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 ...
looks like a woodchuck.
The first use of nutria weapons in war?
Don’t ever run over a Nutria carcass bloated in the hot sun. You’ll abandon the car by the side of the road. The stench is other-worldy!
Why not introduce the pythons to the Delta. What could go wrong?
But ask a game warden to be sure ...
They’re from South America. The Tobasco people brought them to Louisianna in the thirties, to start selling them for fur farms. They escaped, and now they’re everywhere.
They look like woodchucks.
Tastes like chicken?.........................
When TSHTF, we’ll find out.
Otherwise I have no intention.
Nutria.......The OTHER white meat!................
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.