![]() Unscrupulous entrepreneurs have promoted coypu and coypu farms for their value as “meat”, “fur”, or “aquatic weed control”. While there have been many attempts to establish markets for coypu meat, all documented cases have generally been unsuccessful. However, in 2012 a ‘giant rat’ was killed in County Durham, with authorities suspecting that the animal was, in fact, a coypu.Ĭoypu meat is lean and low in cholesterol. In the United Kingdom, Coypu were introduced to East Anglia, for fur, in 1929 many escaped and damaged the drainage works, and a concerted programme by MAFF eradicated them by 1989. In response, by 2003, a multi-million dollar eradication program was underway. ![]() In the Chesapeake Bay region in Maryland, where they were introduced in the 1940s, coypu are believed to have destroyed 7,000 to 8,000 acres of marshland in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Nutria damage in Louisiana became so severe that in 2005, a bounty program was in effect to aid in controlling the animal. Coypu were introduced to the Louisiana ecosystem in the 1930s when they escaped from fur farms that had imported them from South America. These farms have generally not been successful long term investments and farmed coypu often are released or escape as operations become unprofitable.Īs demand for coypu fur declined, coypu have since become pests in many areas, destroying aquatic vegetation, marshes, irrigation systems, chewing through human-made items, such as tires and wooden house panelling in Louisiana, eroding river banks, and displacing native animals. ![]() ![]() The first farms were in Argentina and then later in Europe, North America, and Asia. Local extinction in their native range due to overharvesting led to the development of coypu fur farms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ![]()
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