The Nutria, a South American Rodent, in Kansas

Abstract

A feral nutria, Myocastor coypus, was captured in the fall of 1945 in central Kansas. The animal was cornered by a dog near a pond on the 0. A. Dunn farm, along Peace Creek, twenty-four miles west and two miles north of Hutchinson, in Reno County. The nutria, a semiaquatic, South American rodent, which resembles our native muskrat in size and habits, has been reared in recent years on fur farms in the United States. Although nutrias have occasionally escaped from such fur farms and become established in the wild, we know of no fur farms with captive nutria or other fur bearers in this part of Kansas, nor of nutria elsewhere in the state. Feral nutrias have been recorded elsewhere in the United States, as in Montana (Jellison, Jour. Mamm., 26:432, 1945), Washington and Oregon (Larrison, Murrelet, 24:3, 1943), Louisiana (Lowery, Occas. Papers Mus. Zool., La. State Univ., no. 13:248, 1943), and New Mexico (Sooter, Jour. Mamm., 24:503, 1943). In France, the nutria escaped from fur farms after World War I and now has become established in the wild over much of that country (see Bourdelle, Jour. Mamm., 20:288, 1939). Laurie (Jour. Animal Ecol., 15:22-34, 1946) gives a full account of the nutrias in England, many of which escaped from fur farms abandoned at the start of World