The Fashionable Water Rat

Perhaps, post-Christmas exchange of sensible socks and underwear, you feel cheated out of bling. An NPR story points the way to a remedy both practical and posh: purchasing a wrap made from an invasive species. Elizabeth Shogren reported this week on the promotion of nutria pelts as a way to wear one's fur and save the environment too.

I had heard of nutria before this story and seen a few, which at first I mistook for a river otter, a very unappealing river otter. (Thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the above close-up.) The nutria, or coypu, looks like a cross between a beaver and a wolverine, with the wolverine winning the looks contest. The nutria seems to have a lollipop stuck in its mouth--its oversize orange incisors. It's a South American rodent introduced to other parts of the New and Old World for its fur. But a nutria stole never gained the cache of silver fox, mink, or ermine.  However, nutria have been very successful at crowding out other animals and destroying water plants. It's even thought that they contributed to the pre-Katrina damaging of Louisiana's water levees. In that state, there's a bounty on their heads--or tails. Back in 2002, the state hoped to kill about 400,000 (Richard Stewart, "Nutria Bounty a Boon for Longtime Trappers," Houston Chronicle 15 December 2002).
Too many nutria are still at large, in the view of environmentalists, and the bounty has increased from four to five dollars for an adult's tail. Biologist Edmond Mouton, quoted in the NPR story, believes that since 2002 about 20,000 acres of wetland have become open water. The beneficial marshlands have been gnawed away by those orange teeth. However, Mouton believes that the bounty program, with its take of 300,000 annually, has led to a "ninety percent reduction in damage by nutria."
Not that everyone is happy about eco-fur. I've seen no comment yet from cruelty-free designer Stella McCartney.
Online responses to these and other stories about nutria demonstrate the schism in human thinking about problem animals. Trappers stress the efficiency of traps and the quick death of a shot to the head; animal rights proponents emphasize that no leg trap is without suffering and that killing remains the "go-to" answer for problem animals. Like many rodents, nutria seem to be very effective breeders, so management of their numbers remains an ongoing challenge.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, fur was about the only way to keep warm in Northern climates. Then, not so very long ago in the eras of Rembrandt, Maria Antoinette, and Mad Men, it was de rigueur. (If you're a Marxist in a recycled coat, you could say oppression/exploitation of the underclasses, treated like rats, was also de rigueur.)  Rachel Carson, the prescient author of Silent Spring, purchased a mink coat as a rare indulgence during her struggles with negative publicity and with cancer. (It takes somewhere between 30 and 50 animals to make a mink coat.)

Feeling sexy with the soft brush of nutria against bare shoulders requires a suspension of disbelief. How cozy could you feel in Water Rat designs?