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As a renowned foodie there aren't many dishes that could faze him. So Gordon Ramsay didn't think twice as he tucked into a swamp rat stew whilst filming his National Geographic series, Uncharted. The potty-mouthed chef, 53, helped catch and kill a semiaquatic rodent known as a coypu or nutria whilst in the Southern American state of Louisiana.

Why drain the whole swamp when you can just eradicate the giant invasive rats? Rep. Josh Harder, a California Democrat, brought a dead nutria — commonly referred to as a “swamp rat” — to a congressional hearing this week as he sought support for a bill that would direct $7 million to help eradicate the invasive rodent species from his state.

Rat complaints are soaring, and D.C. is doubling down on its efforts to kill them Rats are overrunning D.C., and the city has tried everything from dry ice to solar trash cans to control the population. By Rachel Chason, John D. Harden and Chris Alcantara Aug. 23, 2018 They scurry across alleyways. They chew through trash cans. They make a sound that’s something between a hiss and a chatter. And despite the District’s efforts, the number of rats in Washington seems to be growing. Complaints to 311 about rodents in the nation’s capital reached an all-time high in 2017 —...

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...

As Italy struggles to deal with burgeoning populations of an introduced giant rodent, a mayor has come up with a novel solution – eat them. Coypu were introduced to Italy a century ago from their native South America to be farmed for their fur. But many escaped or were deliberately released after wearing fur fell out of fashion and the species is now thriving. They have fared particularly well in the flatlands of the Po valley in northern Italy, where farmers complain that they devour crops and destroy levees and embankments by digging burrows. Michele Marchi, the mayor of the...

It's been about a month since California wildlife officials started sounding the alarm on nutria, invasive South American rodents that look like enormous, 20-pound rats and have the power to devastate wetlands. They're making a comeback after being eradicated in the 1970s and have been spotted in Stanislaus, Fresno, Tuolumne and Merced counties so far. "We didn't know at first if it was a small, isolated population," California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Peter Tira told the Chronicle in February. "But it became clear that it's a breeding population, and they're reaching major waterways where they can move." It...

British households could be set for an invasion of super rats that are resistant to poison thanks to a genetic mutation dubbed L120Q. The mutation means toxins used to kill the rodents are ineffective and could potentially lead rats plaguing homes across the UK, with some scientists even fearing a population spike thanks to their immunity to poison.

A giant invasive rodent with the ability to destroy roads, levees and wetlands has been discovered in Stanislaus County. Weighing in at 20 pounds and measuring 2 feet, 6 inches long, plus a 12-inch tail, the nutria live in or near water. They're also incredibly destructive. “They burrow in dikes, and levees, and road beds, so they weaken infrastructure, (which is) problematic for flood control systems,” California Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Peter Tira said. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is sounding an alarm about the invasive nutria. When nutria aren’t burrowing, they’re eating. They can consume 25 percent...

A giant 20-pound rodent with the ability to destroy roads, levees and wetlands has been discovered in Stanislaus County. A giant invasive rodent with the ability to destroy roads, levees and wetlands has been discovered in Stanislaus County.

Ever See An Eagle Do The Breast Stroke? This footage was taken at MallardLakes subdivision in Baton Rouge .. Someone had shot a nutria, and it was floating dead in the water. I can't believe what this eagle did to bring that nutria in. I never saw an Eagle doing a breast-stroke before. http://www.youtube.com/embed/87xNpOYOlQ4?rel=0

NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana woman is suing a Wal-Mart store over what she claims was a much-too-close encounter of the furry kind. Rebecca White says in her lawsuit that employees at a Wal-Mart in Abbeville let a rat-tailed rodent known as a nutria run loose and scare her. She says that not only did employees know it was in their store, but gave it a pet name, Norman, and failed to warn shoppers. White says she was pushing a full shopping cart down an aisle in October when the nutria ran out from behind a rack. She says she...

GALLIANO - They're killed by the thousands every year, their carcasses buried in the marsh. Their furry pelts, once sheared, dyed, made into coats and hats and sold on the international market, are now worth so little that some say it's more economical to cast them aside to rot. Nutria were imported to Louisiana from South America in the 1930s to supply a booming American fur industry. But they soon escaped into the wetlands where their population and their appetite for marsh-saving grasses exploded. Decades ago, their numbers were controlled by the hunters and trappers who worked the marshlands of...

REEDSPORT, Ore. (AP) - The man accused of shooting a snorkeler in the head told investigators that he mistook the swimmer for a large, water-dwelling rodent...

SEATTLE - A water-loving rodent native to South America that has destroyed thousands of acres of wetlands in the southeast has been spotted near Lake Washington. Nutria are semi-aquatic, chocolate-colored rodents that can weigh more than 20 pounds and eat one-quarter of their weight a day in crops and plants of all varieties. Also called coypu, or swamp rats, they burrow through marshes and levies, and females can produce more than a dozen offspring a year. A trapper recently caught nine along the shores of Lake Washington. Two University of Washington students are studying the rodents to determine where they...

SKAGIT COUNTY - A rodent that can decimate crop land has just been discovered in Skagit County -- an area with an economy that depends on agriculture. It's called nutria and it is native to South America. They look like a beaver, but they are much more dangerous. The nutria is a rodent that lives in the water and feeds on the land. It stops nothing short of eating every kind of crop, plant, marsh or forest. Bottom line: they are an enemy to the environment and a nightmare to farmers. "They eat everything. They are hungry, they breed like...

Hurricane Katrina's path of destruction dealt at least a temporary setback to the nutria, the South American rodent species that is devouring wetlands along the Gulf of Mexico, according to experts. Scientists believe decades of wetlands loss in the Gulf region—due in part to the voracious appetites of the rodents—made Hurricane Katrina's destruction worse. "Some of the storm protection that nature provides from wetlands, especially in southeast Louisiana, that flood protection, it just wasn't there," said Justin Baker, a biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in New Iberia. Baker heads up a program to reduce the numbers...

Rat-Like Rodent May Be Coming to S.C. 1 hour, 41 minutes ago Strange News - AP COLUMBIA, S.C. - State wildlife officials are concerned that a large, rat-like rodent called nutria may soon be showing up in the Savannah and Pee Dee river basins. The furry bucktoothed rodent looks like a mix between a beaver and a rat and weighs up to 20 pounds. They have become a nuisance in other southern states because they eat marsh plants and dig through dams. Nutria reach sexual maturity within a year and quickly reproduce. They are enough of a problem in Louisiana...

The Nutria Are Here The scourge of Louisiana has found a happy home in Dallas' man-made lakes Nutria can survive in lakes where little else can, and they reproduce and look like rats—giant ones, anyway, with sharp orange buck teeth. BY CHERYL SMITH You know it's springtime in Dallas when the crepe myrtles begin to bloom, native wildflowers start their sprouting and the nutria waddle from their drainage pipes and sewers to frolic like kittens in the warm air. With their native land of Argentina too far away for swimming or travel by webbed foot, and a bounty on their...

Nutria — furry, swamp-dwelling rodents that look like 10-pound rats with webbed feet — are largely regarded as a nuisance in Louisiana's Cajun country. But they are wanted creatures nonetheless. Starting Wednesday, the state of Louisiana will pay a $4-a-tail bounty — officials prefer the term "incentive" — in hopes of wiping out 400,000 nutria this winter. The payment is part of an effort to save Louisiana's coast, which is disappearing at a rate of 35 square miles a year. Nutria, a non-native species that has overrun Gulf of Mexico wetlands since the value of their fur plummeted in the...