tures that usually replicate what tourists can see for themselves: gloomy
shrouds, more of the stuff of ‘‘eco-pessimism.’’^15
tSome things never change, though, such as humans’ apparently irre-
sistible propensity to transport and transplant exotics. The phenomenon
was mentioned here in the Prologue, in reference to times long gone. More
recently, southerners have demonstrated continuity. Consider first two ani-
mals, the nutria and the monk parakeet, and then an otherworldly plant.
Nutria (Myocastor coypus) are semiaquatic rodents native to Argentina,
Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Smaller than beavers but larger than
muskrats, nutria adults average about twelve pounds in weight. They breed
year-round, and females require only days to produce litters averaging
. (but ranging up to ). They are herbivores estimated to consume a quar-
ter of their body weight each day. Nutria are also known to devour water
hyacinth, tempting some wetlands managers to introduce them in order
to reduce another introduced species. But nutria will eat virtually anything
herbaceous, including sugarcane seedlings and other farm crops, and be-
cause of their fecundity and voracity, their populations can cripple, even
destroy, wetlands’ cover.^16
During the s, nutria were purposefully introduced into Louisiana to
develop a ‘‘fur farming industry.’’ The state government cooperated by list-
ing the creature as a protected species. Before the decade was out, some had
escaped—or were released—and in the bayous their numbers grew pro-
digiously. They indeed ate some water hyacinth, and the rodents entered
sugar and grain fields and, worse, denuded natural levees at the mouth
of the Mississippi. By Louisiana wildlife officers calculated the nutria
population at no fewer than million. In nutria were dropped from
the state’s protected species list, but the fur industry prevailed in return-
ing its raw material to the list in . Feral nutria populations grew expo-
nentially, while industry captives gave up many thousands of pelts for col-
lars, cuffs, and coat linings. Then during the mid-s the international
fur business went bust. (The American stock market crash of was ap-
parently the coup de grace.) By this time wild nutria damage to natural
levees appeared to be permanent, and wildlife officers observed further
wetlands destruction. In addition to natural levees, nutria were denuding
tidal islands and shoals, which then readily washed away in storms. Nutria
were a causal element in the disastrous flood of .
Meanwhile, in U.S. Senator John Breaux of Louisiana persuaded
Congress to fund much of a plan to control nutria and conserve (or restore)