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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGiant Swamp Rats Are Literally Eating Louisiana
On the southern edge of Louisiana, there is almost as much water as land. You can't drive to anyone's house, you have to travel by boat, and sometimes there are hours of water between neighbors. It takes a special breed to make a home here, in the swamp, amongst the mosquitos and almost annual hurricanes. But those who do call it home, love it. They see a magical space of strange stillness and subtle rippling greens and grays where time worries no one and the freedom of the water is at your doorstep.
But this Huck Finn way of life is being attacked on multiple fronts. Climate change's stronger storms are beating away at the fragile coastline, and the oil and gas industries are scarring the skyline while luring younger generations away from the local farming and fishing way of life. As if that weren't enough, 20-pound, semi-aquatic rodents, called nutria, which are native to Argentina, are taking over the marshes, devouring the native plants that hold the soil in place, and causing massive coastal erosion. Chris Metzier, an independent documentary filmmaker, has spent months in these swamps on the front lines of this battle, filming his upcoming documentary Rodents of Unusual Size. He sat down with me recently to talk about nutria and the interesting people who are fighting them to save their way of life.
TakePart: How would you describe nutria, and how did they end up in Louisiana?
Chris Metzier: Nutria are something like a cross between a beaver and a New York sewer rat. They were first brought to Louisiana in the 1930s in order to be farmed for their fur, which was growing in popularity. No one knows exactly how they escaped into the wild. Maybe someone let them go when the fur industry was failing, or perhaps it was the work of a hurricane that tore apart a barn they were being kept in. One way or another, they escaped into the swamps and have just gone crazy. This part of Louisiana is just like a big playground for them. And they can breed within months of being born and have multiple litters a year. There are now about five million nutria in this part of Louisiana. There are nutria in other parts of the country, as well, but nowhere have they made themselves quite so much at home as in Louisiana. That's great for nutria, I guess, but they eat everything that grows, and without plants holding the soil in place, it is eroding away at record speedsabout 40 square miles per year, for several decades now. ...........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/giant-swamp-rats-literally-eating-louisiana-questions-202344859.html
snooper2
(30,151 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,856 posts)I'm guessing that they might taste similar to guinea pigs, which are very popular in some parts of South America. If you put the meat in gumbo or some sort of soup, it will probably take on some of the flavor of the seafood or chicken and sausage. I'd be willing to give it a try.
d_r
(6,907 posts)here's some recipes= http://www.nutria.com/site14.php
Maeve
(42,288 posts)Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)but the end result is the same...."eeewwwwwwwww"
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)get to Louisiana. Oy!
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)EEK! A ROUS!
BREMPRO
(2,331 posts)that should take care of them!
Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)Overrun by characters. Just like the cane toad in Australia, only a much better love story.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)You know: Introduce nutria predators then watch as THEY become an even bigger problem.
Man-made ecosystems never seem to work out....
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Nothing could go wrong with that...
MattBaggins
(7,904 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)It ends with elephants which one can get rid of with just a few mice.
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Hope he's well, wherever he is...
byeya
(2,842 posts)of Louisiana has worsened to allow this population explosion. Exotic animals and plants are a huge problem in North America and Nutria are yet another example. Wild boar from Europe are killing native vegetation in the forested southeast.
Imported diseases have pretty much killed all of our native elms and chestnuts and dogwoods are dying rapidly.
Starlings almost caused the extinction of bluebirds before the bluebird nestbox building took hold.
fleur-de-lisa
(14,628 posts)I live in south Louisiana and have seen these creepy things roaming around at night, but I've never been close enough to get a good look at the pelt. Doesn't look to be very soft. I've always imagined it would be like petting a hedgehog.
byeya
(2,842 posts)do except for beaver which feels nicer(the only word I can think of and I have a few Italian beaver fedoras) and is long wearing.
It's good for hats, in my opinion and environmentally, so much better than beaver.
If you've ever seen a photo of a park ranger of the National Park Service in his/her flat brimmed ranger hat, the odds are, it's made of Nutria fur.
I would hope some of the bayou dwellers in LA would make a dollar or three trapping these nutria and selling the pelts for use in hats and whatever else can be sold - felt boot liners for ice fishermen maybe.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)byeya
(2,842 posts)large Dr Zhivago type of hat.
And when Elaine tried to justify the expense saying it was sable(there was a hat loss and switch to nutria) the man in accounting said, "No it's not a type of sable, it's a type of rat"
Thanks for reminding me of this memorable moment of a great tv series.
fleur-de-lisa
(14,628 posts)I have heard that a lot of gun nuts in south Louisiana, and even law enforcement in some rural areas, will shoot nutria just for sport. Nobody seems to care since they have become invasive. Might as well put their pelts to good use instead of just killing them and leaving the carcasses to rot.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)threat to Louisiana
DavidDvorkin
(19,485 posts)byeya
(2,842 posts)DavidDvorkin
(19,485 posts)blogslut
(38,016 posts)BillStein
(758 posts)War with Newts? I pictured hundreds of fat little hypocrites with gray hair! Never more scared!!!
DavidDvorkin
(19,485 posts)byeya
(2,842 posts)beautifully written even in translation.
R.U.R. introduced the word "robot" to the world and deserves to be staged.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Shocking omission.
Think I'll begin to fix that.
Shoud I start with R.U.R. or War with the Newts?
byeya
(2,842 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)And there's 'War with the Newts'....
http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/browse/Fiction?au=Karel%2BCapek
byeya
(2,842 posts)DavidDvorkin
(19,485 posts)It's a play, so the written form is more compact than a novel. I remember it as a fairly quick read.
They're quite different, but both are really great.
mainer
(12,029 posts)It's free range and said to be delicious. The possibilities for this source of protein seem pretty good.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)Met a guy from LA when I liven in San Francisco, and he tried to tell me about eating nutria rats.
Problem was this guy had an accent born in the Louisiana swamps, and wasn't very well educated. Oh hell, he was as dumb as a stump.
I couldn't make out the word "nutria." It sounded like he was saying "newchurat," so I eventually asked him to spell it.
His eyes lost focus for a sec, and then he sounded it out phonetically: "New"-"Tree"-"Yah."
I said "No, no...spell it, please!"
He says "I did spell it..." 'New' like it aint old, 'tree' like a big bush, and 'yah' like 'yah want I should spell it again?' ..."Newchurat"
I about died.
fleur-de-lisa
(14,628 posts)a not so bright person of Cajun descent. They are supposedly known for their willingness to eat anything that doesn't eat them first. There are all kinds of Boudreaux jokes flying across the intertubes:
Down in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, Boudreaux gets a job with BP helping with the Gulf oil spill cleanup. He reports for work and is told to speak to a supervisor about his assignment.
He finds the man and asks, "What it is you want I should do?"
The supervisor tells Boudreaux to go to the animal shelter and clean the pelicans. Two hours later, Boudreaux comes up to the supervisor and says, "Okay, dey all clean. You want I should cook some rice?"
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Which is what English speaking folk call them. Newchurat would be the Cajun pronunciation.
As to spelling, you don tol me nutin me!
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Yup, their teeth really are Boner orange.
Mr. David
(535 posts)They were the pre-Colorado Rockies (Denver Zephyrs) before 1993.
After we obtained the team, the AAA team was sold to New Orleans and still is named the Zephyrs for different reasons.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)that runs through Denver.
Traditionally, New Orleans baseball teams were the Pelicans. I guess they couldn't get the rights to that; it will now be the name of the NBA Hornets.
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)Response to marmar (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
fleur-de-lisa
(14,628 posts)Their teeth are kind of like beaver, but they remind me more of hamster teeth, huge hamster teeth. Most of the nutria I have seen have far longer teeth than the one in the photo, and they are dark yellow, kind of 'school bus' colored. I mean the teeth are yellow, not the nutria.
And they are nocturnal and rather large, like a small to medium sized dog. Can you imagine seeing one of those things at night? I have never heard of one being aggressive, thank goodness. But they are creepy. The stuff of nightmares . . .
Response to fleur-de-lisa (Reply #38)
Name removed Message auto-removed
fleur-de-lisa
(14,628 posts)They live in low-lying, wet areas and also in the man-made canals in south Louisiana. There are literally thousands of canals around here because most of the area is, or was, swamp land. The nutria habitat isn't limited to rural areas. The creepy buggers are everywhere.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)They can eat the entire state as far as I care.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)He's a Golden Retriever and plays with them for hours.
This is about how they look..
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Yeah, that's the ticket!
Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Anyone know what ever happened to him?
AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,852 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Nothing thereafter that I could find.
AnotherDreamWeaver
(2,852 posts)Hope he is still OK.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Another
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Destonio.net @ seedsofdoubt.com. This is from late 2008:
ladjf
(17,320 posts)0rganism
(23,970 posts)Then the rodent problems will really begin
rdharma
(6,057 posts)Recipe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nutria Chili
Recipe by: Chef Enola Prudhomme
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 pounds nutria ground meat
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon red pepper
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced green bell pepper
1 cup diced red bell pepper
1 cup tomato paste
4 cups beef stock (or water)
1 can red kidney beans (opt.)
In a heavy 5-quart pot on high heat, add oil and heat until very hot. Add meat, and cook and stir 10 minutes. Add salt, red pepper, chili powder, onion and both bell peppers. Cook and stir 15 minutes. Add tomato paste and 4 cups stock. Cook 30 minutes; reduce heat to medium. Add red kidney beans; cook an additional 10 minutes. Serve hot!
MFM008
(19,818 posts)they keep eating parts of the south they will die for sure.
nolabear
(41,991 posts)Once that was stopped because Fideaux kept getting in the traps they took off. And yes, they're enormous things.
Personally, I think nutria are not the varmints that are hurting Louisiana. Big Oil and the gov't are doing more than their fair share.
MichaelSoE
(1,576 posts)From Dave Attell's insomniac series ... the nutria hit squad segment @ 8:48