WHAT is a onearth RODEO NUTRIA

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text by AUDREY MCDONALD ATKINS photos courtesy DOY LEALE MCCALL RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY

Begun by the Mobile County Wildlife and Conservation Association in 1958, the Nutria Rodeo was a concerted effort to rid the MobileTensaw Delta of an invasive, semiaquatic rodent that was decimating the native marsh grasses, much to the chagrin of the area’s duck and rabbit hunters as well as ecologists.

Nutria are native to South America and look sort of like a beaver with a rat’s tail, webbed feet and long, bright orange front teeth. And while they are not necessarily the prettiest animal in the wild kingdom, they do have thick, dark brown fur with a soft gray undercoat. And it’s because of this fur, which was very desirable for

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coats and other fashion accessories in the early 1900s, that nutria were brought to the United States. As the story goes (and it is a story due to conflicting accounts), sometime in the 1930s, Tabasco founder E.A. McIllhenny brought several nutria to Avery Island, Louisiana from Argentina to farm for their fur. But we can’t lay the blame squarely on his shoulders — others tried to capitalize on this fashion trend as well. Of course, some of the nutria escaped and some were set free around 1939 and, as destiny would have it, in 1940, a tremendous hurricane hit Louisiana, destroying a number of the nutria enclosures and letting a hundred or more loose.