Nutria
     
 

Arrival:
Nutria are native to South America. People here started nutria "farms" in nearly two dozen states during the 1930s and 1940s. They hoped to sell these muskrat-like animals for food and fur products. Nutria soon turned up in the wild. They spread throughout southern states along the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, in Florida and Texas, wildlife managers actually released nutria on purpose. They hoped the rodents would eat weeds that were clogging up waterways.
  Attack: Millions of dollars is what nutria farmers hoped to earn by selling nutria meat and fur. Instead, today we just have millions of nutria! As it turns out, people in the U.S. don't much like to eat or wear nutria, so it doesn't sell. But nutria sure like living in U.S. waters. They have helped to clear out water weeds as hoped in certain areas. However, nutria also have affected wildlife activity in many wetlands. Nutria munch on all sorts of wetland plants. In fact, nutria "eat outs" can basically strip wetlands of all their green stuff. This causes problems for muskrats, waterfowl, bald eagles, crabs, oysters and other wetland animals. Nutria also feast in farm fields and cause flooding by tunneling everywhere.