{"id":523366,"date":"2026-04-10T13:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/523366\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:20:11","slug":"someone-may-have-maliciously-caused-a-huge-rodent-invasion-in-calif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/523366\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone may have maliciously caused a huge rodent invasion in Calif."},"content":{"rendered":"

For years now, California has been waging war on\u00a0nutria,<\/a> a highly destructive\u00a020-pound rodent<\/a> native to South America that poses a serious threat to fragile wetlands and endangered species. And now, wildlife officials say it\u2019s possible that someone intentionally reintroduced them.<\/p>\n

According to an April 7<\/a> news release from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, genetic sequencing has revealed that the state\u2019s\u00a0nutria populations<\/a> are most genetically similar to populations in Oregon, suggesting that, \u201cCalifornia\u2019s current nutria invasion was the result of intentional reintroduction, with the original source animals likely being transported from the central Oregon population.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the height of the fur trade in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nutria were bred throughout the world, and were first imported to Oregon in 1937<\/a>, according to\u00a0a paper based on the study, published in November 2025. Eventually, feral populations flourished, leading to eradication campaigns. As a result, none of these burrowing rodents were documented in the state of California after they were pronounced eradicated in the 1970s \u2014 but in 2017, officials discovered a pregnant female nutria in Merced County.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven where nutria were rediscovered in California, it is nearly impossible that they could have migrated there on their own,\u201d Michael Buchalski,\u00a0Fish and Wildlife wildlife genetics research lead, told\u00a0SFGATE by email Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s too far of a distance and we don\u2019t find any nutria in the areas in between. That makes human introduction the most likely scenario.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to harvesting their pelts during the fur trade, people also treated nutria as a form of vegetation control much like sheep or goats, Buchalski said. \u201cSomeone may have thought they could be an effective natural way to manage aquatic vegetation on their private property,\u201d he said. \u201cAlso, some people just really like nutria. … Or it could have been malicious in hopes that they would cause environmental damage. It\u2019s hard to know.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

People are prohibited from bringing nutria into California and they present a\u00a0biosecurity risk since they\u2019re classified as an A-rated pest<\/a> by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The 2.5-foot-long\u00a0semiaquatic rodents pose a serious threat to fragile wetlands and crops, and burrow so much that they even have the capacity to \u201cweaken levees to the point of failure,\u201d agriculture officials previously told SFGATE.<\/p>\n

Today, eradication efforts cost the state about $5 million annually, with the state Department of Food and Agriculture operating over a dozen vehicle inspection stations at state entry points as a \u201cfirst line of defense<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study supports our long-held belief that the current invasion is the result of reintroduction rather than explosive growth of a remnant, undetected population,\u201d Nutria Eradication Program Manager Valerie Cook said in the April 7 news release. \u201cWhile we can only speculate on the \u2018reasoning\u2019 behind the reintroduction of this incredibly destructive invasive species, these findings highlight the critical importance of\u00a0biosecurity inspections aimed at preventing the importation and transportation of invasive plants and animals into and within California.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years now, California has been waging war on\u00a0nutria, a highly destructive\u00a020-pound rodent native to South America that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,178862,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-523366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-sfgnews","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom","13":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523366","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=523366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}