The invasive marshland rodent is wreaking havoc but California residents can do their part by catching and eating them, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says.

By Simon J. Levien The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a suggestion to help curb the growing population of an invasive species that bears a resemblance to a very large rat: Eat them.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has instructed residents of California to eat a certain rodent that has been called a "giant swamp rat" in efforts to protect the state's marshland.

As the demand for fur declined, nutria populations spread relatively unchecked, establishing populations primarily in marshes, wetlands, and coastal regions. Read Next: Hunting Nutria with the Rat ...

Since 2023 more nutria have been taken from Fresno County than any county in California, according to CDFW data. In the ...

Native to South America, the hunched bodied nutria with a round, nearly hairless tail and pentadactyl feet was brought to Oregon for fur farming in the 1930s. It began to escape captivity in the ...

Cooking up the swamp rats could be a solution to the growing ... Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Alligator & Fur Division. Per TPWD, nutria are considered nuisance fur-bearing animals ...

Much like how nutria showed up in Louisiana, nutria showed up in Texas in 1940s for fur farms. After the fur industry went belly up, many nutria farmers simply released their nutria into the wild. Not ...

EDIRNE, TURKIYE - FEBRUARY 08: A nutria, also known as coypus or swamp rats, swims a river in Edirne ... rodents were brought to the U.S. for the fur trade and now they’re devouring marshlands ...

The rodent is called a nutria, which is also known as a water rat. The large, semi-aquatic rodent is originally from South America and was brought to the U.S. in 1889 for its fur, according to the ...

When the nutria fur market collapsed in the 1940s ... “I'd eat a lot of things but I draw the line at Giant rats,” she wrote on Facebook. Nutria aren’t the only invasive species wildlife agencies have ...

Originally bred for a fur trade that collapsed in the 1940s, feral nutria populations have since spread to at least 16 states, including California, which declared the rodent eradicated in the 1970s.