Signs of an invasion were everywhere on a recent visit to the floating wetland islands at the Education Village. Plants had been devoured from the floating wetlands like they were buffet tables at SouperSalad. The students’ plantings along the shores of the stormwater pond were also missing. All around were footprints and scat from the prime suspect: nutria.
Ever seen a “beaver” with a rat tail and bright orange buck teeth? That’s a nutria, Myocastor coypus. It’s a destructive exotic species that was imported from South America for its plush waterproof fur after the native beaver populations were just about used up. There is an apocryphal story that E. A. McIlhenny , of Tabasco sauce fame, was one of the importers of nutria to Louisiana in the 1930’s. Inevitably, nutria escaped from the fur farms, or were set free, and their career as a major pest of North American wetlands and farms began.
Nutria eat plants–several pounds of wetland or crop plants per day–which they rapidly convert into babies. In a year, a female can have three litters of a dozen each–and become a grandmother. With all these nutria on the loose, why don’t we see them everywhere?
They’re nocturnal. Nutria spend their days underground in waterfront burrows. Occasionally they’ll be out in the late afternoon in parks where they’ve become accustomed to people. As this video shows, you can see them at the very urban Hermann Park in Houston, on the shores of the lake at dusk.
I know, I know. They’re cute.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Why not let them be? We can’t get wetlands established at the Education Village as long as nutria are there to eat the new transplants. Plus, they bring the risk of a nasty little complication called “marsh itch”.
Other than us humans, the main predator of nutria are large alligators. Unfortunately, alligators are probably not a feasible natural solution for the school campus. A plan to manage nutria (in other ways) may need to be a part of each of our stormwater wetland projects. I will meet soon with teachers at the school and the urban wildlife specialist at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to look at our options at this site.
In the meantime, I got a small bit of satisfaction by handing out a case of dog treats made with wild nutria from Louisiana!
This is not a nutria. This is Stormy dancing for a nutria dog treat.
Photo: Alex Nett Taylor
John Jacob
Steven Mikulencak
Charriss York
Watershed Texas 
Awesome post! Now I know why you bought the treats. J
Maybe if you show the nutria the bag of treats they may think twice about munching your beautiful wetland islands?
[…] make up for the damage caused by the nutria invasion last year, we replanted the floating wetlands as an experiment to see which species nutria would avoid. We […]
[…] is exactly what we’ve been working with at some of our stormwater wetland sites. The pest is nutria, a large invasive rodent with an appetite for most wetland plants. However, not all wetland plants, […]