That’s a big-ass rodent.
Good news, everyone!
Scientists have isolated compounds that canpowerfully attract the nutria. The rodents can be lured to locations where they can then be disposed of.
For those of you who live in south Mississippi and Louisiana, this is good news indeed. For those of you unfamiliar with these twenty-pound, two-foot (excluding tail) pests, here’s a brief sketch: The nutria was introduced to Louisiana early in the 20th century as a source of fur. They were bigger than muskrats, which had been the staple of bayou fur trappers. But muskrats were kind of small, and they had an annoying habit of burrowing into and weakening levees, as well as eating crop stores. Well, it turns out that nutria do the same things, are even bigger, and can reproduce at an astonishing rate. A female nutria can breed again just two days after giving birth. As a result, they do greater quantities of damage to both levees and crops because of their larger size and amazing fecundity. But the nutria won’t just eat crops. They chew through houses and tires and pretty much any damn thing that’s around. Also, the fur industry kind of collapsed at the time anyway thanks to the rise of synthetic fabrics. So, uh, oops. Basically, the nutria is yet another shining example of the wisdom of introducing non-native species to a new environment. (See also the fire ant, the mongoose in Hawaii, the cane toad/yellow crazy ant/camel/rabbit/fox/et cetera in Australia, and so onad infinitum.)
So yay. Also, there’s something poetic about a scientist from New Jersey figuring out how to deal with a big rat.
If ya know what I mean.