How Chesapeake Bay's nutria were eliminated by wildlife specialists

 By DANA HEDGEPETH, The Washington Post

They have large, orange teeth that resemble beavers and flat noses. They resemble scruffy, oversized rats. On the Delmarva Peninsula, which spans along the beaches of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, there are creatures known as nutria that have decimated thousands of acres of marshes.

Wildlife specialists have declared triumph in eliminating the invasive species from coasts along the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay following a two-decade, $30 million operation to catch and kill it.

About 14,000 invasive nutria had multiplied in the Delmarva area, a 170-mile stretch that crosses the three states, so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service teamed up with several organisations, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, along with 700 landowners. They also employed trained trappers and wildlife experts to kill the nutria.

Seven years after the last nutria was killed by capture, scientists have finally declared the species extinct, at least temporarily. There are concerns that nutria may return to areas of central Maryland from southern Virginia locations around the James River where they have been seen.

Nevertheless, due of its size and success in getting rid of such a troublesome, destructive rodent, experts say the eradication operation stands out as a wildlife achievement.

According to Trevor A. Michaels, who oversaw the nutria eradication initiative for USDA Wildlife Services, "it's a rare success story for an invasive species." "Nutria are notoriously difficult to handle, and they are quite difficult to get rid of."

Nutria, also known as Myocastor coypus, are detrimental to ecosystems and are frequently referred to as the "menace of the marsh." In contrast to muskrats, which only eat the tops of plants, nutria are notorious for consuming entire plants, including stems and roots. They weigh about 20 pounds and live in burrows along rivers, lakes, and streams in marshlands.

The marsh will soon run out of food and habitat for other species, such as fish, oysters, and crabs, as well as for birds like egrets and herons. Additionally, plant roots serve as a barrier to stop storm surges from spreading too far inland and assist minimise erosion in marshes, according to wildlife experts. Wetlands around the Delmarva Peninsula were at more danger due to an increasing nutria population and sea level rise.

According to researchers, nutria may have once provided some economic advantage to the Mid-Atlantic region, but since they are not native to the region, they have caused too much environmental harm.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's refuge manager at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, located close to Cambridge, Maryland, Marcia Pradines Long, explained that nutrients were harming plants that are essential to marsh health and the plants couldn't regenerate quickly enough.

She said that once the grasses are gone, the marshes and all of the local wildlife also go.

The Delmarva Peninsula's marshlands, which are crucial habitats for waterfowl, spawning sites for striped bass and blue crabs, and nesting grounds for threatened or endangered species like the salt marsh sparrow and the black rail, were badly harmed by Nutria.

Nutria, which originated in South America, were brought to the Delmarva region in the 1940s and bred for their meat and fur. They are an issue in some areas of Louisiana and North Carolina as well. Trapping and harvesting them for their fur was previously profitable since they are simple to breed.

But many of them were released or fled into the wild as nutria fur lost its popularity. According to scientists, trappers had little motivation to catch them, but because they breed quickly and lack any local predators, their number soared. About three times a year, Nutria reproduce, and a female can give birth to up to 14 young in a single litter.

There was nothing stopping their proliferation since they reproduced so well and there are no natural predators in our ecosystem to get rid of them, according to Michaels. "They were just passing away from old age or from the bitter winters."

At Blackwater, they proliferated and destroyed around 5,000 acres of wetlands.

In a swamp, nutria damage is simple to see. According to Michaels, it appears to be a field that has been rototilled. In Maryland's Chesapeake Bay region, nutria caused $5.8 million in environmental, economic, and other damages, according to a 2004 study.

In order to address the issue along the Delmarva, specialists started a long-term strategy in 2002. They instal traps to catch and kill the rodents after using highly trained canines to track them by detecting them through their scat. Officials utilised monitoring collars to kill the remaining nutria after the majority of them had been eliminated to make sure they hadn't missed any smaller groups.

They will seek them other out in areas with low numbers since they are quite social, according to Michaels. They got several nutria alive, had them fixed up, and put GPS monitoring collars on them.

According to Michaels, "They performed precisely what we were hoping they would do." We had overlooked smaller populations, which they guided us to.

Saving the Hay's Spring amphipod, an endangered species in Washington,

According to wildlife experts, the last nutria in the Delmarva region was killed and caught in 2015. After that, they kept an eye on the region to make sure the nutria were gone before announcing this autumn that they had been completely eliminated from the Delmarva Peninsula.

Scott Barras, the state director of the USDA's Wildlife Services programme in Virginia, noted that following the success on the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay, there is now concern that nutria, which have recently been spotted in the Tidewater region of Virginia, could come up the western side of the bay and reinvade Maryland. In Virginia, there is a drive to pursue a similar massive eradication operation.

After putting in a lot of effort to eliminate them on one side, Barras remarked, "you may get a left hook from them on the other side."

A reinfestation via Virginia, according to Michaels, would be detrimental: "We spent $30 million and 20 years trying to get rid of them. We do not want to forfeit that victory.

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