Nutria total down 24% from last year

It’s been an average year for nutria hunters, with 338,512 tails turned in for a $5 bounty on each. That’s about 24% down from last year’s record of 445,963, but very close to the average since a bounty was first put on nutria in 2002, according to analysis of figures at the Coastwide Nutria Control Program website. The semi-aquatic rodents, native to South America, reproduce faster than rabbits and eat roots, stems and leaves of the grasses that hold marshland together. When the bounty program started, officials estimated that killing at least 400,000 a year could keep them under control and avoid wholesale destruction of marshland. Last year’s November-to-June harvest was the first to meet the 400,000 goal—and marsh acreage destroyed by nutria was 58% less than the previous year’s estimated total. The damage total estimated in a 2009 survey was 20,332 acres; last year, it was 8,475. Higher water levels in late 2009 and early 2010 let hunters get into more nutria habitat and bring in bigger catches, Edmond Mouton, a biologist program manager with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, told The (Houma) Courier.