The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) needs the general public to eat an invasive rodent known as the nutria—severely. To kick off Nationwide Invasive Species Consciousness Week, USFWS shared a put up about these animals and the harm they trigger to ecosystems wherein they’re not native. The company even proposes the next slogan for invasive species consciousness week: “Save a Swamp, Sauté a Nutria.”
The nutria (Myocastor coypus) is a large, semi-aquatic rodent native to South America. In america, nutria are invasive in at the least 20 states, the place they reproduce at a excessive fee and trigger “extreme harm” to vegetation and crops. The USDA says nutria could cause “everlasting harm” to marshes and different wetlands by feeding on native crops that maintain wetland soil collectively.
That’s why, apparently, we should always eat them. The USFWS says nutria meat tastes like rabbit or the darkish meat of a turkey.
“EAT ME! Please? I’m invasive and scrumptious,” wrote the USFWS in a current put up to kick off Nationwide Invasive Species Consciousness Week. “These invasive pests have been introduced right here for his or her fur and started to flee captivity again within the Nineteen Forties. Their nonstop munching and burrowing destroy the crops that maintain marshes steady, resulting in erosion, lack of habitat, and wetlands that appear like one thing out of a catastrophe film. [. . .] In case your state has nutria, test your native rules to see the foundations for the way to hunt, seize after which in the end, cook dinner these nuisance critters.”
See the USFWS’s put up about why folks ought to eat nutria right here:
Header picture of a nutria at Anahuac Nationwide Wildlife Refuge by Kathleen Moore through USFWS Fb put up.