In the small town of Seascale, a few short miles from Sellafield, two bird loving sisters cared for a flock of 700 pigeons in their garden. When the neighbouring Guesthouse tired of all the pigeon droppings on their property They called the local council. Now, these pigeons also roosted on the buildings of the Sellafield Nuclear waste site. When the council culled 150 of the pigeons they found out that the pigeons and their droppings had turned the sister's garden and tarmac drive into a nuclear waste dump. The garden and the drive had to be dug up and all the garden furniture destroyed.
In all 2000 pigeons were destroyed and the government was forced to issue a ban on eating or handling pigeons within 10 miles of Sellafield.
What we take from this is that wildlife cannot be kept out of nuclear sites and that wildlife forms part of the food chain for other animals and so the contamination spreads.
The article was written in 1998 are there any up-to-date figures on contamination?