Mum and I were watching Global Village yesterday and it was about the canals of France (Britanny I think). Apparently the coypus destroy the banks by undermining them. I'd never heard of them so I looked them up on Google. There an aquatic mammal:
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Marisa Cappetta : ]I see they are found in North America too. I've become fascinated by them. ]Has anyone ever seen one?
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
Wow, thanks Vicki, that gives me some idea of scale. They have teeth like a beaver and in some pics I've seen they are bright red. Amazing.
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "bluemaxx" :
]Hey, Marisa. :) I saw one of those in a river when I was very ]young. We call them 'musk rats' in our part of the country.
THAT's the term i was trying to remember. "almost beaver, but not quite".
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
Interesting. Sounds very much like a muskrat,which are much more common and a nutural species. Whereas the nutrias, which is their more common name, are introduced from So America to be farmed for their fur. Their personalities even sound very similar. They are bigger than muskrats with longer and courser guard hair, and longer period of gestation.
Never seen a nutria, but I've seen many muskrats.
Tina
The French coypus is the introduced nutria, farmed for their fur, some escaped and make a mess of the canal banks. Lovely creatures, I like their red teeth.
in article aBhZa.108492$uu5.15775@sccrnsc04, bluemaxx at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 10/8/03 9:54 AM:
Cool! If I ever get to NA I plan to spend a lot of time animal hunting with a camera!
in article snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com, saucy at snipped-for-privacy@cox-internet.com wrote on 10/8/03 11:51 AM:
I'd love to see one. Their soft fur is the reason they were introduced to Europe and Russia, they were farmed for it.
Apparently the coypus destroy the banks by undermining them. I'd never heard of them so I looked them up on Google. There an aquatic mammal:>>>
We call them muskrats here in Ohio.... my grandfather had a standing order to any member of the family to "shoot on sight) any of them that got into the pond - because they would burrow through the dam and the lake would leak out! They are quite destructive -- almost as bad as beavers - but they don't build the dams like beavers. They dig burrows... they are pests... Cheryl of DRAGON BEADS Flameworked beads and glass
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :
]My Audubon book lists them as separate animals, and quite different in size ](nutria/coypu is 5-25lb vs muskrat 1 1/4 to 4lbs) and in footprint. ] ]Tina
do muskrats have that flat "beaver-like" tail?
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :
]They have a "vertically flattened tail". Squashed down from round, but not ]a big paddle like a beaver's.
thanks, Tina. for some reason, in my head, i had muskrats looking more like weasels or ferrets.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
They are a HUGE problem in Louisiana. When the bottom fell out of the fur market, most nutria ranchers just let their stock go. They eat everything in site and are quite destructive and endanger the habitat of the indigenous species. LA has been trying for years to market nutria meat as the 'new, exotic' gourmet 'thing' of the future in an effort to hunt down the population. They are rodents..and breed like them.
See:
That's why they are so popular with the furriers. They feel like beaver, hold the water off like beaver, and are cheaper. I love nutria skins, but since leaving Alaska haven't purchased any. I really don't need furs in Texas. It's way too hot to have them around.
Yeah, nutria are really big.
LOL - I have lived in Porltand for over 20 years and I have never, ever heard of a nutria. Or a coypus.
Audobon is great, but wrong about oh so many things. Like cicadas; we have them here, too, but you can't find any documentation of that.
We have nutrias aplenty here; they're huge, raccoon-size, and not like any other creature.
I never knew they were called "coypus" before, and I wasn't aware of them until about 13 years ago, but they are plentiful here now. If you go to Crystal Springs Rhododendron garden (or to my endodontist) you will likely see several. You find them squished sometimes on some of the roads down toward John's Landing, too.
On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 1:19:06 -0400, Kalera Stratton wrote (in message ):
Are they harmless? I know I'd be freaked if I saw a nutria wandering in my backyard.
DD reports that the latest fashionable pets in Germany are raccoons. What the Frank? Why anyone would want one of those rabies-carrying, garbage stealing, nasty things is beyond me. My cousin tells me that the raccoons cannot be housebroken, and are mostly kept caged. Why would anyone think that a wild animal like that would make a good pet.
Kathy N-V
Raccoons for PETS? They must be mad!
As far as I know, Nutria are pretty harmless. Never heard anything bad about diseases or biting or fighting with cats or anything.
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