In some cases, tunneling in these levees is so extensive that water will flow unobstructed from one side to the other, necessitating their complete reconstruction. Additionally, nutria burrows sometimes weaken flood control levees that protect low-lying areas. Nutria are notorious in Louisiana and Texas for undermining and breaking through water-retaining levees in flooded fields used to produce rice and crawfish. The numerous natural and human-made waterways that traverse this area are used extensively for travel by nutria.īurrowing is the most commonly reported damage caused by nutria. In the United States, most damage occurs along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas. Most damage is from feeding or burrowing. Top image: Nutria in water | f/orme Pet Photography / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.Nutria damage has been observed throughout their range. Even California’s adventurous foodies may not be ready for this one. Celebrity Cajun chefs have enlisted in what journalist Calvin Trillin called “an attempt to do to the nutria on purpose what Paul Prudhomme had done to the redfish by accident.” A Maryland state biologist described the meat as “a lot better than muskrat, not nearly as greasy.” As part of their Kickstarter campaign, the makers of “Rodents of Unusual Size” taste-tested several nutria products and preparations, giving the jambalaya a thumbs-up but calling the sausage distinctly swampy in flavor. California’s sizable investment in restoring freshwater Delta marshes raises the stakes.Įradication campaigns in Louisiana and elsewhere have promoted nutria as food. Females can give birth at the age of 8 months and produce three litters of up to 13 young in a year.Īn appetite for the invasive water hyacinth may be the nutria’s main redeeming trait, but it’s not enough to mitigate the havoc they wreak. But their tribble-like fecundity will be a challenge. There are encouraging precedents for eradication: Chesapeake Bay is now nutria-free. Wildlife Services is helping trap and remove the rodents. They’re trying to persuade landowners, particularly in the Delta, to give surveyors access to their properties. Volkoff explains that the nutria infestation has been designated an incident, enabling the state agency to redirect staff and funds. One found under a parked car was netted and released by an animal control officer who didn’t realize what it was. “That’s not counting the ones that came in as roadkill or were taken by farmers or killed by dogs,” Volkoff adds. As of mid-September 280 had been captured. They had to interrupt their efforts during waterfowl season and pick them up again in the spring. Deploying traps and cameras, Fish and Wildlife found more nutria, from Fresno County to San Joaquin County. “Perhaps if we acted quickly we could remove them all.” But it wasn’t going to be that easy. “The optimistic view was that this was a very isolated population,” Volkoff recalls. | Christoph Schmidt/picture alliance via Getty Images Had they been hiding out in the tules, unrecognized or mistaken for muskrats or beavers, or did someone illegally import them from out of state and release them in the San Joaquin Valley? “It’s hard to conceive nutria persisted in the state at low numbers and have gone undetected for almost 50 years, so we believe it was an introduction,” says Martha Volkoff of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Invasive Species Program.Ī woman feeds a piece of dry bread to a coypu, also known as a nutria. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, whose mission is removing unwanted wildlife, found an unfamiliar creature in a beaver trap at a private duck-hunting club in Merced County: a pregnant nutria. Last year, though, a trapper with the U.S. Nutria-borne pathogens include tapeworms, liver flukes, and a nematode worm that causes “swimmer’s itch.” Unsurprisingly, they were targeted by wildlife agencies and believed eradicated by the 1970s. Their burrows, up to 20 feet deep and 164 long, turn levees and roadbeds into Swiss cheese. Sloppy eaters, they trash 10 times more plant material than they consume, defoliating acres of marsh and exacerbating erosion. They eat any kind of plant that grows in or near water, such as rice and sugar cane, and wild plants - tules, cattails, etc. - which are important to marsh ecosystems. Nutria can put away a quarter of their weight in vegetation - leaves, roots, and all - in a day. As with other exotics like bullfrogs and red foxes, enough nutria escaped from captivity or were liberated when the market went bust to establish a foothold in California’s wilds.
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