Bird Was an Ostrich

I'm sorry for the birds but I couldn't help noticing the irony. Sort of "Schadenfreude".

Ostrich was the symbol bird (or mascot bird) for Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant...

(The photo is NOT one of the poor birds in Fukushima.)

Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese; 4/26/2011) reports that 30 ostriches in the ostrich farm in Ookuma-machi in the no-entry zone are left to die, because there will be no one to feed them. Already 15 of them died.

The ostrich farm is owned by a former council member of the town nearby (Futaba-machi).

Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, which straddles Ookuma-machi and Futaba-machi, started to keep ostriches on the plant compound in 2000 as part of the PR campaign. The reason for picking the ostrich as the symbol for the plant?

「少しの餌で大きく育つダチョウのように、少しのウランで大きな電力を得られる原発」

"Just like an ostrich that grow big on small feed, the nuclear power plant that generates large amount of electricity with small amount of uranium"

Well, the plant had over 1,700 tons of uranium and MOX fuels when the earthquake/tsunami hit on March 11 which don't seem "small", but never mind.

The ex-councilman decided to raise ostriches himself at about the same time.

The owner, according to the article, having visited nuclear power plants in Japan and abroad, knew immediately that it was a very serious accident when the hydrogen explosion happened, and he escaped immediately.

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