Giant Rat....................

[Dawg52]

Is this anything like the NY sewer rats I've heard about?

King of the rats weighed one tonne - Yahoo! News

 

[calmloki]

That's a bunch bigger than we have in Oregon now!



(ok, maybe those are Nutria that just look like rats...)

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Mmmmmm....Nutria!

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

oh, i thought this was going to be about someone i know.

 

[travelover]

Their little brothers still exist in South America.

Capybara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[W2R]

Mmmmmm....Nutria!

They eat them way down in deep Cajun country. Seriously, before I met Frank I dated a Cajun from way, way out in the bayous who had eaten them many times and he told me they were great. EWWWW!! They remind me of huge, fat, herbivorous rats.

When he offered to cook some up for me to eat, I told him, "Not on your life - - not this city girl!"

 

[mh]

Their little brothers still exist in South America.

Capybara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've heard that at a certain point in history
capybara's where declared a "fish"
by the vatican. This allowed one to eat them
on fridays

 

[mickeyd]

BBQ Nutria? MMMM good.

 

[martyb]

BBQ Nutria? MMMM good.

Last I heard, the state of Louisiana (where I live) was paying $4 per nutria tail hunters & trappers could bring in to an official LA Dept. of Fish & Game station. They're a huge nuisance down here and the state would like to eradicate them. So much so they have an official campaign to try to convince people they are tasty. I'll have to take their word for it. I'm not originally from LA, but been here 12 years. I've adapted to some of the cuisine, for instance I can really scarf down some mudbugs (boiled crawfish), gumbo, ettoufe, Meat Pies etc. Don't care much for alligator, and I'll be damned if I'm eatin' a nutria RAT!!!

 

[ladelfina]

A neighbor of ours told us about a nearby swampy area where there are a lot of nutria near us. Their latin name myocastor means "mouse beaver" and they do look like that.. We often see them squashed on the road that runs through there.

They were apparently the result of some private individual's ill-fated nutria-raising-for-fur experiment gone awry several decades ago, and now no-one can get rid of them. Besides eating a lot of vegetation, they also prey on native birds' eggs and young; (weighing up to 20 pounds) they don't really have any natural predators around here.

 

[Orchidflower]

Barf.

 

[martyb]

Besides eating a lot of vegetation, they also prey on native birds' eggs and young; (weighing up to 20 pounds) they don't really have any natural predators around here.

I've seen plenty of them that sure looked like they weighed more than 20 lbs. I spent lots of time on our many area lakes, see nutria all the time. I swear some of 'em look like they'd go twice that!

 

[ladelfina]

That was just an Italian statistic: 9-10 kilos/20-22 lbs.. maybe there's better eats in your parts..!

 

[Trek]

Probably have lots of those in Naples right about now.

Mass blood tests for Naples residents - Telegraph

 

[podey]

Being in NYC I though we had big rats! (You can see them on the subway tracks all the time). I had never heard of these nutria until this thread, I had to look them up on Wikipedia. That pic posted higher up of the guy holding two of them is a little creepy to me...

 

[W2R]

Being in NYC I though we had big rats! (You can see them on the subway tracks all the time). I had never heard of these nutria until this thread, I had to look them up on Wikipedia. That pic posted higher up of the guy holding two of them is a little creepy to me...

Listening to them munching is pretty creepy, too. They are herbivores and gluttons. They are always munching, munching, munching...

They live in the canals here in New Orleans. Often you can see them munching the grass in the neutral grounds (=medians) surrounding the canals, even on major streets. Munching, munching, munching....

It's no wonder that they are often hugely obese!

 

[calmloki]

Being in NYC I though we had big rats! (You can see them on the subway tracks all the time). I had never heard of these nutria until this thread, I had to look them up on Wikipedia. That pic posted higher up of the guy holding two of them is a little creepy to me...

That is a pic of our former next door neighbor with a brace of Nutria he pegged in his back yard one evening. For a number of months when we were working on this house i was doing them in at a rate of 2-3 per week. Not sporting - i'd live trap them, dump 'em in a big plastic trash can, and zap them with a .22. The garbage men had to hate me.... They have big curved orange front teeth - like 1-1 1/2", and Nutria scat is the stickiest, stinkiest stuff you'd ever regret stepping in. Really nice coats though, and not as ugly or durable as 'possums. Never had the desire to skin or eat one.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

And anyone thats watched "Feasting on Asphalt" will remember when Alton Brown mistook a stuffed porcupine for a nutria, after waxing on about the history of the nutria while a bunch of locals in the background stifled laughter...

 

[Purron]

Here's a map showing the distribution of Nutria.....

 

[brewer12345]

Map suggests I will be seeing them in NJ within 10 years. Hmmm, canoeing with a .22...

 

[Purron]

Map suggests I will be seeing them in NJ within 10 years. Hmmm, canoeing with a .22...

May be sooner than that if they hop aboard the Lewes/Cape May ferry.

 

[REWahoo]

I opened this thinking, "Damn, here we go with another political thread."

 

[brewer12345]

I opened this thinking, "Damn, here we go with another political thread."

Well, perhaps this will spark some political comment:

 

[Purron]

If my DH doesn't store test for fresh coffee, do I get to spank him?

 

[REWahoo]

If my DH doesn't store test for fresh coffee, do I get to spank him?

Hey, it's none of our business what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home...