Louisiana’s Swamp-Rat Dog Treat

Nutria, the furry rodents with ratlike tails and two bright-orange front teeth, reproduce at astounding rates. In Louisiana, they have consumed acres of native flora and exposed broad swaths of marsh to erosion by tides and storms. In recent years, the state government, looking to reduce the population of feral nutria, has decided that it wants people to kill them, and has placed a bounty on their tails as encouragement. That has raised the question of what to do with their bodies. One idea is to turn them into a line of dog treats.

Nutria were imported to Louisiana from South America in the nineteen-thirties, to be farmed for their fur. Eventually, some got free. As long as the fur industry flourished, Louisiana’s population of feral nutria was kept under control by trappers. In the late fifties, nutria surpassed muskrat in the state’s fur trade in both numbers of animals trapped and value of pelts. According to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, more than a million nutria were harvested each year between 1962 and 1982; the price of a single pelt peaked at $8.19. (Today, one goes for about five dollars.) Sheared nutria—the plush grayish layer left after the animal’s longer guard hairs are removed—was considered a luxury item, used for lining, trim, and the occasional coat. Greta Garbo and Elizabeth Taylor wore nutria. But, in the late eighties, the fur market began to collapse under a glut of farmed fur from Europe, and an economic upheaval in Russia dramatically reduced demand. The animal-rights movement played a role as well. Fur fell out of fashion. Nutria began to overrun the marshes. Even the alligators couldn’t keep them in check.

In 2002, with federal funds allocated through the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries instituted a bounty program. “Nutria is an invasive species and we can probably never eradicate every one,” Edmond Mouton, a biologist and the director of the nutria-control program for Wildlife and Fisheries, told me. The department defines success as four hundred thousand nutria killed annually.

Bounty collectors must present tails that are longer than seven inches and “fresh or well-preserved (iced or frozen).” The remaining carcasses, if they aren’t sold, must be “buried, placed in heavy overhead vegetation or concealed by any other means necessary to prevent consumption by birds,” but there is no enforcement. When the program began, Wildlife and Fisheries developed a parallel campaign to promote nutria meat for public consumption. It established U.S.D.A.-certified facilities to inspect the meat, and marketed it by its French name, ragondin, as a new lean protein that tastes like turkey. The agency sponsored a regional chef to showcase ragondin recipes; diners were enthusiastic until they realized they were eating rodent. Although the nutria-meat campaign never achieved success, the ever-hopeful Wildlife and Fisheries devotes a page of its nutria-control-program site to a recipe for “Heart Healthy ‘Crock-Pot’ Nutria.”

A few years ago, the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program announced a grant program for new conservation projects to preserve, protect, and restore south Louisiana between the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya River. Hansel and Veni Harlan, a brother-and-sister team who love dogs (they have ten between them), submitted an application to process some of the potentially wasted nutria carcasses to make dog food or treats, and won a small grant. In 2011, they launched Marsh Dog, which is the only commercial seller of nutria meat.

Marsh Dog produces Barataria Bites, a dog biscuit, and Bark, a nutria-meat jerky. Each step of biscuit production is carried out by hand by employees at the company’s headquarters, in Baton Rouge. (Jerky is produced offsite.) Using Veni’s pickup truck, the company distributes to pet stores, veterinary offices, and natural-food shops within a hundred miles. The products can also be ordered online. “I know we can’t solve the coastal problem, but we can help educate about it,” Hansel said. In 2012, Marsh Dog won the Conservation Business of the Year award from the Louisiana Wildlife Federation. The Harlans thought it should be shared with dogs, because, as Hansel said, it turns them “into canine conservationists.”

Mary Ann Sternberg, a freelance writer, is the author of “River Road Rambler” and five other nonfiction books.

Photograph: Frantisek Vlcek/ISIFA/Getty