Huge Ass Rats have invaded Seattle.
Picture a rat crossed with a beaver, then slap on a name that sounds like a health-food cereal and you’ve got Seattle’s newest invader. It’s nutria, a bucktoothed rodent so pervasive in the nation’s Southeast that folks swap recipes for the voracious foreign pests, which have destroyed thousands of acres of wetlands.
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The semi-aquatic, chocolate-colored rodents have snuck up on local wildlife managers and residents, likely mistaken for beavers, muskrat or otters in the past. Also called coypu, or swamp rats, the South American natives can eat one-quarter of their weight a day, powering down crops and plants of all varieties. They can weigh more than 20 pounds and burrow through marshes and levies. Females are able to produce more than a dozen offspring a year.
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In the 1930s and ’40s, the rodents were raised in Washington and elsewhere for their fur pelts. While some animals escaped or were released, it’s believed that they died out of the Puget Sound region over the years. Native to warmer climes, nutria are vulnerable to cold snaps and flooding. Nationally, they’re found in at least 15 states, including Louisiana, Texas, the Carolinas, Florida, Maryland and Oregon.
What the article doesn’t say, but what those readers who’ve spent any time in a certain park in Salem will know, is that HAR are aggressive, mean little bastards too. The CEO has a two pronged approach planned for any future dealings with Mr. or Ms. Nutria, involving hollowpoints and a hockey stick. And then I might make a hat out of the little dear. Take that, vermin!
