Nutria bite into new territory, but overall Louisiana wetland damage down

A nutria on a Metairie canal bank, photographed Saturday, June 14, 2008. (John McCusker/The Times-Picayune archive)

Nutria are on the move, eating up marshes in three Louisiana coastal parishes that had been largely untouched by the invasive rodent for almost a decade. That's the bad news.

The good news is that the overall damage across 26 parishes has fallen by almost 10 percent over the past year, according to a draft annual report by the state's nutria control program. "Even though the number of damaged sites increased, the area decreased," said Catherine Normand, a Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist and the control program's manager.

"That was a surprise - a good surprise. We don't know why it's happening, but we'll take it."

Nutria, also known as swamp rats, are furry, plant-eating animals imported from South America during the 1930s. They proliferated in Louisiana's coastal marshlands, eating away the grass roots as their population grew.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2017/07/nutria_bite_into_new_territory.html