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Michael Spooneybarger / Reuters
Nutria pile up along the shore on Aug. 31 after Hurricane Isaac went through Waveland, Miss.
If there's a silver lining for the Gulf Coast from Hurricane Isaac, it might just be this: the surge of water flushed out, and drowned, thousands of nutria — giant rodents originally from South America that are eating away at coastal marshlands, which act as barriers from storms.
Most of the dead nutria have washed up on beaches in Mississippi's Hancock and Harrison counties.
"Estimates are there will be over 20,000 carcasses," Robbie Wilbur, spokesman for the state's department of environmental quality, told NBC News.
In the short term, that many rotting carcasses is a health hazard.
"It's a terrible smell," David Garcia, mayor of Waveland in Hancock county, told WLOX-TV. "As this heat continues, they're just going to blow up and pop, making it even more of a health hazard."
Crews over the weekend started removing the nutria, aka swamp rats, though it's not an easy task.
"As they're picking them up, they're busting open," Hancock County Supervisor David Yarborough told the Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald.
A federal contractor with experience in hazardous waste has been brought in, but even a handful of its workers had quit Sunday morning, the Sun Herald reported.
"There's people who can't take the sight of something like this," Yarborough said. "That's the reason I wouldn't even attempt this with county people. You really should be certified and trained in hazardous waste."
County crews tried to deal with a similar situation after Hurricane Gustav in 2008 "and we had people getting sick; wound up buying everybody's clothes," he added.
Classified as rodents even though they are semi-aquatic, nutria were released in Louisiana and Mississippi back in the 1930s by fur trappers looking for new stock. Populations were kept in check as long as fur prices were good, but a collapse in the 1980s led to a collapse in trapping and a population now estimated at several million.
As a result, nutria are "one of the Gulf South’s most notorious invasive species, wreaking ecological havoc on native wetland vegetation and contributing to coastal erosion problems," Mississippi's Department of Environmental Quality said in its plan for dealing with invasives.
The erosion is done by nutria "digging into thin soils and eating roots of marsh vegetation," the department states. "As the vegetation dies, the fine-grained, denuded soils become more vulnerable to erosion, eventually forming expanding holes in the marsh called 'eat-outs'."
The species is also a speedy breeder: nutria reach sexual maturity at just four months old, and females are able to breed within 48 hours of giving birth to a litter.
Back along the beaches, the thousands of nutria carcasses are being taken to a nearby landfill, while those in areas away from the public will be left there.
"We're letting mother nature take care of those," Chad Lafontaine, with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, told the Sun Herald.
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I shouldn't have read this article while eating lunch....
in 1947 hurricane, a couple of breeding pair got loose from the Avery Island research station, run by LSU. they were brought from south America to see if they would breed with muskrats to develop a larger fur bearing animal(instead they ate the muskrats), from Texas to Florida everyone is up to their buts in these very viscous 20-30 pound rats, with teeth 3-5 inches long and razor sharp.
Feral hogs, nutria, africanized honey bees and fire ants. The four horsemen of the apocalypse.
MOM..... My thoughts exactly. I shouldn't have been eating lunch. LOL
Tranquil - somewhere in there that flying asian carp needs to be listed.
And the honey badger
I have killed 8 armadillos tunnelling under the house in the last 2.5 years. The nearby population produces so many it's no time before a "new" one moves in after I whack the old ones. I know a guy who popped 8 in one night with his 22 while sitting on his porch. With the breeding of these nutria's I don't think 20,000 is a dent in their population. IF the gubmint offered a $20 or $25 bounty on nutria or dillos all these under-employed bubbas or teenagers could score some spare cash and improve their marksmanship while enjoying the great outdoors. Probably help the swamps too !
Wear a respirator, bag 'em up and use them for fertilizer. I'm sure it's gotta be nasty but it has to be done.
You could also dump them way out in the ocean and the crabs etc.. will eat them. Of course "after" you "POP" them (as Sarah #2) mentions below. Eeeww man.
You also left out Pythons, and the god aweful lovebugs.
IReadyou,
'Dillos are native, whereas the nutria are not.
You have just found another answer to the food shortage problem.
Pop them first. Then flash freeze them. Then ship them to Africa or Asia, those people will eat anything !!! OH by the way the U.N. food give away programs will be glad you helped out the starving people of those areas. I also hear that North Korea is looking for food items also. If they taste like OIL they can blame BP.
A pessimist sees it as 20,000 carcasses rotting.
An optimist sees a whole bunch of fur coats lying on the beach.
Nutria are rodents, but are not rats. One big difference is that they are herbavores, not carnivorous. While many people find their appearance disturbingly similar to a large rat (and they have a wicked "scream" they give out!), they are fairly benign to humans. The problem is the damage they do to local areas as mentioned in the article. Unfortunately, 20,000 is a small drop in the bucket, but it's a start. If they can come up with a deterrent for the areas that flooded out, it may be a step in starting to control the movements of the population and make it viable to come up with a plan to start reducing the numbers.
They are not benign to native plants in the wetlands of south Louisiana. Good riddance to the little pests. Let them feed the fishes off shore.
Quick! Call Sugar Bear (Honey Boo Boo's clan)! Dinner's on.
IReadyou, funny how you speak disrespectfully of the "gubmit" and in the very next sentence you want them to spend other people's money (TAXES) to solve YOUR PROBLEM!! Why don't you hire the "bubbas and teenagers" as you call them to kill the vermin and become a "JOB CREATOR" and sell the meat and fur for a profit.
Feed the nutria to the feral hogs and pythons and harvest them as food sources. Whatever might be rotten dump in the water for the asian carp, then harvest them, too.
Meanwhile, don't mess with the honey badger. He's pretty badass and he don't care.
I agree with you, MonkeyMo. I've seen documentaries on television on the nutria. It's a major human health risk because it carries disease like you wouldn't believe; literally, the whole world is the nutria's toilet, which means significant amounts of nutria waste stand a good shot at finding its way into the water supply They destroy whatever they come in contact with. Given the area, burrowing into levees and earthen dams is another major issue. Combine hole burrowed by rodent with earthen structure and enough water and you have an earthen structure washing out.
The history of the nutria: it was brought to the US from South America about 60 years ago to be bred for its fur pelts. The market for those pelts collapsed about 30 years ago, giving the nutria a 30 year head start on becoming a rapidly reproducing, destructive invasive species. Where you have reasonably warm weather and wetlands, you will find the nutria; they've been confirmed as far north as the DelMarVa area of the east coast. To actually make something that looks like a dent in the nutria population, you would need at least 10 times the 20,000 or so dead nutria authorities are expecting to wash up on the beaches.
As far as control plans go, New Orleans already has control officers in boats with rifles shooting nutria on sight. The problem is you can't shoot enough of them fast enough. Throwing some type of poison or gas into the holes the nutria burrows into earthen structures present another problem: the poison will somehow find a way to get into the water or will find its way into the air; it's a bigger threat to the human population than it is the nutria population. Nature taking its course means the nutria annihilate the wetlands before water, especially from tropical storms, annihilate them; this also means anyone living along the Louisiana coast has nothing between them and the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane. There's no easy way to fix a problem that has a 30 year running start.
When I saw the picture I thought that it was the left over delegates from the Republican National Convention.
People need to start wearing Nutria rat fur coats to help alleviate the out of control rodent population. Nutria fur coats are beautiful.
Clothe the masses and reduce the invasive rodent population at the same time.
It's the beging of the democratic convention,you can tell by the smell
Ireadyou-- Some folks down that way do make a living off of culling the nutria-- I think they get paid something like $5 per nutria though, not $20. Perhaps you could be a spokesperson for these fellahs and get them a raise.
When I was a young 'un, I was hired to trap gophers in the neighborhood. The farmer gave you $1 per pair of front feet, and the county matched it. For a kid, it was good money. Unfortunately, after trapping the ugly vermin, one had to kill it by breaking its neck, before harvesting the feet. I was skinny. Skeletally skinny. It took more than I had to jump on the shovel and break that neck. When I heard the gopher grind its teeth in pain, I was done trapping them, vermin or not. Money was not important when your dreams were filled with angry gophers seeking retaliation.
These hideous, corpulent beasts didn't ask to be put here; they were supplanted with the sole purpose of harvesting their fur, which I find reprehensible. How dare we be appalled at their existence?
It brings back to mind the existence of the Mongoose in Hawaii, which were introduced by the sugar plantation owners to control the rat population. The big problem is nobody thought the whole thing through. Rats are nocturnal, whereas the mongoose sleeps at night.
I lol'ed when I read this. choked on a grape I was eating. then I started coughing violently, inducing a seizure. Hit my head on my desk, and burned myself on hot coffee. but good post!
judging by the name, they sound rather nutritious. A pessimist sees 20,000 dead carcasses. An optimist sees 20,000 nutria-system meals.
Looks like another red state plague has been unleashed......... Maybe Rick Perry or Mike Huckaby can pray it away.
I just thought it was the early voters on the DNC side lining up
You need to be careful where you order a hamburger in Louisiana or Mississippi, you just might be getting a Nutria burger.
TO: IReadyou who wrote:
I hope you're talking about your "LOCAL gubmint" cause we ain't got no "nutria" to speak of in my State!
Being that you're talking about Armadillos, I'd tend to think you're talking about Texas.
Heck, if your Governor Rick Perry would pay $20 to $25 per nutria, that would be more than twice as much as Texas' regular workers make!
Remember what "honest jo" from Texas wrote:
You get about 100% on the "Yuck" factor.
TO: commonsensedude-1080861 who wrote:
In Mississippi, that would have to be a bunch of Republicans.
Really? What do you mean by we imported them? I didn't. Somebody else did. I'm sorry if you're appalled at my appalledness but...actually no...I'm not sorry. To heck with you.... Kill em. Kill em all.
I wonder how many were REPUBLICANS......lol
One of those swamp rats was supposed to speak at the DNC tonight! What a shame!
Were the rats registered to vote?
Liberals don't want them killed because they consider them to be sentient beings. Their best idea is to relocate them like they want to do to another rodent here in Colorado...the prairie dog.
Is this not a good thing. At least the tree rats were saved.
Can't be any worse than eating SPAM.
spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM...WONDERFUL SPAM!
What a waste of protein.
The new Republican Buffet
With the price of ammunition these days who can afford to plug all these little goobers!
@Patches
Spam, spam, spam, eggs, spam, spam. Or there's spam, spam, spam, spam, sausage, spam, toast, and spam. Or there's the Spam Special which is Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam, and spam with spam.
Spaaaaaaam! Oh wonderful Spaaaam!
Thank you for making my day!
My God they're huge!
Disgusting" fact is tho other, species survival rate is much higher than ours.
Sure thought it was about the DNC.... then I read the article & discovered it was......
I had to read this, somebody told me this was republicans from Texas swimming from Tampa, trying to get back to Texas, and they drowned!!! LOL
OBAMA/BIDEN....2012!!!!
Actually, there was a $5 bounty paid for nutria tails in many areas for a long time. The first thing through my mind when I read the headline was, "Someone is going to have one hell of a payday!"
You can put the honey badger on the invasive species list, but honestly, I don't think he gives a sh*t.
:)
Louisiana does offer a $5 per tail bounty to those registered in the program. A pelt is still worth about $3-$4 too so close to $10 apiece is possible. It definitely is supplemental income for folks there. The State program paid out $2.2 million in bounties a couple years ago to a little over 300 registered participants. That's an average of a bit over $7,000 for each.
I think when you get right down to it, hunting or trapping them is a pretty fair amount of work in the swamp. Their population is probably a couple million or so and they replenish themselves pretty quickly. They say the meat is very low cholesterol and actually pretty healthy, but I don't believe it is really very tasty. Said to be a red meat that tastes similar to rabbit, but not particularly tender. Stews and slow cooker type recipes mainly. I'm guessing it is one of those "acquired taste" kind of things. They are plant eaters but live in some pretty skanky water, which probably doesn't help the taste much.
They exist in a number of States including parts of the Midwest around the Great Lakes, but thrive in the Gulf States. Kind of like a muskrat, but bigger and tend to be pretty shy so catching them isn't as easy as it sounds. There was a time when they were pretty much kept in check by fur trappers but as fur has lost favor, the price you get for a pelt is pretty low. The bounty came in as an effort to control them as trapping them for fur declined.
Mr. Binkie,
They can get pretty big, however those in the pictures appear bloated from decomposition. Sitting in the sun and decomposing they will generate gas inside and blow up like a balloon under pressure. When they pop, it's going to get pretty disgusting really quick. They will sit there building pressure, and then when disturbed they'll go off like a bomb. Probably why the clean up crews taking care of these tend to quit. I've seen road kill deer do that too. Some county road crews cover them up with a big pile of sand and dirt on the side of the road and then come back to clean them up days later once the pressure has been released. Nature can get pretty nasty sometimes. I've raised game birds and have seen eggs sitting in the sun looking normal but rotting inside building up pressure and all of a sudden go off with a loud pop like an M-80 firecracker, the stench will bring tears to your eyes and make you gag in about a second.
@ saxon, post 1.1
Where did you get your info? Do you also have imaginary friends?
confussed-1578...: from the louisiana dept. of natural resources, the sierra club, and ducks un-limited (they also eat duck eggs).
It sounds like a good ending to a "Willard" movie. Ben makes his escape for another sequel, while Willard gets trapped on a Caymen island with no food. Rats!
Well Devil's Son: It's Louisianna that wants the Nutrias controlled to save the swamps. <--Twas in the article. Louisianna is a sovereign state < -- they teach that in school ! So if there's gonna be any hiring to whack Nutria's the interested party is gonna have to do it <-- that's common sense. Since you can't read and comprehend, didn't go to school and have no common sense, I figure you are a dummy. But you are free to spew hate text. Have a nice day !
Here's a thought. Pop them BEFORE you pick them up (like with a kid's BB gun.) Dump saw dust (or something similar to what the school janitor poured over vomit before cleaning it up) over them to mask the odor and then start scooping them up with shovels.
As I said in my post, New Orleans is already doing that and they can't shoot enough of them fast enough. The New Orleans control officers are doing the hunts at night with high powered rounds and silencers. You have to use a substantial round to drop one of these things permanently. For shooting to make a dent, you need to up the rate of fire; basically, it's "see nutria, put wall of lead on the general location of nutria" and you have to hope there's more than one nutria in that location or you're just dumping bullets into the water. The other drawback to using high rate of fire guns is that it will be a non-stop disturbance to local residents; it would sound like 1814 all over again.
Gag me with a rat.
A 22 long will drop them and it's the Jefferson Parish SWAT team members periodically shooting them in the canals in Kenner (NO suburb) at night with a light.
The meat is good to eat but there is no market to speak of.
Another trick CSI's and death scene clean up people do is to put a little Vicks in each nostril
@rodentwarrior
Sarah is referring to the already dead rodents, not live ones that need to be exterminated.
Where the hell is Ted Pugent and Hank williams when you need them. One song from the redneck duo and they would all be dead
@uaw
Watch what you say about Hank. The Nuge can go to hell, though.
Hank is a piece of rotting garbage
A high powered round for a glorified rat? Come on...if you're a horrible shot, a high powered round may offer you some solace---you can miss vitals and still do incredible damage but you still gotta hit the target---otherwise a .22 would suffice plenty. Please don't make the mistake of trying to shoot an animal in water. The water will break even a .50 cal into small fragments a few inches into the water. If you don't believe me check out a little science on Mythbusters where they tested what water does to bullets.
Who said Mississippi was a poor state. Throwing away all that good food! West Virginia eat your heart out.
If it's started to smell it's no good for eating. Basic rule of survival. If it doesn't smell, decomp hasn't set in yet, it's still ok. If it's started to smell, don't touch it.
Heh - West Virginia would probably prefer to.
Amanda-2017567, Want to make a redneck meat run? That's where you drive to town with a can of orange spray paint. Every roadkill you see you paint a circle around. On the way home anything without an orange circle around it is fresh meat.
sad thing is that some people here in WV would probably eat them drowned or not
Nasty...
That certainly cut down on that rodent population, don't think we'll be heading to any casinos for awhile. Ugghhhh
That's some good eatin' going to waste there.
dang it. beat me to it.
If it smells that means decomposition has started and it won't be good anymore, don't eat it unless you want to get sick!
Could always haul them all out into the middle of the Gulf and sink them, I'm sure there are plenty of fish and sharks who would enjoy that meal...
Good road kill with some mustard and tabasco.
Send them over to Charlotte and let all the 99%'s go at it !
Send them to north korea for food, lol
eek
Just burn the carcasses which will kill the bacteria and neutralize the smell. Why use a landfill which could contaminate ground water ?
Landfills are encapsulated with liners nowadays to collect all leaching water so it can be treated, unlike the old 'dump' of yesteryear.... plus groundwater aquifers are much deeper.
I expected this to be a sight around the Jersey coast with that wretched show Jersey Shore being cancelled.
Too funny!
Gotta hand it to PETA. I guess their "no fur" movement is having an effect....albeit not quite what they intended!
Maybe they should launch a nuter and spay program for all these Nutrias.
Or euthanize them all like they do for puppies and kittens taken to their "shelters".
Seems pretty easy to take care of with a front loader and a decent driver who knows how to skim.
PETA will do what they always do. . . . issue some moronic statement about the welfare and mistreatment of these poor rodents while sitting in their air conditioned offices in Norfolk, VA. Probably blame it on the NRA this time.
No, blackshirts, you're wrong. George Bush is to blame. Regards-
-Mike
Put them on the endangered species list and you'll have poachers catching thousands of them.
Say, Paw, looks like we gotta order some more o' that Roadkill Helper.
Hey, don't worry! Eventually, the Burmese pythons will take care of the nutria problem...
They're best if cooked on a rotisserie or in a pit set. Taste similar to dog or cat only a bit sweeter. Yeah, thanks to PETA we got some good scherds (schools/herd's as we call em) of them down here in the south. Kind of allows our deer stocks to build back up. They're easy kills, easy to hang and dress out. Make some fine jewelry from the teeth...yessiree.
My Mom had a beautiful nutria coat, BTW. Why not catch the varmits and put the skins to use? Peta, which I respect and agree with to an extent, will have to get over it and realize this is a health hazard. Startup small business!
Easy fix: relocate a few of those pythons from the Everglades that do not belong there to the Miss. and LA. Gulf Coast, no problem anymore.We already know they can whip a gator, so let them swim in the gulf see how they do with sharks
Only good rats are dead rats.
Amen, Klondiko. I agree with you 100%. :-)
The difference between a rat and a squirel is the bushy tail.
i have heard that before Devils son , but the only animal i know that will go down a tree head first is a squirrel.
Export the meat to China as an additive in something else we sell them. Much like the tainted dog food, baby formula, etc. that they send to the US. Like to shove that shi+ right down their throats.
Don't mention this to the RNC, they will have them on School Lunch menus: See it now, Nutria Burgers, better than Manna from Heaven...Little Sea Cows for the Free lunchers...
Give the fresh kills of them to North Korea along with any dog or cat that spends 180 days in a shelter.
You may have hit on the solution right there, only we should just start a rumor that nutria meat and teeth are aprodisiacs. Let the Chink poachers have at 'em.
Oooh, can I say that?? >:D
Barf-o-rama dude, wow, was all that detail necessary? Pop pop fizz fizz oh what a smell it is.
Nothing a little ketchup wouldn't cure.
I thought southerns ate everything and anything. I'm sure someone down there has a vision for rat stew, rat pie, rat ratatoue, etc. All those southerns with stories of their grand-daddies killing and bringing home nutria for grandma to clean and cook. Surely bobby jindal has a story or two, his people are from India, and those people eat anything!
So if someone is from the South they would eat these? So you are telling us that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter eat rats....wow now I believe it.
De2: Your ignorance shines like a diamond in a goat's ass. Shame your edumacation is so very limited! Rver heard of anyone retiring to the north? We, in the SOUTH, recognize our problems and we aim to fix 'em when we can. Yet some folks such as youself would suck a mule's ass thinking it a morning glory. Now you think about these terms and down home sayings and realize you have messed in your cook pot. Get the point!
Not really. Most Indians are vegetarians.
Not even remotely. Is that some form of English you are speaking?
nice try, nutria are a recently introduced specie.
dont see why not. they ate groundhog up north during the depression
some word salad with your nutria?
Can we hire isaac to do just that?
I remeber watching an old episode of "Insomiac" with Dave Attel, he rode around with a local SWAT team around 2 am or so while the team sniper practiced by shooting those things with a .22 rifle from the back of the truck. apparently they just cant kill those things fast enough.
Well as the article states, females are ready for breeding at 4 months and 48 hrs AFTER giving birth to a litter. That is freakin insane. Most locals will use the nutria as target practice or any other use they can find them for to try to ease the numbers, but since the females are ready to breed in such a short period of time, it's hard to keep the population under control. I love that nature comes up with some sort of remedy, despite the destruction that comes with such a storm.
Every cloud has a silver lining.... Isaac has created some jobs picking up these nutria. Finally Obama has something to brag about....
That's part of his jobs program: with the wind energy initiative, a few million wind turbines in the Gulf could easily generate a hurricane, sending a surge of water inland. AlGore could invent a new energy "internet" to take the electricity to our cities on transmission lines built by their union cronies as well as build "fur factories" for the new middle class, you know, those folks gathered around the kitchen table celebrating the new normal of not having a job but still getting paid by the government, which makes me think: "Yeah! I am better off today than I was 4 years ago!" Shoot, back then a man had to actually go farther than his own mailbox to get his paycheck!
HOLY CRAP! Skeeter & Imusfan are you two related or just a genetic accident? You 2 are the reason the GOP is having trouble winning an election they should own hands down. And I am certain Skeeter then you are the recipient of some Government money or program in your life and if you are not you might want to call 1-800-LAWYER! You definitely have a case against the Education department of whatever backwater outhouse county yo' daddy was the sheriff of.
Shovel ready jobs.
soon to be in a stew pot near you
Hazardous waste? Jeez, have Americans gotten pussified or what?
Uh....have you ever gone along areas to pick up rotting, bloated bodies of any animal to have it burst open all over the place, including all over your clothes and exposed skin? Not many people can handle something like that, especially when you have the smell of rotting flesh filling the air from so many of them bursting open with even gentle nudging.
Ever gone under a house to haul out a 20 pound dead cat? That's like perfume compared to thousands of nutria.
I used to work with the road commission in Louisiana back in the 80's. The boss volunteered us to bury dogs that were hit by cars and died on the side of the road. On a hundred degree day you really hated to pull up on a big dog with its legs sticking straight out. One touch and it would pop and turn into a meat juice and maggot soup. Sorry, I think I just threw up in my mouth again...
YES. HIGHLY PUSSIFIED.
When you go out to clean up carcasses you better be prepared for some nasty stuff. Nasty, rotten flesh, bugs, and birds swarming around. If you have a weak stomach, don't bother. Wear your "monkey suit" (protective clothing) gloves (elbow length) respirator and some vicks vapor rub incase you get stuck downwind without your mask. Other than that, it ain't nothin but a thing.
I just think it's so flipping hilarious that the report was done by WLOX. Lox? Like in "bagels and...?" Lox is cold-smoked salmon, like uncooked...?
Am I the only one who thinks that's funny?
Musta been that joint; I couldn't even finish it. Thank GOD for the MMJ laws in this state.
Marijuana is safer than EVERY prescription or over-the-counter pain-killer.