Measure takes aim at marsh-eating nutria

Louisiana’s fight against nutria could become a national one under a bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.

The bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, would broaden the scope of the Nutria Eradication and Control Act to include all states — not just Louisiana and Maryland, where the invasive, orange-toothed rodent has eaten away coastal marshes for decades.

Nutria have spread far beyond the Gulf of Mexico and East Coast and are now destroying wetlands in Oregon and California.

If approved by the Senate and signed by the president, the bill would also triple the amount of federal money available to fight the spread of nutria. The federal government currently budgets $4 million each year to support nutria hunting and trapping programs. The bill would make $12 million available each year until 2025.

Nutria are one of many factors contributing to rapid land loss along Louisiana's coast. The major causes include oil and gas exploration, sea level rise, soil subsidence and the loss of replenishing sediment since the Mississippi River was brought under control with levees.

Gnawing away the roots of marsh plants, nutria leave little to hold the fragile landscape in place. More than 40 square miles of Louisiana’s coast have been turned into open water by nutria over the past two decades, according to the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

"Think about this: Nearly 4.5 million people live in Louisiana, yet we have an estimated 20 million nutria … 20 million!" Graves, whose district includes northern Terrebonne and Lafourche, said in a House speech. "It's an extraordinary figure. If we could count them in the census, Louisiana would pick up an additional 27 members of Congress. We’re having infestation without representation and we need to do something about it."

The Wildlife and Fisheries Department recently increased the nutria bounty from $5 to $6 for each of the animals killed in the state. The move was an attempt to reverse recent declining participation in the bounty program. During the 2016-17 trapping and hunting season, the number of nutria catches fell by 38 percent.

Hunters participating in Louisiana's nutria-hunting program during the last season collected about 223,000 tails — barely 1% of the state's estimated nutria population.

Smaller than beavers but larger than muskrats, nutria are native to South America. In the 1930s, the fur industry imported them as a new source of pelts for coats and hats. Some nutria escaped, and many more were released after the fur industry declined.

The state has been unsuccessful in reviving interest in nutria fur. Efforts to promote nutria meat in restaurants have also failed.

Local impact

During 2018-19, the latest nutria trapping season on record:

-- 223,155 nutria tails worth $1.1 million in incentive payments were collected from 241 active participants across Louisiana.

-- Terrebonne Parish turned in the most tails (51,960), followed by Plaquemines (39,657), St. Mary (31,257) and Lafourche (19,458).

-- The state estimates just under 15,000 acres across its coast had been damaged by nutria last season. Among parishes surveyed, Terrebonne showed the most damage, with 3,319 acres damaged.

Source: Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Department