'Nutria Rodeo' bags 1,500 rodents in Plaquemine's Parish

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Revived 'Nutria Rodeo' bags 1,500 rodents

NOLA

It was a bad weekend to be a nutria in south Plaquemines Parish.

About 1,500 of the invasive, marsh-devouring rodents were shot and killed by a small army of hunters who descended on Venice on Friday and Saturday for the parish's newly revived Nutria Rodeo.

"Let's go shoot some rats and save the environment," Gabe Macormic, the rodeo’s organizer, said Friday as teams of hunters revved their airboats and took off into the sprawling marshlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The contest attracted about 200 hunters from across the Gulf Coast and as far away as Iowa. Cash prizes were given for the most kills and the heaviest single nutria.

“It was the most fun I’ve ever had,” said Jimmy Rimes, of Biloxi, Mississippi. "We felt like we did our public service"

Imported from South America nearly a century ago, nutria have thrived in Louisiana at the expense of the state’s fragile coastal marshes. Nutria gnaw away the roots of plants, leaving little to hold the landscape in place. More than 13,700 acres of coastal marsh were damaged by nutria last year, and more than 40 square miles of the coast have been converted to open water in recent decades, according to state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries estimates.

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 was brought under control with levees.

The state offers a $6 bounty for each nutria tail, but last year’s total of 246,000 represents about only 1% of the state's nutria population and isn’t close to the number of kills needed to curb the animal's explosive growth.

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