GRGR(3) - Nutria

[David Morris]

Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
[snip]
>>Roger says his
>>mother is the war, but he says the same thing of others,
>>including "dear old Nutria."

Doug Millison:
>If I remember correctly from my now too-long-ago southwest
>Louisiana childhood, the nutria is a pest species that was
>introduced from somewhere else and went on to dominate the
>ecosystems -- a sort of nouveau upstart upsetting the local
>social balance, you might say. When I was a boy, my friends
>and I used to take our .22 rifles out and shoot them from the
>levees -- big, slow-moving, much easier to hit than squirrels.
>They look like big rats (rats the size of cats). Frodeaux will
>have seen one more recently than I. Nutria have always been
>trapped and eaten by the Cajuns who, like the Cantonese, will
>eat just about "anything with four legs except the table, anything
>that flies except an airplane" -- when you start with a roux and
>a decent bouillon it's hard to go wrong no matter what you put
>in later. I heard sometime in the past few months that there is
>yet another campaign on to make the nutria attractive as another
>gourmet "just like chicken" delight, let the Market do what Nature
>hasn't been able to do in thinning out the rank ranks.
[snip]

They ARE considered pests down here, although the New Orleans triple-A
baseball team, the Zephyrs, has one as its mascot, named Boudreaux.  Their
colonies pose a serious threat to our levy system, the only thing keeping
the Mighty Mississippi out of our livingrooms.  Nutria tunnels are turning
them levies to swiss cheese.  About two years ago our flamboyant (w/ a John
Wayne swagger) Chinese-American sheriff, Harry Lee, authorized his men to go
out w/ rifles to pick 'em off at will, a popular move, except w/ certain
animal-rights folk.

A-and in the face of Chinese flooding the US market w/ tons of cheap
crawfish (now subject to a heavy tax), Louisiana began to open up trade to
China of "gourmet" Nutria, which THEY don't find disgusting.