![\""It](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dfe058e5e636617800cb5a3f8206520f.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nJapanese people are known worldwide for incredibly inventive cuisine, and they are introducing a new wild game into their dining habits.<\/p>\n
The invasive nutria has been a headache for farmers for decades, but some savvy chefs have shown that it can serve a savory purpose.<\/p>\n
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Photo Credit: iStock<\/p>\n
“In an unusual approach to pest control and sustainable food sourcing, Iwata officials have launched a project to turn nutria \u2014 a large, invasive rodent \u2014 into game meat for human consumption,” reported<\/a> Asahi.<\/p>\n “Native to South America, nutrias have damaged broccoli, rice, and other local crops since they were first spotted around Iwata in 2021.”<\/p>\n Efforts at eradication have been unsuccessful, so the directive is now to find a culinary use for this creature.<\/p>\n After trying a nutria sausage and tomato stew, Iwata Mayor Hiroaki Kusachi remarked: “It tastes great, and I see no issues with it as a marketable product. Instead of seeing these animals just as pests, we should explore ways to put them to good use. Doing so could also help promote a more sustainable, circular society.”<\/p>\n The local hunting association, the Japan Agricultural Co-operative (JA), and the Shizuoka Professional University of Agriculture have collaborated with the municipal government to create this solution and empower local citizens to embrace nutria as a new source of protein and flavor in their diets.<\/p>\n Hunters can trap and prepare nutria<\/a> easily using a regular small mammal trap. The animal is similar in size and appearance to beavers, an incredibly nutritious food source<\/a> that has been trapped for food and fur by indigenous peoples for millennia.<\/p>\n Nutria have become such a menace to the Japanese because they were never supposed to be in Japan. They are an invasive species that was introduced to Japan in the 1900s<\/a>. They were brought over from France for their fur and typically kept as pets.<\/p>\n “After World War II, the Japanese government promoted nutria breeding as a countermeasure to extreme food shortages,” said one study<\/a>, published in the journal Zoological Studies, about the animal’s invasion of Japan. “However, once the food problem was solved, demand for nutrias declined and escaped individuals became wild.”<\/p>\n It’s only natural that nutrias would return to their role as food and fur, especially now that they threaten agriculture with their herbivorous diet. Controlling their numbers will make a big difference in the health of the ecosystem.<\/p>\n Iwata has made a strong first step toward bringing back ecological balance and driving progress toward a cleaner, safer future for all.<\/p>\n Join our free newsletter<\/a> for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don’t miss this cool list<\/a> of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese people are known worldwide for incredibly inventive cuisine, and they are introducing a new wild game into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[6911,386,70351,90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-153310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-invasive-species","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-nutria","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom","15":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}