California is facing a serious threat from invasive nutria, which are damaging wetlands and levees. Wildlife biologists are working to eradicate the rodents.
This April 18, 2019, photo provided by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife shows a nutria in Merced County, Calif. With $10 million in state funding, the Department of Fish and Wildlife is preparing to deploy new tactics in its efforts to eradicate nutria. Strolling atop levees at Grizzly Ranch in the Suisun Marsh, south of Fairfield, wildlife biologist Robert Eddings stops in front of a brackish pond. Unlike most of the surrounding wetland, this pond stays flooded all year.
Its lush green cattails make it a haven for waterfowl and an irresistible feast for invasive nutria — housecat-sized, semi-aquatic rodents with bright orange teeth.Indeed, this pond is where the first nutria at Grizzly Ranch were found in 2023. Native to South America, nutria are elusive, burrowing inside of levees during the day and emerging at night to devour marsh plants. “They cut cattails at the bottom and lay them over, like you took an edge trimmer ,” Eddings said. The animals’ destructive eating habits, combined with the fact that their burrows can weaken levees, means that nutria pose a serious threat to this precious remnant of California’s once-extensive wetlands. That’s why wildlife biologists and landowners across the state are on the lookout for nutria, reporting all sightings to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which has a unit dedicated to their eradication. Since 2017, the Nutria Response Team has caught and killed more than 5,000 animals — and the stakes are high. The rodents reproduce quickly, and as their population grows, eradication gets more difficult. If nutria gain a solid foothold, minimizing damage to the state’s wetlands could cost California millions of dollars each year. California Waterfowl Association regional manager Robert Eddings points to a section of marshland where nutria have been discovered and trapped at Grizzly Ranch in unincorporated Suisun, Calif., on Thursday, No
NUTRIA INVASIVE SPECIES WETLANDS CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT
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