https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/can-california-eradicate-these-giant-invasive-rodents-from-its-wetlands/ar-AA1arBwG?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e9d36e2c6e65484eadb21a0f935b02dc&ei=12 Officials in California are looking to Maryland, which eradicated its last nutria in 2015 from the Chesapeake Bay region, for guidance. The Chesapeake Bay Nutria Eradication Project (CBNEP) removed over 14,000 nutria between 2000 and 2015. The state only recently announced that the state is free of the pest. The project lasted over 20 years. CBNEP employs multiple techniques as they work through the stages of eradication: conducting surveys to understand the extent of the population; removing the invasive rodents; verifying that that the nutria are gone; and finally, conducting long-term monitoring to prevent re-infestation. Eradication tools include ground surveys, shoreline or boat surveys, trail cameras, monitoring platforms, hair snares, and reports from the public.
USDA Wildlife Services also looks to innovative and new ways to search for this rodent – trained detector dogs sniff out nutria scat or excrement. Since the start of this innovative program, 6 nutria dogs have been trained.
