Nutrias, Nutrias, Everywhere…
15 02 2008My latest obsession is the (I think) adorable Nutria, with its fat little body and Cheetos-orange chompers. They can grow to be two feet long, three and a half feet if you count their tail!
Nutrias, as you may well know, were brought to North America from South America by furriers. During a ferocious storm, some of the nutrias escaped their cages and have been proliferating across the continent ever since. Although some people claim nutrias make wonderful, docile pets, and others claim they make for delicious bbq, most consider them an “invasive species” as their ravenous appetites and lack of natural predators cause them to destroy many wetlands and river banks.
All I know is…if I didn’t live in a tiny Chicago apartment, I would totally want one! Read this one fella’s blog about his nutria pets, it’s too cute: Riverlogue
For more nutria info:
National Invasive Species Information Center
Lol, we have that too, in the middle of the town… They’re at the same time quite cute and quite scary
I wrote about them the other day.
haha that’s awesome. my geography teacher said that one problem environmentalists have with getting support for environmental protection of some parts of south american wilderness is the fact that much of the wildlife is giant rodents…