WEBVTT - Ep. 088: Conservation Through Eradication 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:12.799 This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:17.680 severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:28.600 You can't predict anything, all right, Steve. I want you 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:30.720 to do um two things, but you gotta do it 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:35.800 in the in the order, in this order. Explain like 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.159 what is the neutria and where are they from and 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.160 all that, and then explain who you are and where 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.080 you're from and all that. All right? Yeah? Sure. A 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.920 neutria is a big semi aquatic rodent that's native to 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.239 South America. At one time, it was highly prized for 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.600 its fur, and it was introduced throughout the world and uh, 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:02.200 fur farms and things like that to create a economic 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:07.360 resource for rural folks. And similar to mink ranches and 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.120 that sort of thing. It's intermediate in size between a 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.680 muskrat and a beaver. Uh. For those familiar with our 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.880 North American semi aquatic how many pounds? The average is 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.280 probably between fifteen and seventeen pounds for an adult man. 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.280 You know, they're big, Yeah, and uh, you know, I 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.600 guess if I were to equate it too, yeah, compared 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:31.080 to something probably a raccoon, Yeah, raccoon bigger than a 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:36.040 woodchuck similar size to a raccoon. I think the biggest 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:39.520 female that we caught was about twenty one pounds. And 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.000 you know, when they're gravit and full of little ones, 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.039 they can tip the scales higher than the males do. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:53.120 So what's the word you used, gravit? Pregnant? Gravit? Am 0:01:53.120 --> 0:02:00.280 I getting all academic here? Pregnant is grab think, so 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:07.640 get out my thesaurus app check check. Um. So they're 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.040 really kind of an interesting animal too, though. Uh A 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.200 lot of people don't know this, but they get fascinated 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.440 when they hear that the nipples on a female nutrient 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.280 are located along their back, so the young can actually 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.760 suckle when they're swimming in the water either. Yeah, it's 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:27.799 pretty fascinating. Um. You know, I have like a I've 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.240 never laid eyes on a nutrient. You know, I hadn't 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.320 either before I took this job that that I took 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.919 to try to help eliminate them from the Chesapeake Bay. 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:43.000 But they're a pretty pretty amazing animal, very adaptable. They're herbivores, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.720 as most rodents are. They dig up the roots and tubers, 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.480 the underground parts of plants in the wetland ecosystems here, 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:57.320 and in doing so, they expose it to tremendous erosion 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.400 with the tidal influx of water and and what. So 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.240 that's how muskrat feeds too, right, Yeah, I mean, yeah, 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.760 muskrats will eat you know. One of the things that 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.200 they're most known for is they'll eat cat tail roots 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.440 and parts of cattails. But all I mean, they'll eat 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.560 clams rarely, but mostly they eat aquatic vegetation and they 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.800 when they're Yeah, the excavating from banks is what causes 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.880 folks in trouble. With folks is their denning activities more 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:33.480 than their feeding activities. Is they dig bank dens and 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:38.680 make a under usually an underwater entrance, and then they'll 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.520 burrow up into a bank and then make a big 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:43.800 hollow in the bank. And then you know, some d 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:45.200 to be like mowing his lawn and all of a 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:50.040 sudden falls into a muskrat bank. Then that's what gets 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:54.800 muskrats in trouble. Get free haircuts that I used to 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.680 get free haircuts from some ladies that had a muskrat 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.680 problem in their pond. That they're little haircuttery in Plattsburgh, 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.880 New trapp mustgrats for haircuts. I've trapped muskrats. That was 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.360 the muskrat man to them, and I got my haircut 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.480 for free. So good. It's a bartery economy. So you 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.280 all right, we'll get into this whole trap of things. 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:14.680 So but now that now that you brought the subject, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.200 we're going to explore the fact you were trapped before 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:22.000 you became a government trapper. I yes, I was. No, 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:23.400 I guess now is the time you can tell us 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.440 about who you are. I was wanted a little teaser 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:31.200 about those back nipples. Oh yes, So I'm Steve ken Drott. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.640 I'm a wildlife biologist. I work for the U S 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:38.239 Department of Agricultures Wildlife Services Program, so small agency, about 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.400 two thousand people nationwide. That's it's UH within the Animal 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.240 and Plant Health Inspection Service for UH in the US 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:50.360 Department of Agriculture, and our primary mission is to provide 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:55.159 federal leadership in the there resolving human wildlife conflicts. And 0:04:55.880 --> 0:05:01.200 our primary mission areas are to protect agriculture, human health 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:05.920 and safety, property, and increasingly natural resources, which is how 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:10.640 we're entwined with this whole nutrient eradication project to try 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:16.080 to save the Chesapeake Bay marsh Lands. So I've been 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.520 with that uh agency for about eighteen years now. I 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.000 started out as a wildlife biologist at an airport, UH 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.200 actually a military base in Virginia, and I also worked 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.000 at two of the Washington d C. Airports. But in 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.279 two thousand two I took this job in in Cambridge, Maryland. 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:38.919 Hold on question, what's what's an airport needed biologist for? Well, so, uh, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.240 birds and planes both occupy the same airspace and uh 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.120 oftentimes too great detriment to both the birds and the planes. 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.200 So we actually have a very robust program throughout the country. 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.440 Most of our major airports, we've got wildlife biologist station 0:05:54.520 --> 0:06:00.320 there working to provide guidance to the airport about how 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:05.000 to minimize uh wildlife habitat and attractants on the airfield 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:09.440 to keep them away from the runways and taxi ways. UH. Deer, coyotes, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.120 other mammals are also problems. They get on the runways 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.000 and get hit by planes during takeoff and landing and 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.920 and so on and so forth. So it's uh a 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:23.320 pretty big human health and safety component of our program. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.160 because that could be like a lot of deaths all 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.680 at once. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Yeah, the dude that had 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.920 the dude that put the plane down in the Hudson. Yeah, 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:36.080 several geese. Yep, miracle Alanna Hudson was the result of 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:42.120 a bird strike with Canada geese. There's also a tragic 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.680 air force accident back in Gosh, I don't even remember 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:47.880 when that was now, it's been so long since I've 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.640 worked on the airport stuff. But in elmendor Fell Air 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:55.960 Force Base. Uh, a plane went down from that and 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:02.440 killed quite a few service folks. So or Burkeley. Yeah, 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.240 so it's you know, you know, not to scare the 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.080 flying public. And now you guys will be on a 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.640 plane soon. Not a lot to worry about. It's a 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:13.680 it's a low risk but a high consequence kind of 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.760 kind of thing. So, uh, it's something in our the 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.560 airports take very seriously. The FAA takes very seriously. And uh, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.840 as a result, we've got a pretty robust program nationwide. 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.160 Most biologists employed by your agency. Then, Yeah, and so 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.240 our agency is kind of unique in that it's not 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.880 it doesn't get a huge slug of federal appropriations or 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.600 tax dollars to do the work we do. We work 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:46.560 through cooperative agreements with other federal agencies, uh, municipalities, airports, 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.440 that sort of thing, private individuals. Uh. So it's very 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.200 much a cost sharing type program where the recipients of 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.960 the services that we provide are paying for at least 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.920 some portion, if not all, of the service that we provide. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.000 So we're not a regulatory agency like some of the 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.080 other uh federal agencies of Fish and Wildlife Service that 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.880 enforced regulations about endangered species and all that kind of thing. 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:18.440 We're very much problem solving service orientation UM. And so yeah, 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.080 it's uh, it's been a really interesting agency to work for. 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.600 And this project in the Chesapeake Bay with the Nutria 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.000 is funded by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the United 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.160 States Fish and Wildlife Service, which is in the Department 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.880 of Interior. Um, there are the folks that oversee the 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.760 National Wildlife Refuge System. So so to jump into the 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:39.920 new Tria, like just to lay the groundwork on the 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:45.559 Nutria situation Chestpeake Bay, which is a pretty fascinating story. 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:47.920 But how did it begin? Like when did they come 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.080 in and why did they come in? So they were 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.840 a side note, can they live? They can they adapt 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.400 to northern climates or they like to have they or 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.640 do they need warmer weather and not severe winters. They 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:05.280 are limited in their northern distribution by by winter weather. However, 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.200 here in Maryland is about the northernmost distribution on the 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.160 east coast. But Neutria also they've been established in seventeen 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.640 or eighteen different states in the US, introduced in a 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.680 number more, but they haven't become established. A lot of 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.040 people don't know that. Uh, your home city of Seattle 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:28.160 and Portland, UM are home to the neutria as well. 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.040 UM all over in the coastal wetlands and a lot 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.400 of the lot of the parks in uh Portland, Oregon, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.559 people feed carrots and stuff like that. It's kind of crazy. 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.800 So you don't have to go fired. I've never seen one, 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.120 as I'd always lived in the northern tier states. Yeah. 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.680 Now they're limited in the to the coastal distribution because 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:56.920 the temporary climate. They Um, So where was I introduced? 0:09:57.600 --> 0:09:59.719 How and why did they come into how? And why 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.439 did they come into the chess Chesspeake Bay like there 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.880 for what reason? So the Nutria were brought to the 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:09.440 chess Peak region in the nineteen forty three or thereabouts. UM. 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:15.640 There was two entities that had nutrient brought in. The 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.520 Blackwater actually had the refuge itself had a fur bear 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.920 research station at one time, and they housed nutrient. They 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.880 were doing uh nutrient research as well as muskrat and 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.280 that sort of thing. But there are also some private 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.720 uh entrepreneurs that were bringing nutria in to farm them 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:39.360 and for some reason UH there that never really took 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.360 off economically, and eventually the farms either went out of 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.200 business and they released their animals, or the conditions just 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:50.800 became dilapidated and they escaped and whatnot. With the dropping 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.680 fur prices, no, that was quite a bit I think 0:10:54.720 --> 0:11:00.400 before the dropping fur prices, and so nutrient didn't really 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.480 become of an ecological impact in the Chestspeake Bay region 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.679 until probably the late nineteen sixties nineteen seventies. And that's 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:13.440 pretty typical for a lot of introduced invasive species, is 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.199 that they'll they'll exist at fairly low levels for an 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:22.199 extended period of time and then begin to grow exponentially, 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.560 and once they hit that sort of critical mass and numbers, 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.439 then that population can just like explode and go through 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:33.040 the roof. And so that's what happened throughout the nineteen 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.920 seventies and eighties, and they estimated at one point that 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:46.120 blackwater was probably homed over fifty thousand nutrient and UM. 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:51.560 That corresponded with a very significant decline in UH emergent 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.800 marsh lands at Chesspeake UH at the Chestpeake marsh Lands 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:00.960 National Wildlife Complex or Refuge complex. But that black water 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:05.360 unit of at one point was about thirteen thousand or 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.200 so acres of wetlands and they lost about five thousand 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.360 acres of that over the course of well between nineteen 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:16.520 thirty eight and UM nineteen ninety nine or so, almost 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.560 a half. Yeah, it's very significant. You look at the 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.600 aerial photographs of the core of the heart of black 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.800 Water Refuge and you can see that it's just been 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:33.640 converted almost entirely to open water. So huge ecological impact. 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.480 And you said Emergent marshes, Yeah, Emergent marshes are those 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.840 uh wetlands where the plants actually emerge out of the water, 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.920 so you look out and you see vegetation basically as 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.760 opposed to like a lily pad type environment or that 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:52.160 sort of thing. UM. So the typical marshes that we 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.480 have here in the coastal regions of the Chesapeake bay 0:12:54.520 --> 0:13:02.120 are characterized by uh three square bulrush um cat tails 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.439 in some of the more fresher headwaters of the this 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.360 sort of drainage system, and the closer you get to 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.480 the bay and higher selinities, you'll get more needle rush, 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:17.360 salt hay um, those different types of plant communities. So 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.600 the one that's really critical, and then probably from a 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.000 wildlife perspective, one of the most valuable habitat types is 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.880 the three square marsh. It produces a lot of seeds 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.960 that are fed on by migrating birds and that sort 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.680 of thing and play showed yesterday all the swamp. So 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:36.720 if you roll it between your fingers, it's got it's 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:45.280 very triangular in cross section, so um it's it tends 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.840 to grow in very organic based soils and it basically 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.840 accumulates is you know, pete over years and years and 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:57.160 years of rotting vegetation sort of builds up this peat layer, 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.839 so it doesn't have a real solid foundation, and they're 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.120 where it's very vulnerable to erosion when nutria come in 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.760 and start carving up that route map. So well, muskrat 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:12.480 do feed on the same types of plants. Three squares 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.120 very important for muskrat as well. They feed a little 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:20.960 bit differently. Um nutria tend to dig up the tubers 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.920 of the roots of the plants um and do it 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:29.080 in a very concentrated area. And even more importantly, what 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.960 they'll do is they'll dig swim channels kind of like 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:36.560 a beaver does, to get from the tidal waterways into 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.400 their feeding areas. What they're essentially doing is creating a 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.160 little stream bed for the tide to get in and 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.000 out so it penetrates further into their marsh. And then 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.880 when it comes out, all that material that they've dug 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.720 up is gathered and swept out to see more or 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.600 less or at least out to the bay. Um. Oh, 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:55.440 that's it. In Yeah, because I was hard, I was 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.960 having hard to have picture how what they were doing 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.600 was causing someone trouble. That's an interesting perspective on it, 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.320 not perspective on it, but like an interesting The way 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.800 to explain what's going on is those canals, like the 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.920 same canals beavers dig. I never thought that as being 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.040 a way for water just to snake its way further 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.720 up into stuff, so you get higher salinity water penetrating 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.960 further into what are typically brackish or even fresh water marks, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.320 because beavers will dig those things. You'll you'll see him 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.520 hud yards long sometimes to to go access willow right, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:33.960 So that contributes to this erosion problem. What actually happens 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.360 is that organic muck that this route mat is sort 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:41.000 of floating on uh gets eroded from underneath, and the 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.880 marsh begins to sink. And despite the fact that these 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.800 are wetland plants, they're very susceptible too and intolerant of 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.800 changes in the hydrology of the system. So all they 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.840 need is sink is just a few fractions of an 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.440 inch necessarily, and those plants can no longer survive. It 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.840 turns into a different community, and in many cases it 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.600 sinks so low that no plants can survive, and it 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:08.000 just turns into this kind of open water wasteland that 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.320 really doesn't produce much good habitat. You know, it's not 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.080 deep enough all the time for a fish community to 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.600 be really supported by it, and most of the fish 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.600 that we tend to see using those those open water 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.280 areas are also invasive species, carved and things like that. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.720 So but you know, it's not solely the nutrients fault 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.840 that we've seen such wetland loss in the Chesapeake Bay 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.960 region because there are a number of threats to this ecosystem, 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:41.800 and that includes sea level rise, UM, land subsidence, through 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.720 the withdrawal of underground aquifers for human consumption, congregation, and 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:51.640 all that sort of thing um and so there's all 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:56.320 these sort of multiple factors impacting the marshes, which can 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.960 be fairly resilient until you put nutrient into the equation. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.040 And there's sort of the catalyst that that little uh 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.000 that you know, your grandma's sweater that she needed for 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:09.760 you when you're a kid, and you get a thread 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:11.200 pulled on it, and all of a sudden, the whole 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.200 thing on ravels. The new tria is the one pulling 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.720 that thread, and that's all of the other things sort 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:21.000 of compound when nutria introduced to the equation. So they 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.720 did some really neat research back in the nineteen nineties 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.000 trying to figure out the role that neutria played. And 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.000 what they did was they went throughout the black Water 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.000 system and they put in a bunch of fences, basically 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.600 UM thirty exclusion fences that they buried into the ground 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.920 so that the nutria couldn't swim under it or dig 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.080 under it, and then they made sure there were no 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:49.040 nutria within them, and they just monitored the vegetation around them, 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.119 and they very quickly could see a distinct difference. Uh, 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.440 they put them in areas where there were compromised by nutria, 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.400 and outside the fences continue need to degrade and convert 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.760 to this muddy open water, and inside the fence the 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:09.359 plants came back. So it was a good indication that 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.800 if we could eliminate nutrient from the equation, that the 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:18.320 marsh could possibly restore itself. No real quick here do 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.480 they banked in or where do they sleep at night? 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.800 That's a great question. Um, they don't typically bank then. Um. 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.679 In fact, many of the areas that they live in 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.920 out in the open marsh don't have banks, so they 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:36.960 just live on they don't And that's one of the 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.159 reasons we think that they're limited in their northern distribution 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:44.240 because they don't have that thermal refuge from cold weather. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.600 So what we would see layout they'll build like a 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:53.960 little nest, just a platform of vegetation, like a muskrat feedbed. Yeah, exactly, 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:59.600 And I've seen those built almost on stilts. When we 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:01.880 have high water events. We had a hurricane in two 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.280 thousand and two, I think Hurricane Isabella brought a six 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.400 foot storm surge over the whole marsh, and when the 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.960 waters were seated, we found nutria beds that were made 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.280 out of frag Mighty's the invasive reed that you've been 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:18.720 seeing lately. Um four ft off the surface of the marsh. 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:20.960 All folded over and made a nice little platform so 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.199 they could get up out of the water. But that 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.480 doesn't provide thermal protection. So what we see in the 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.679 wintertime with these critters is that they're very susceptible the 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.879 cold weather. They'll get frost bite on their tails and 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.200 over over the course of several years of a big 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.680 adult nutria might only have a stub six inch tailor 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.960 or less even um because it just gets frost bit. 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:47.439 Females under physiological stress from the cold weather will actually 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:54.159 abort their females or their fetuses, and so that's another 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.720 element of nutrient. Why there's such a difficult species to 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:03.760 deal with is because they reproduce extremely rapidly. They Nutria 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.040 come into heat and are ready to breed within four 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.040 or forty eight hours of giving birth, and they become 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.320 sexually mature at about six months of age. So once 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.640 a neutria hits six months of age, she's virtually pregnant 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.880 for the rest of her life. And in the wintertime. 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:23.000 If they clarify that when you first said that, I 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.119 thought you meant um that the young were. You're saying 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.560 a female will have a litter, and then that female 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:34.520 within within a couple of days is ready to breed again. 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:37.480 Absolutely yeah. And if her in her offspring can breed 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:42.199 win howld at about six months of age, so you 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:48.760 get it's about a four month gestation period, three to 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.479 four months, and so they can produce like three litters 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:56.200 a year. You're producing generations in a year. Yeah, oh yeah. 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.359 And in these northern climates where we do see these 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.280 period of stress on the animals where the females will 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:07.720 abort their litters if they're pregnant, they'll come into the 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:11.320 heat immediately after that. So it forces this sort of 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.000 cyclic and seasonality to the to the breeding pattern in 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.680 these northern climates where we tend to see big pulses 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:23.680 of reproduction. Uh, litters born in like May October in January, 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:28.240 and then usually the January litter doesn't really survive because 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.040 there's these young are born at at a time of 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.840 year where it just isn't conducive to survival. What so, 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.560 what year was it? Remind me again what year they 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.439 first may have gotten introduced here from early nineties, and 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.159 what year was it when the explosion, Like you know, 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:48.760 when you you're describing how they're just kind of putter 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:50.439 long and all of a sudden their numbers get to 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.080 a point where you can have this like all of 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.240 a sudden, it's like exponential, right, you know, was the 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.399 late nineteen sixties when they really started to notice, you know, 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.000 nutrient and abundance, and then through the seventies and eighties 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:07.160 that marsh lost really seemed to accelerate to the point 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:09.359 where you could people were seeing it in their own lifetime. 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.480 They were seeing the marshall. Yeah, definitely. I had employees 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:14.960 on the project that were born and raised on the 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:19.040 marshes of black Water, and they said when they were kids, 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.159 they could have walked in tennis shoes from the Wildlife 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.320 Drive on the black Water National Wildlife Refuge across to 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.720 the property where they grew up. It's about a two 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.840 or three mile distance probably, and the only place they 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:36.439 would have gotten wet was where the Blackwater River coursed 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:41.520 through that marsh. There's a high marsh, solid good, good 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.920 ground and uh, that's a big lake. Now okay, yah, 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:52.520 what year was it then that? Or let me ask 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.479 this to how okay, what year was it when someone said, like, 0:22:57.080 --> 0:22:59.240 is there something we should be trying to do about this? 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:03.439 And how many neutria werether at that moment? Yeah? Can 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.000 you work in just like a general public perception into 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.359 that answer to like, what was the public thinking and 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.040 about it back then? Well? You know what, at first, 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:13.600 I think that it wasn't perceived as such a problem 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:17.160 because there was a fur market for for neutria, and 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:20.520 people would go out in the wintertime and they would 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:23.680 hunt and trap them and you know, get some money 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:31.919 for their for their pelts. Um excuse me, but really 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:37.240 from a wildlife perspective and from a local economy perspective, 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:40.320 the muskrat is the king here and when you lose 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:44.359 three square marks, you lose muskrat. And I think people 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:48.400 started to realize that that, at least from the trapping community, 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:54.000 that muskrat are much more desirable than neutria are. And 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:56.680 so there was support even from you know, that element 0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:59.280 that we needed to do something about it. The big 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:01.720 thing was the law some marshes at black Water in 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:06.639 the surrounding Fishing Bay Wildlife Management Area. So it was 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:11.720 in the nineteen nineties that the various natural resource agencies 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:16.760 that have a role in managing and conserving UH these 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:21.520 important Chesapeake Bay resources got together and started thinking about, 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:24.919 you know, what we could do to try to stem 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.280 the loss and maybe even foster the recovery of the marsh. This, 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:33.840 this whole project is not about killing nutrients, about restoring wetlands, UM, 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:38.720 and that's the purpose of it. So it took some 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:41.200 time to get all the people on board and to 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:44.320 get congressional support for because this is a big initiative. 0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:48.800 You know, we're talking uh, you know, a quarter million 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:53.120 acres of wetlands that we eventually have have treated across 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:57.760 this uh, this landscape, so no small task. UM. They 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:02.760 estimated population estimates UH somewhere in the vicinity of fifty 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:07.120 thousand nutrient Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and they had some 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:12.040 fairly good numbers to make estimates off through their trapping programs. 0:25:12.080 --> 0:25:16.280 Because black Water and Fishing Bay are both available to 0:25:17.080 --> 0:25:22.040 UH for trappers to to bid on. They control the 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.480 the amount of trapping. Trappers can come in and bid 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:26.960 on a lot like like like a chunk of ground 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:32.920 within the refuge just to work for their own trap line, right. Um, 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:34.840 And so they had harvest records and at one point 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:38.600 they were paying uh not a bounty per se, but 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:43.120 trappers that that did least the trapping units could turn 0:25:43.200 --> 0:25:47.320 in nutrient tails for a dollar fifty credit towards the 0:25:47.359 --> 0:25:50.280