Nutria

[gbrown]

[QUOTE=Winger
They were brought from I think France, to Louisiana where they raised them for their pelts.
Some big storm crushed the ranches in the 1950s. Now, (as an invasive species) .[/QUOTE]
They are native to S. America. The story I heard was that they (2 breeding pair)were brought to Louisiana around the turn of the 19th/20th century to be raised for their fur. A hurricane destroyed the cages and they escaped. In the ensuing decades they multiplied by the millions into any southern state with marshes/swamps. Alligators were hunted into near extinction until the late 1970's. Their resurgence has greatly reduced the # of nutria.

[Pinger87]

If you've eaten gumbo or many other dishes in Louisiana , you've eaten it

This is exactly how I've had it.

[Winger Ed.]

In the ensuing decades they multiplied by the millions into any southern state with marshes/swamps.

Raccoon coats were out of style, and the beavers were getting more and more rare.
So back as late as the 50's a nutria fur coat was the thing to have.
It had a lot more pa-zazz than a rabbit fur coat, but didn't cost a fortune.

As a kid in Dallas in the late 60's, we'd see them in our local creek,
we wondered who'd chopped off those beavers' tails- we soon learned they weren't beaver.
At night, if the water was flat, you could often see them swimming near the shore on area lakes.

There was a news show a year or two ago in Florida about how they'd over populated.
They've given the local Police Depts. .22s to spot light, and shoot them in the bodies of water near a town or city.
And had dedicated animal control folks shooting them too.

[dangitgriff]

We running out of cows and pigs or something?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I cannot imagine it being much different than beaver. The tail fat is nasty but the meat is dark and OK.

Same with the Woodchucks in MN...except the tail part, LOL.

[MaryB]

Smoked wood chuck! Tasty!

You can make beaver tail into bacon... I had it at a wild game feed. Edible, not something I would choose but if hungry... use all the animal you can!

[Lloyd Smale]

when i was young i ate beaver, coon, porky and about anything my dad caught or killed. We had 6 kids and not alot of money. We all looked at stew with suspicion because you didnt know if the neighbors cat was in it. Today i am not that broke or hungry. Beaver was the worse. I think we had it once a week and none of us kids like it but you ate it or faced the rathe of dad! Today i eat wild meat. About 90 percent of our meat is venison. That said today my mother wont even eat venison. She says it makes her remember back when they stuggled so hard to just keep us fed. dad will still eat house mice or crows if he could get enough of them to make a meal. Still remember him telling us about how he used to row over to an island on the st marys river to collect Seagal eggs to feed us. My ma says she still gags thinking about it. Now they have money to burn and dad at 87 still wont take money out of the bank to buy some luxury thing. Drives a beat up old 4 wheeler and has duct tape around the stock of his western auto pump shotgun. Hes so tight he grinds his venison into burger and sneeks it into spegetti or chilli and feeds it to my ma.

[gbrown]

Yeah, people that went thru the Great Depression were like that. My folks were there, my grandparents on mom's side had it really tough. My grandfather bought 10 acres in the 40's or early 50's. He was asked why, and said he was going to leave it to his 3 kids, so they would always be able to raise food and feed their families. Shows what lurked in the back of his mind.

[MaryB]

I grew u eating just about anything that walked, crawled or flied... to this day I cannot stand goose or duck... with 7 people in the family and all of us hunting we ate way to much of it. We took 22 rifles to school and after school hunted on the way home, squirrels and bunnies were on the menu often and I still like them, they taste way better than duck/goose! Ground hog is tasty, usually get one of them a year trying to tunnel under my shed. Beaver is tasty but has to be cooked right, and cleaned right!

[Lloyd Smale]

Mary im another that would about as soon eat shoe leather as eat duck or goose. Make mine a grouse or rabbit or grey squirrel if its going to be small. Im not even crazy about wild turkey. Id take it before duck or goose though. Buddy lives on a small lake and has ducks and geese in his yard everyday and hes told me many times to come over with a pellet rifle or cross bow and thin them out but to me there not worth gutting. Last year i had two wild turkeys (just the breasts) in the freezer and was taking venison out to make summer sausage and took them out and ground them right up with the venison and pork to get rid of them.