Posted on 08/17/2018 1:49:53 PM PDT by Red Badger
For the small six-person team tasked with combating California's nutria infestation, a typical day consists of working in 100-degree weather, wading through marshes and avoiding traps built to catch 20-pound rodents, targeting about 2 million acres.
Nutria, a destructive rat-like mammal, is currently burrowing into central California's wetlands. In the spring, the Department of Fish and Wildlife began to warn the public about the dangers of the animal, which devastate agricultural infrastructure by burrowing into levees, roadbeds and canal beds.
But in the past few months, only 200 nutria have been exterminated, 100 of which were found in a pond on a single private farm in central California.
As the agency prepares for an intensive survey of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, officials say they have no idea what the actual numbers of nutria will look like. In April, there were two confirmed sightings of nutria just outside the delta, a region critical to California's waterways.
"We can't guess, we have no idea what we're going to find in there," California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Peter Tira told SFGATE. "We need to survey and see to what extent they're in there, we haven't determined a complete range of nutria in the region."
"Our goal is to keep the nutria out of the delta as much as possible," Tira said. "That's the epicenter of our water control and flood control in California."
The Department of Fish and Wildlife isn't expected to get people on the ground in the delta until later this month, since they are still in the process of getting permission from farmers and other landowners to access private property. Most of the land in the delta is private.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle Image 1 of 52
A Nutria caught in a trap placed by biologists with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, at the China Island state wildlife area near Gustine, Ca. on Wed. May 2, 2018. The Nutria is a threat to agriculture, water infrastructure and wetlands according the the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
They dont even taste good. Gazillions of them in the south. A lot in Louisiana.
The answer is simple. Convince the Chinese that the liver is an aphrodisiac. They’ll all be gone by spring.
I wouldn't.
I don't do rat...at least not yet.
Wait until the Apocalypse...they'll be chasing them all over the place.
Set loose the dogs of war! Let go the slings and hammer of outrageous fortunate!
Release the cougars, dire wolves, sabre-tooth tigers and grizzly bears and polar bears!
(Or just allow hunting ... for a profit.)
Or tell the Japanese that the nutria dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That or that the liver increases marijuana potency by 10X.
Gone by Thanksgiving!
LOL!
They taste fine I’ve eaten them before. A cross of chicken and pork.
Fur coats?................
https://boingboing.net/2013/04/29/meat-from-a-20-kb-swamp-rat-t.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/05/31/nutria-other-red-meat.html
[They taste fine I’ve eaten them before. A cross of chicken and pork.]
There is always the possibility that Bob Sacamano can have one made into a hat.
I have a 17 cal that would work wonders on thinning the herd.
Not bad in a ragu. Grew up in the swamps of south louisiana
Hunting isn’t the problem.
It’s the ‘profit’ part that’s difficult...............
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