U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

50–341 CC WASHINGTON : 1998

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON PILOT PROGRAM TO

CONTROL NUTRIA AT THE BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE IN MARYLAND

OVERSIGHT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION,

WILDLIFE AND OCEANS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 16, 1998, WASHINGTON, DC

Serial No. 105–97

Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house

or

Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources
(II)

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana

JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

KEN CALVERT, California

RICHARD W. POMBO, California

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

LINDA SMITH, Washington

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina

WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas

JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona

JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada

ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

RICK HILL, Montana

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho

GEORGE MILLER, California

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia

BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California

CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO ́ , Puerto

Rico

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York

ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam

SAM FARR, California

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

ADAM SMITH, Washington

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana

DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin Islands

RON KIND, Wisconsin

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas

LLOYD A. JONES, Chief of Staff

ELIZABETH MEGGINSON, Chief Counsel

CHRISTINE KENNEDY, Chief Clerk/Administrator

JOHN LAWRENCE, Democratic Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey, Chairman

W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

SAM FARR, California

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

HARRY BURROUGHS, Staff Director

JOHN RAYFIELD, Legislative Staff

CHRISTOPHER MANN, Legislative Staff
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held July 16, 1998 ..................................................................................... 1

Statement of Members:

Gilchrest, Hon. Wayne T., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland ................................................................................................... 2

Saxton, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of New

Jersey ............................................................................................................. 1

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2

Statement of Witnesses:

Baldwin, Andrew, Assistant Professor, Biological Resources Engineering

Department, University of Maryland .......................................................... 9

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 83

Carowan, Glenn, Refuge Manager, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

accompanied by Dixie Bounds, Assistant Unit Leader, Wildlife Research, Maryland Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit .............. 4

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 31

Haramis, Michael, Wildlife Biologist, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center . 5

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 34

Pierce, Richard B., Director of Operations for Ducks Unlimited, Inc.,

Great Lakes/Atlantic Regional Office .......................................................... 20

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 78

Rapp, Jim, Director, Salisbury Zoological Park ............................................. 22

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 80

Soutiere, Edward C., President and Manager, Tudor Farms, Inc. ............... 18

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 78

Taylor-Rogers, Sarah, Assistant Secretary, Maryland Department of Natural Resources accompanied by Robert C. Colona, Maryland Department of Natural Resources ........................................................................... 7

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 36

Additional material supplied:

Linscombe, Greg, Programs Manager, Fur and Refuge Division, Louisiana

Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, prepared statement of .................. 95
(1)

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON PILOT PROGRAM

TO CONTROL NUTRIA AT THE BLACKWATER

NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE IN MARYLAND

THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1998

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES CONSERVATION, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS, COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in room

1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Jim Saxton (chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. SAXTON. The Subcommittee will come to order for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Mr. SAXTON. The Subcommittee on Fisheries, Conservation,

Wildlife and Oceans is meeting today to conduct an oversight hearing on a pilot program to control the non-indigenous species, nutria, which is destroying valuable wetlands in the Blackwater National Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland. And it goes without saying

that this hearing has been called at the request of our good friend

from the Eastern Shore, Mr. Gilchrest, who is I know very concerned about this issue.

By way of background, nutria are large semi-aquatic rodents that

are native to South America. They have brown fur with small ears.

Very good.

[Laughter.]

Webbed hind feet, and a long, lengthy tail. They cannot be called

little rats because they are big rats, it says here. The nutria may

weigh up to 20 pounds. Nutria live along the banks and lakes,

marshes, ponds and rivers. They are surface feeding herbivores

that can be extremely destructive to marsh vegetation. These powerful animals forage directly on the vegetative root mat leaving the

marsh pitted and digging sites and fragmented with deep swim canals. In the face of rising sea levels, nutria damage is particularly

problematic because it accelerates the erosion and the processes associated with tidal currents and wave action.

Nutria were introduced in Maryland in the 1950’s to assist the

fur industry. There are currently between 100,000 and 150,000 nutria living in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and private

fur trappers have not begun to keep pace with the animal’s ability

to reproduce. To compound this problem there are no natural pred-
2

ators to control nutria and nutria are causing serious problems for

native wildlife, fish, plants and marsh ecosystems.

During the past year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has

been working with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources,

the Maryland Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, and

the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, the University of Maryland

and Tudor Farms on a strategy to deal with the growing problem.

This group issued a report on April 3, 1998, entitled ‘‘Marsh Restoration: Nutria Control in Maryland’’.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about this report

and how or if, its recommendations can be implemented. Thank

you all for being here today. I would now like to recognize Mr.

Gilchrest for any statement he may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Saxton follows:]

STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE

OF NEW JERSEY

The Subcommittee will come to order. The Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans is meeting today to conduct an oversight hearing on a

pilot program to control the nonindigenous species nutria, which is destroying valuable wetlands at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland.

By way of background, nutria are large, semi-aquatic rodents that are native to

South America. They have brown fur with small ears, webbed hind feet, and a long,

lightly haired tail. Wild nutria may weigh up to 20 pounds. Nutria live along the

banks of lakes, marshes, ponds, and rivers. They are surface-feeding herbivores that

can be extremely destructive to marsh vegetation. These powerful animals forage directly on the vegetative root mat, leaving the marsh pitted with digging sites and

fragmented with deep swim canals. In the face of rising sea levels, nutria damage

is particularly problematic because it accelerates the erosion and processes associated with tidal currents and wave action.

Nutria were introduced in Maryland in the 1950’s to assist the fur industry. There

are currently between 100,000 and 150,000 nutria living at the Blackwater National

Wildlife Refuge, and private fur trappers have not begun to keep pace with the animals’ ability to reproduce. To compound this problem, there are no natural predators to control nutria, and nutria are causing serious problems for native wildlife,

fish, plants, and marsh ecosystems.

During the past year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been working with

the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Maryland Cooperative Fish

and Wildlife Research Unit, the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, the University

of Maryland, and Tudor Farms on a strategy to deal with the growing nutria problem. This group issued a report on April 3, 1998, entitled ‘‘Marsh Restoration: Nutria Control in Maryland.’’

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the report and how, or if, its

recommendations can be implemented. Thank you for being here today.

STATEMENT OF HON. WAYNE T. GILCHREST, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

Mr. GILCHREST. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the

fact that you’ve—that you’re having this hearing this afternoon.

Many of the people in the audience that will discuss this issue

today are the constituents of the First District of Maryland.

They’ve been wrestling with this problem for decades if not for

years, and we look forward to your testimony and we’re up here to

try to figure out what we can do to not only resolve the problems

of the nutria to bring them into some type of balance, if not eliminate them entirely and appropriate the—or authorize, because

we’re not the appropriators although that would be an interesting

change in next year’s rules, the authorizing committees could also

be the appropriators. We’d solve a lot of controversy on that, not
3

only to figure out what to do about the nutria, and I think we as

human beings are smart enough to figure out how to reduce their

numbers and actually eliminate their numbers. We’ve done it to a

lot of other species so we could probably do it to the nutria or ship

them all back to South America.

But in the process I think what we’d like to get out of this project

as well in collaboration with Louisiana and other States that are

doing the same kind of thing, is an understanding of the complexity of natural processes and how over just the length of time

that the planet Earth first came into being to now, the interaction

of the complexity of the mechanics of creation are rather extraordinary. That if you pick up a piece of dirt—you go almost anywhere

and you get a handful of dirt, and the organized structure in the

genetic code of that handful of dirt is more complex than all the

land mass of all the planets in the solar system. And we’re dealing

with natural processes and biological systems are the most complex

systems in the universe, and it’s not something we want to pass

off lightly.

So understanding the nature of introducing a non-indigenous

species to the United States and other areas and its impact on the

natural processes and how they have evolved over many millions

of years, going to teach us I think a valuable lesson about biological

diversity and not interfering to the extent that it is possible with

the mechanics of those biological systems.

And so I’m really looking forward to the testimony of the witnesses here today, for one, I don’t see all of you folks as often as

I would like to see you because we’ve been discussing a lot of these

issues, whether they’re endangered species; whether they’re Delmarva fox squirrel; or whether they’re the interesting topic with

many of the State people on Wetlands; all of us have been involved

in these issues for a number of years. So we look forward to not

only your testimony but your continued expertise in resolving some

of these issues, and thanks again for coming.

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SAXTON. Would you like to introduce the panel of witnesses?

Mr. GILCHREST. Sure, all right. On the first panel is Glenn

Carowan. He’s the refuge manager down there; that I think, at

least on Sunday, you have nutria for your main course.

[Laughter.]

Ms. Sarah Taylor-Rogers, assistant secretary, Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Sarah and I have gone over a lot of

issues relating to the Chesapeake Bay, and I think Sarah probably

eats there twice a week.

Michael Haramis, Wildlife Biologist, Patuxent Wildlife Research

Center—thanks for coming, Mike.

Dr. Andrew Baldwin, assistant professor of Biological Resources

Engineering Department, University of Maryland.

We want to welcome all of you here this afternoon and we look

forward to your testimony.

And Ms. Dixie Bounds, I didn’t—there you are—Assistant Unit

Leader, Wildlife Research, Geological Survey, is here with us today.

We’ve done an interesting thing a few years ago in Congress. We

put the Biological Services under—what was that called, the biological—we’re going to count the biology. National Biological Sur-
4

vey—thanks—and it’s now in the U.S. Geological Survey, along

with nutria. Thanks for coming, Ms. Bounds.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Gilchrest. We’re going

to proceed. We operate here under what we call a 5-minute rule

which gives everybody 5 minutes to make an outline of their testimony and of course, your full testimony, written, will be included

in the record if you desire. We’ll start with Dixie Bounds and move

from your right to your left across the table. So Ms. Bounds, if you

would like to begin we’re ready to hear your testimony.

STATEMENT OF GLENN CAROWAN, REFUGE MANAGER,

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE ACCOMPANIED

BY DIXIE BOUNDS, ASSISTANT UNIT LEADER, WILDLIFE RESEARCH, MARYLAND COOPERATIVE FISH AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH UNIT

Mr. CAROWAN. Dixie is going to be accompanying me, sir.

Mr. SAXTON. OK, very good. Thank you. Glenn Carowan.

Mr. CAROWAN. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and

members of the Subcommittee. I am Glenn Carowan and I’m the

manager of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s

Eastern Shore. Accompanying me is Dr. Bounds, the Assistant Unit

Leader for Wildlife with the Maryland Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.

During my 28 years of managing wetlands for the National Wildlife Refuge System, I’ve never witnessed marsh loss anywhere as

significant as it is occurring now on the lower Eastern Shore. My

colleagues and I are very concerned about the health of our

marshlands and the impacts that nutria are having on our wetlands in Maryland and throughout our country.

Before you is an average size nutria. These highly invasive, nonnative rodents were introduced from South America to the United

States in the early 1900’s to stimulate the fur industry. When fur

businesses failed in the 1940’s nutria were released into the wild.

In Louisiana the population quickly grew from 13 in 1937 to an astounding 20 million by the late 1950’s. From release sites on or

around Blackwater Refuge, refuge populations have grown from 30

released animals in the early 1950’s to estimates as high as between 50 and 100,000 today. This is the story for almost half the

States and many other refuges in this country as seen on the map.

Nutria are established in 22 States and Ontario, with sightings in

40 States and three Canadian provinces.

Nutria devour our wetlands. They consume the above-ground

vegetation, excavate the root mat, eliminate plant reproduction,

and create large crater-like depressions and deep swim canals that

allow saltwater to enter and degrade these delicate ecosystems.

The result is that thousands of acres of our Nation’s valuable

marshlands are degraded or converted to open water. No place on

Maryland’s Eastern Shore is this more evident than in and around

the marshes of Blackwater Refuge, as seen on the comparable aerial photographs that are in front of you.

Over 7,000 acres of marshland have been lost during the 50

years since nutria were first released into the wild. While other

factors including sea level rise, land subsidence and salinity

changes also affect marsh loss, we recognize that we can only con-
5

trol nutria populations. Therefore, any effective plans for preserving and restoring our marshlands has to include efforts aimed

at eradicating nutria. But with the rate of marsh loss accelerating

we must move quickly. Accordingly, 17 Federal, State, and private

organizations have joined forces to develop a plan to determine the

feasibility of eradicating nutria.

The initial phase of this effort entitled ‘‘Marsh Restoration: Nutria Control in Maryland’’ is based on 5 years of collaboration

among the partners with input from private land owners and specialists, and specifically on recommendations by Dr. Morris Gosling, a nutria expert from England. We feel that this pilot program

is most applicable to Maryland because of the strength of this

multi-agency private partnership that contributes over $1 million

in in-kind services, because the nutria population is geographically

isolated on the lower Eastern Shore, and because the overall Statewide population is still relatively small when compared to other

States.

The National Wildlife Refuge System exists for the protection

and management of plants and animals native to the United

States. The policy of the Fish and Wildlife Service is to prevent further introduction of exotic species on national wildlife refuges, and

to protect those resources from competing with non-native species

such as nutria.

Control procedures are delegated to the Secretary of Interior by

Executive Order 11987, which also directs Federal agencies to restrict the introduction of exotic species into areas they administer.

Therefore, in addition to being extremely important to the future

of Blackwater Refuge, the pilot program also helps other affected

refuges achieve the mission for which the National Wildlife Refuge

System was established and the purposes for which Congress established these individual units. If successful the program will likewise be helpful to State and private managed areas throughout this

country and the world. The adverse effect of nutria foraging and

burrowing on our forested and emergent wetlands, our agricultural

areas and levees, seriously compromise our ability to achieve our

wildlife management objectives and have long-lasting adverse environmental, cultural and economical consequences.

Therefore, we believe that this pilot effort is extremely important

to the future welfare of the trust resources which the Fish and

Wildlife Service manages for the benefit of the American people.

Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today and

I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carowan may be found at end

of hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much.

We’ll move right along then to the next witness, Mr. Haramis.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HARAMIS, WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST,

PATUXENT WILDLIFE RESEARCH CENTER

Mr. HARAMIS. Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, it

is with pleasure that I appear before you today to provide information relevant to the nutria/marsh loss issue in Maryland. Thank

you for inviting me.
6

My name is Michael Haramis and I’m a research wildlife biologist with the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, part of the U.S.

Geological Survey.

In 1995 I was asked by the State of Maryland Department of

Natural Resources and the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Blackwater

National Wildlife Refuge to conduct a study to investigate the role

of non-native nutria on the extensive loss of marsh that has occurred over a number of decades along the Blackwater River and

adjoining tidal river marshes in Dorchester County, Maryland. Specifically, since the 1950s, about six square miles of vegetation have

been converted to open water on the refuge and over 50 percent of

remaining vegetation has been termed unhealthy and likely to be

lost in the near future. The result of this habitat change has been

to create a large lake out of what was once nearly continuous

marshland. You can refer to the black-and-white aerial photos on

display that depict this very clearly.

Managers were blaming this loss of marsh on the South American nutria, a large 8–18-pound invasive, beaver-like rodent that

was introduced to Maryland’s Eastern Shore marshes in the 1940s.

The interest in this animal was its potential fur value. No other

grazing rodent of this size has ever occupied these habitats in the

developmental period of these marshes since the Chesapeake Bay

was formed some 10,000 years ago. Nutria are plant eaters that

graze surface marsh vegetation and are particularly fond of Olney

bulrush, a plant that grows in extensive stands at Blackwater.

To better understand the role of nutria and marsh loss at

Blackwater, I designed the largest exclosure study of its kind to address this issue. Over 1.5 miles of fencing were entrenched in the

marsh to exclude nutria from 20 experimental plots, each a quarter

acre in size. These exclosures would allow us to measure the ability

of marsh plants to recover in the absence of nutria grazing and

compare it to the plant loss or gain outside the exclosures where

nutria were still present. As you can imagine, installing this fencing required several months of intense labor.

To demonstrate the maximum effect of exclosure, I direct your

attention to the poster exhibit on your left. The plot on the left half

of the photo is one of the first plots fenced and the plants show a

remarkable recovery in one growing season after fencing. However,

our original fencing technique was not strong enough to keep out

the nutria and after 1 year they breached the fence and caused extensive damage to the vegetation on the right. These photographs

clearly depict the compelling nature of the devastation that nutria

have on marsh vegetation in this area.

One could ask why vegetation didn’t recover as rapidly in every

exclosure in the absence of nutria? The answer lies in the type and

extent of damage that has been inflicted in the marsh. Nutria not

only graze the above ground stems of plants, they are powerful animals that dig into the marsh and excavate the root systems which

makes plant recovery extremely difficult and in many instances unlikely. This damage to the root mat of vegetation is especially critical because much of the marsh in the Blackwater Basin is floating

on a layer of fluid mud, and the root mat is the fabric that holds

the marsh together. Once the nutria cut through the root mat, the

underlying mud is easily eroded away by water action. The result
7

is that the marsh breaks up, sinks, and the vegetation is killed by

inundation.

I found nutria abundant in this marsh and can report severe

damage in much of the marsh that could only likely occur during

periods of overpopulation of these animals. Although lightly damaged marsh such as depicted in the above poster has good probability of recovery after nutria are removed, heavily damaged

marsh has little recovery potential without some restoration effort.

Although my study will not be completed until 1999, evidence

and observations made so far lead me to offer the following conclusions: (1) nutria play a direct role, may have initiated, and I can

state with certainty have accelerated the loss of marsh in the

Blackwater Basin region; (2) nutria are destructive to this marsh

because they have the ability to excavate the root mat, fragment

the marsh surface and expose the subsurface to water erosion; (3)

nutria are abundant and frequently overpopulated in the marsh.

Traditional harvest methods clearly have proven inadequate to control their numbers. And last (4), controlling or eliminating nutria

would clearly be beneficial in mediating marsh loss in the

Blackwater River Basin.

This ends my presentation. Again, I would like to thank you for

this opportunity. I’d be glad to answer any questions you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Haramis may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, sir.

Dr. Taylor-Rogers of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF SARAH TAYLOR-ROGERS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT C. COLONA, MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. Indeed so, sir. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Gilchrest. My name is Dr. Sarah TaylorRogers. I am an assistant secretary for resources management in

the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. I appreciate the

opportunity to share with you Maryland’s perspective on nutria

and also some aspects of the pilot plan that’s been developed.

We are concerned about nutria because there is no natural predator for the control of the population and the population is growing.

In addition to that, besides the destruction of native habitat, we

will be losing that native habitat to the destruction of those very

natural resources that use it, such as the fish and shell fish which

spawn in these nursery areas. And the Blackwater is part of the

Atlantic flyway. To date, eight counties have established populations. Maryland is the best place for this pilot study because the

land available on which the nutria happen to be found are primarily Federal and State, so therefore, there is accessibility. The

States of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia, along with the Federal partners, have supported a no net

loss wetland policy and have fostered species diversity under the

Bay Program.
8

The Department of Natural Resources is also a trust resource

partner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and, as such, is responsible for managing and protecting native natural resources to

the best of our ability. And for the last 9 years the State has

formed partnerships to assess the nutria problem and its effect on

marshland.

These studies are as follows: In 1989 we began a catch per unit

effort to assess population characteristics; in 1993 we developed the

first multi-agency nutria task force to find ways to control nutria

and passed Senate bill 27 which provides for 50 percent of the duck

stamp revenues to go toward the control of nutria. In 1994 we contracted with Dr. Gosling from England who had successfully eradicated from East Anglia, and in essence, he told the task force that

the same thing could be done in Maryland but to do so we had to

do several things.

First, we had to garner information; we had to carry out the

exclosure studies which Mike Haramis just described for you; we

had to develop a well-structured approach; develop a nutria removal scheme through the use of trappers to assess population and

to figure out what it would take to eradicate these 30 pound rats.

The third thing, to assess progress. To set up a monitoring team

to assess progress and assess the effect on wetlands and their ability to rebound—and Alan Baldwin will talk about that—and to

educate the public through the use of valuable videos and kits, information kits, to inform them that this particular species is nonnative.

Aspects of the plan which are before you and in your packet in- clude the following: We propose the 3 year effort totaling $3.7 million.

Two, of that total amount slightly over $902,000 is being offered

in kind by the State, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, University of Maryland, Ducks Unlimited, and Tour de

France.

No. 3, we propose to use three areas for the pilot program located

within and outside the Blackwater National Wildlife Sanctuary

boundaries. Two of the sites will undergo intensive trappings with

humane measures being taken and one area will be the control.

No. 4, we anticipate that an advisory team will be formed comprised of the Federal, State and private partners and that this

team will provide advice and guidance to assure success.

No. 5, the trappers and the researchers will together assess the

range, health and dynamics of the nutria population as well as the

effect on the marsh, and this will garner the information needed.

We will do so through the use of radio collars, ear tags, and various

trapping techniques will be compared. And also a reward will be

established for the return of marked animals.

No. 6, the effect of nutria foraging on marsh vegetation will be

assessed and a method will be explored to restore areas of marsh

which have experienced the eat-out effect of nutria.

And finally, a public awareness and education campaign is also

proposed with exhibits, tool kits and videos being the means for

getting the word out. Dr. Gosling noted that the key to successfully

removing nutria is to conduct the pilot study that will help the

managers and researchers to modify harvest techniques and refine
9

strategies. The pilot plan for which we are seeking funding from either unspent Federal moneys or new dollars, represent the best

thinking and practical approach toward the resolution of this problem.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present Maryland’s

perspective. I look forward to any questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Taylor-Rogers may be found at

end of hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, Dr. Rogers.

Dr. Baldwin.

STATEMENT OF ANDREW BALDWIN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR,

BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Dr. BALDWIN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the

Subcommittee. My name is Andy Baldwin. I’m with the Department of Biological Resources Engineering at the University of

Maryland at College Park. I’m a wetland biologist there. I’m going

to be talking today about the wetland restoration demonstration

project which is a component of this pilot program to eliminate nutria.

The objectives of this wetland restoration demonstration are first

of all to demonstrate that nutria eradication will enhance efforts to

restore coastal wetlands. Second, we want to investigate the effects

of increases in marsh elevation and planting of native species on

the success of restoration efforts. Finally, this information will be

used to support the design and implementation of large-scale restoration programs for coastal marshes that are experiencing nutria

grazing as well as coastal submergence.

What are some of the factors that control marsh deterioration?

Well, you’ve heard about nutria; these animals cause damage to

leaves and roots of marsh plants and they remove the resources of

the plants for growth. There’s another factor, coastal submergence,

and this is the increase in water level relative to the marsh as a

result of land subsidence, that is, the sinking of land as well as sea

level rise. Higher submergence reduces the ability of plants to grow

and inhibits seed germination, preventing colonization of marsh

habitat. The combination of nutria grazing and submergence can

actually kill wetland vegetation rapidly and this can lead to wetland loss.

How do you restore wetlands? Well, nutria eradication is certainly one component of this. Other important components may be

increasing the elevation of marsh sediments somehow to reduce

submergence, promoting plant growth and colonization. Another

technique is to plant vegetation which should speed the reestablishment of desirable native plant communities and reduce colonization by non-native or invasive species like Phragmites, the

giant reed.

One way of restoring or increasing marsh sediment elevation is

to use a technique called thin layer sediment deposition. This is a

technique where sediment is pumped out of a canal or a channel

and pumped through a sprayer so it’s deposited on a marsh surface

in a very thin layer. This has several advantages over traditional

or conventional dredging techniques.
10

First of all, you can operate this dredging system in a few feet

of water such as you have out at Blackwater and other deteriorating areas. You can pump the sediment a long way away from

the dredge unit. You can spray it onto both vegetated and nonvegetated areas and this technique has been used successfully

down in Louisiana to restore coastal marshes there. What we are

proposing to do is to establish two acre areas at both Tudor Farms

properties and Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and subject

them to different amounts of sediments, sprayed on using this thin

layer deposition technique. In each of these areas we will plant half

and leave half unplanted, plant it with a native desirable marsh

species such as three Olney’s square, and then within that, fence

a portion of that area and leave another portion unfenced. That

way we could look at interactions among all these factors and how

these different treatments, these restoration treatments, affected

the success of restoration.

What do we think this will—what kind of benefits will this provide? Well, first of all, it should provide a visual and scientific demonstration of the effects of nutria eradication as well as sediment

elevation and vegetation planting on the success of restoration efforts. These findings should be directly applicable to designing and

implementing large-scale wetland restoration projects in the midAtlantic region and elsewhere in coastal marshes experiencing wetland loss. And finally, this project will have the substantive benefit

of creating several acres, restoring several acres of deteriorated

coastal marsh.

Thank you very much and I’ll take any questions that you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Baldwin may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you all very much. I just have a couple of

questions. I guess the answers to these questions seems to be selfevident, but let me ask them anyway for the record.

Obviously, as has already been stated, there are no natural enemies for these critters, is that correct? At least in Maryland? Are

there natural enemies in other parts of the world, South America?

Dr. BALDWIN. Down in Louisiana there are alligators that eat

some of the nutria. Nutria are a real problem down there but there

aren’t enough alligators to diminish the population to any great extent.

Mr. SAXTON. And it would be a bad idea to import alligators?

[Laughter.]

Dr. BALDWIN. It could be. Another exotic species.

Mr. SAXTON. These critters live obviously above water level in

some fashion. How do they change the habitat other than eradicating vegetation and the roots of the vegetation? What kind of

houses do they live in? Are they like beaver or muskrats or——

Mr. CAROWAN. They generally live on the surface of the marsh.

In Maryland they tend to build leaf nests right on the surface of

the marsh. They also burrow into our levees and our dike systems.

Particularly in Louisiana we have a large problem with nutria burrowing into the levees around New Orleans and other places. We

call them vagabonds. They tend to move around a lot on the sur-
11

face of the marsh. They don’t really build a lodge as such like a

beaver would or as a muskrat would.

So they tend to move around and they live pretty much where

they can find a spot. If they find a dry spot underneath a tree

they’ll bed under there. They’ll get underneath your building, and

they’ll get under your front porch. Wherever they can find a place

to get out of the weather, that’s what they do.

Mr. SAXTON. I see. And the damage they do appears to be quite

similar to the damage done by snow geese in some of our central

flyway marshes and East Coast flyway—East flyway marshes. Is it

the same kind of thing?

Mr. CAROWAN. Very similar. Very, very similar with the exception that nutria tend to excavate much deeper than the snow geese

do. That’s been my personal experience on Blackwater. They tend

to dig that root system up and destroy the vegetation so that it

does not come back. Once they dig that root system up we just do

not get very much reproduction, recolonization of those areas that

have been destroyed.

Mr. SAXTON. And one of the things that Mr. Gilchrest and I have

noted over the years is that if it’s possible—let me put it another

way. Oftentimes we are successful in creating markets for various

types of critters—I’m thinking mostly of fish, I guess—and then the

supply of fish diminishes in direct correlation to the demand that

has been created. Is it possible to create any kind of a demand for

fur or meat or any—is there any variation thereof that is a feasible,

partial answer?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. We have been following Louisiana with respect to meat as a delicacy, and also, I think, nutrias trapped for

fur. But the problem is that this is an exotic specie that does not

have a very strong market at all and the fur market is a very weak

one. Most of the exporting of these pelts would go to those very

countries that are having difficulty economically.

With your indulgence, I could call in Dr. Robert Colona, who

knows a bit more about this if you wish to go into further depth

with the question you’ve asked.

But we’ve assessed it from the State of Maryland and it just simply isn’t practical at all and it would not create a market for us.

Mr. SAXTON. Then the answer is taking the nutria population out

via some form of trapping. Is that——

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. That is correct.

Mr. SAXTON. Is that correct? What kind of traps would be used?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. I would have to defer to Dr. Colona on that

one, if I might, please.

Mr. SAXTON. Why don’t you come over, so the recorder can hear

you, if you don’t mind?

Dr. COLONA. The pilot project is designed to investigate all the

commonly used traps out there now, from foothold traps; instant

kill traps; caged traps; blow traps. Each one of those will be evaluated for efficiency, impacts on non-target species, and general control characteristics. At this point in time we don’t know. That’s one

thing we have to investigate. We don’t know what the most efficient technique is.

Mr. SAXTON. Does hunting hold any possibilities?
12

Dr. COLONA. Under very specific circumstances you can harvest

a lot of them in a very short period of time. But those circumstances only occur sporadically throughout the year so you

can’t base any eradication efforts solely on hunting. It’s got to be

a marriage of a lot of different techniques.

Mr. SAXTON. Are these nocturnal animals or are they around

during the daytime or both?

Dr. COLONA. They’re more dependent on the tides than they are

on day or night. You can find them out during the day, you can

find them out at night. In the winter time when it’s very cold you

tend to find them out during the day. They’re laying out sunning

themselves.

Mr. SAXTON. Adaptable little devils, aren’t they?

Dr. COLONA. Very much so. They’re like furred cockroaches.

Mr. SAXTON. This guy seems to be very well behaved, by the way.

Let me turn to Mr. Gilchrest at this point. I guess, I want to ask

you all and I guess Mr. Gilchrest will do this—it will be interesting

for me to know at least how we can be helpful because this is obviously a very significant problem. Mr. Gilchrest.

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a few

questions. You mentioned they were in eight counties. Are those

eight counties on the Eastern Shore?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. A number of them are on the Eastern

Shore, that is indeed correct, but we’ve also seen some evidence on

the Western Shore as well.

Mr. GILCHREST. Where would that be on the Western Shore?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. In the Patuxent, to my knowledge, and

there may be other areas that are not coming to mind right now.

And Potomac.

Mr. CAROWAN. Both the Patuxent and the Potomac.

Mr. GILCHREST. Patuxent River and the Potomac River?

Mr. CAROWAN. And the Potomac River.

Mr. GILCHREST. So on the Eastern Shore are they north of Dorchester? Could they be as high as Kent County?

Dr. COLONA. We have established populations from Kent Island

South to the Virginia line.

Mr. GILCHREST. Because I think I’ve seen one at Turner’s Creek

but I’ll have to look a little more close. It wasn’t a beaver; sure

wasn’t a possum. Do they have a—do they have a very narrow

range of habitat or are they more like an opportunistic type of creature where they could live outside of—Kent County is not like Dorchester County in the extent of its marsh or wetlands, so could

they adapt to an area on Kent County?

Dr. COLONA. We found that they possess more latitude in their

habitat or they’re able to utilize a larger latitude of habitats than

initially thought. Typically, they were thought of as a brackishwater estuarian species, but now we find them up into our freshwater systems; they’re in wet forested areas, and we also have

them coming up now into some of our croplands. We get crop damage complaint.

Mr. GILCHREST. Is the habitat here giving this range, similar to

where they came from in South America?

Dr. COLONA. There’s some overlap but it isn’t identical.

Mr. GILCHREST. Where did they come from? Which country?
13

Dr. COLONA. A couple of different countries in South America:

Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina.

Mr. GILCHREST. But their habitat down there was similar to——

Dr. COLONA. Yes, it’s a similar wetland ecosystem. There’s some

overlap, ours varies a little bit.

Mr. GILCHREST. What was—can you identify the difference between what Maryland is going to do or wants to do with what the

program has been for some time in Louisiana?

Mr. CAROWAN. I’m sorry, sir.

Mr. GILCHREST. The program, they have a program in Louisiana,

apparently for some time partially funded by the Federal Government, State government, so on, dealing with nutria. This program

that we’re looking to begin here, how is it similar or different from

what they’ve already been doing in Louisiana?

Mr. CAROWAN. My information is fairly limited about Louisiana

but what I understand there is the funding that Louisiana has received they’re putting directly into means to deal with the fur industry as well as to explore other uses of nutria. This program is

entirely different than that and what we’re looking at is trying to

take this opportunity while these animals are somewhat isolated to

the Eastern Shore and the population is still small in regards, in

comparison to the Louisiana population, to eradicate these animals.

Mr. GILCHREST. We’re looking simply to eliminate them from the

landscape completely.

Mr. CAROWAN. We’re looking to remove the image of nutria from

Maryland.

Mr. GILCHREST. Why, why is it—yes, ma’am?

Dr. BOUNDS. I’d just like to add a little bit to what Glenn

Carowan said. We have talked with biologists in Louisiana and

they are trying to exploit the restaurant market, trying to make

nutria an exotic table cuisine. We’ve talked about that in our task

force and we don’t think that would go over very well in Maryland

for a couple of reasons.

First of all, there’s a strong seafood industry and most folks who

visit and vacation on the Eastern Shore want to eat seafood and

not a rat.

And second, I’ve lived on the shore for a long time and I’ve found

that most local folks don’t even want to eat the native muskrat. So

there’s not much chance the locals would eat nutria.

Mr. GILCHREST. But you don’t think you could make nutria taste

like a crab cake?

[Laughter.]

Dr. BOUNDS. I haven’t found that recipe yet.

Mr. GILCHREST. We can make catfish taste like crab cake but I

guess that would really be a stretch.

Dr. BOUNDS. One other point about Louisiana is that they’re not

trying to completely eradicate nutria. Louisiana is atempting to

control nutria, and we are hoping to eradicate nutria.

Mr. GILCHREST. I see. Is there a reason the population has remained? Is it because of the geographic location or the population

in Maryland has remained relatively small compared to the population in Louisiana?

Mr. CAROWAN. Probably the No. 1 thing that we tend to see is

that these animals are all in the northern part of the range on the
14

Atlantic seaboard and the cold weather does have a tremendous

impact on nutria because they are a South American species.

Mr. GILCHREST. So the map up here, those States in the red have

nutria?

Mr. CAROWAN. The States in the red have nutria, and as you’ll

see up there, we also have nutria up as high as Michigan, but I’m

not sure under what circumstances or when those were reported.

One of the things that we’re trying to do now through the co-op

unit is to readdress that with every State that’s on that map and

also with all the refuges that are represented within those States,

to get a better handle on just how serious the problem is. The map

means there are nutria in Michigan, not necessarily that they have

a major problem.

Mr. GILCHREST. Are they in Michigan or Oregon or Washington

or Idaho because they were brought in to expand the trapped in

species or——

Mr. CAROWAN. That’s my understanding. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILCHREST. Along around the same period of time?

Mr. CAROWAN. Yes, sir. Actually, between 1899 and the early

1940’s is when nutria were brought into just about all those States.

Mr. GILCHREST. I see. I just have a couple more questions, Mr.

Chairman. I see you turned the lights off.

How many acres of marshland—Dr. Baldwin, you mentioned the

restoration project for wetlands and something they’ll have to get

over up here is creating another beach replenishment project. I

know this is not beach replenishment, but if we’re looking at a

long—we look at—and I understand the problems of the nutria and

the tidal marsh and the wetlands destruction. But also there is

land subsidence and sea-level rise. If you take the nutria out of the

picture, which I hope we can do in the next few years. But then

you can’t take out land subsidence and you can’t take out sea-level

rise, would it be prudent to continue to pursue the restoration of

the marsh which might be eliminated down the road anyway.

Dr. BALDWIN. Well, that’s right, you can’t control sea-level rise

or land subsidence directly but there are techniques where you can

increase or help the marsh keep pace with sea-level rise and one

of these is to put in additional sediment. Down in Louisiana they’re

doing things like using this thin layer deposition technique I talked

about, and also diverting the Mississippi River into some areas to

get more sediment in there so the marshes can keep pace with sealevel rise.

I personally think it’s important—I mean you’re right, this is

something that’s going to be, sea-level’s going up. But I think it’s

important to maintain this habitat as much as we can, especially

if we need to dredge canals and we need to dispose of this material

somehow, let’s put it to some good use and create a marsh.

Mr. GILCHREST. I would agree there is a problem all over the

country, especially in Maryland where you put the dredge material

and if it can be of some beneficial use all the better. There is

though, in certain areas of Maryland, when you put the dredge material on the land, especially upland, the chemical make-up of the

dredge material or the sediment under water is different than

when you transfer it up into the open air, and then it can become

a problem with releasing certain, you know, whatever acidic mate-
15

rials, certain heavy materials that would have to be—how would

you deal with that?

Dr. BALDWIN. That’s exactly right. When soils are flooded the

iron in it is in a reduced state because there’s no oxygen. You take

it out and you dry it out the iron becomes oxidized, essentially

rusts, and that can lead to the formation, especially in saline soils

where there’s a sulphate source like saltwater soils, can actually

form sulfuric acid. In a wetland, a salt marsh, the soil is saturated

enough that they’re still reducing and so iron is still in a reduced

form in a wetland. So if you create a wetland that is still saturated

soil, you’re not going to have a problem with any sulfur being

oxidized.

Mr. GILCHREST. So as long as it’s in these wetlands that

leaching——

Dr. BALDWIN. That’s not going to be a problem because they’ll

still be reduced. Now if you created a pile that was dry, say a few

feet out of the water, that’s exactly right and that’s what can happen with conventional dredging when you make big piles of dredge

spoil, you have that same reaction going on.

Mr. GILCHREST. Do you have an estimate as to the number of

acres at least in Blackwater that would have to be restored right

now?

Dr. BALDWIN. I’m not sure but if you look at those two maps,

what was there I guess in 1938 on the left and then that big open

area. A lot of that open area is very shallow water and so it only

needs a little bit of sediment but it needs some sediment. In this

program we’re, through this experimental approach, hoping to restore a maximum of 30 acres, it would probably be somewhere

around 15 to 20 acres that would actually get restored.

Mr. GILCHREST. So as part of this whole nutria elimination program, is the restoration of about 30 acres of wetland?

Dr. BALDWIN. That’s for the pilot program, yes.

Mr. GILCHREST. And the pilot program would cost—this whole

pilot program, is there an estimate to the cost?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. This particular portion of it or the whole

thing?

Mr. GILCHREST. I guess the whole thing. How many—do you

have an estimate as to the number of years it’s going to take to

eliminate nutria and are those number of years a part of the—I

guess, the pilot project then is going to take how long to figure out

what to do I suppose and then what’s the estimated cost?

Dr. BOUNDS. The pilot program is scheduled for 3 years and during that time we hope to look at the feasibility of complete eradication of nutria and marsh restoration. And we would like to point

out that by simply removing nutria you are slow down marsh degradation. However, to bring back those areas that have suffered

from severe nutria eat-out, we think we do need to go ahead with

wetland restoration, that’s why we’ve included the demonstration

project.

Mike Haramis has found on his exclosure study that some of the

vegetation comes back, as you see in the poster, but in areas that

have been severely overgrazed, you have to do something more aggressive than just remove the nutria. You have to also add back
16

some soil to raise the elevation of the marsh so that the plants can

come back.

And to answer your question, the total cost for the 3 year pilot would be $2.9 million. We also have contributions of almost $1 million from the 17 partners. So the total effort would be about $4 million.

Mr. GILCHREST. But you’re looking for about 2-something from

the Federal Government?

Dr. BOUNDS. Two point nine million.

Mr. GILCHREST. I see. Is there anybody, any other State—has

any other State had an elimination program?

Dr. BOUNDS. We are conducting a survey of all 50 States and focusing on all the State agencies for natural resources and the national wildlife refuges within the States shown in red on this map,

to find out how they’re managing nutria. To our knowledge, at this

time, there are no other plans in States to eradicate nutria.

Mr. GILCHREST. What will be done with the trapped nutria? I

mean I understand in past years you’ve trapped or killed up to

10,000 of these little critters. Is there a specific policy as to what

you’re going to do with these trapped nutria in this program?

Dr. COLONA. A large portion of the animals will be necropsied

and used to obtain data to further this research. Now we’ll be——

Mr. GILCHREST. They’ll be, they’ll be what?

Dr. COLONA. They’ll be necropsied. We’ll look at reproductive

tract——

Mr. GILCHREST. What was that word? I want to learn this word.

Dr. COLONA. OK. On humans it’s autopsy; on animals it’s necropsy.

Mr. GILCHREST. Necropsy?

Dr. COLONA. Yes. We will necropsy the animals, look at reproductive tracts——

Mr. GILCHREST. So you have a thousand, 10,000; you’re going to

necropsy how many of that?

Dr. COLONA. A representative sample, a large sample. The rest

of them will be——

Mr. GILCHREST. So what will the—I mean, so you get—I’m just

curious now because I have a question. You get 10,000; you necropsy 100?

Dr. COLONA. You can necropsy 10 percent.

Mr. GILCHREST. Ten percent, you necropsy 1,000; you’ve got

9,000 of these things. Seriously, can they be processed at a local

processing plant and then sent to Joseph’s House in Salisbury or

some other place? If it’s meat and it’s edible, can it be distributed

in that manner?

Dr. BALDWIN. I think it could be. I actually have had the opportunity to eat nutria down in Louisiana and I enjoyed it.

Mr. GILCHREST. Can you tell us what it tastes like?

Dr. BALDWIN. I could say it tastes like chicken, but that’s the obvious answer. It’s actually a light meat and these animals just eat

plants so it’s a clean meat, they’re running wild, it’s very low fat.

I know that Paul Prudomme and his sister are trying to come up

with a recipe to try and further it. It’s not—they have a nutria festival there, but still not big because they call——

Mr. GILCHREST. Dorchester has a nutria festival?
17

Dr. BALDWIN. No, this is down in Louisiana.

Mr. GILCHREST. Oh, I wondered why I hadn’t gone to that.

Dr. BALDWIN. But they serve nutria and that sort of thing. But

it’s still not even popular down in Louisiana as a food because they

still call it swamp rat or nutria. They don’t—I think the concoction

that Prudomme came up with called ‘‘Ragondin etoufe ́e,’’ which

sounds a lot better but——

Mr. GILCHREST. I think it would be at least—then I’ll close up

my questions. The chairman is being very lenient with me.

Sarah, do you have a comment?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. Might I respond also? We do have a, although albeit it’s more plentiful, we have a program where we provide deer, venison, in our hunting program to various areas that

could use the meat to help feed the hunger or to help others and

I think we could also look into that as well as a State with respect

to nutria.

Mr. GILCHREST. I’m sure it might be worth—now I suppose the

program only affects Blackwater refuge. No other spot in Maryland?

Mr. CAROWAN. Oh, no, sir. In terms of the pilot program?

Mr. GILCHREST. Yes.

Mr. CAROWAN. No, sir. The pilot program is actually just using

the refuge as one of three sites.

Mr. GILCHREST. Oh, I see.

Mr. CAROWAN. We are particularly interested, as you will hear

later, also for looking at Tudor Farms, which is a private site, and

they have done a lot of work on their own and are a significant contributing partner to this effort. And we’re also looking at the State

area on Fishing Bay Wildlife Management Area that’s managed by

Maryland DNR. So we’re kind of looking at three different sites

throughout Dorchester County.

Mr. GILCHREST. So eventually we’re looking to eradicate nutria

in the State or, the State of Maryland, that Delmarva Peninsula,

this region?

Mr. CAROWAN. That’s correct.

Mr. GILCHREST. Often the chairman of the full Committee brings

moose meat on the House floor. Maybe Jim and I could bring nutria sometime in the future before the session’s over.

[Laughter.]

And it might become possible in Washington. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. SAXTON. Let me just ask Dr. Rogers a question. I get the

feeling that—not only the feeling—I mean you’ve carefully stated

that the program is an eradication program not a population control program—and then I get the feeling in another court, you

know, when we’re talking about creating a market for the meat or

whatever, that you would rather not, I just get this feeling, you

haven’t said this, that you would rather not be involved in that because in some ways it runs counter to an eradication program. In

other words, if you create a market there’s a reason to keep some

of these guys around and you don’t want to do that. Is that correct?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. That is correct. I’ll be clear in my answer,

and the reason why is the resources that so depend upon the

Blackwater area for their very life cycle and sustenance, could very
18

well continue to be endangered if we do not eradicate the nutria

from this area. And it is those resources that are native to Maryland and native to the Delmarva Peninsula that are important to

try to maintain, protect and manage over a non-native specie.

I hope that is a clarification.

Mr. SAXTON. Yes, ma’am, that’s very clear and I think that’s very

helpful. Now what Mr. Gilchrest, who has been the real leader here

in Congress on this issue would like to do is to be helpful as possible and he has drafted legislation that I think you’re aware of.

Is that correct?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. I have heard that he has drafted it. I

haven’t seen it but I have heard he has. Yes.

Mr. SAXTON. OK, well, it’s a fairly simple bill that goes to support your program which provides for a Federal share not to exceed

50 percent of the total cost of the program and that the local shares

can be in the form of income contributions and will authorize the

Appropriations Committee to appropriate whatever the amount of

money is that’s needed. And that is the approach that you’re looking for and that’s what you want us to do in a general sense. Is

that correct?

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. Yes, we are indeed and you had asked how

can the Committee be helpful, that is indeed what we’re looking for

by way of help. And we will also as a State, be trying to secure

some additional supplemental funds to help out with this as well.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you. I have no further questions at this time

and we thank you very much for coming and articulating the issues

so eloquently for us and helping me as a non-Marylander to understand. I can only hope that we never have them on the New Jersey

Coast. So we’ll try to help you get rid of them in Maryland so they

don’t move further north.

Dr. TAYLOR-ROGERS. Thank you kindly.

Mr. SAXTON. OK, well, thank you and some other members may

have some additional questions for you and we may ask you to respond to some in writing so the hearing record will remain open.

Now let me introduce our second panel. On Panel two we have

Dr. Edward Soutiere, president and manager of Tudor Farms, Inc.;

Mr. Richard Pierce, director of operations for the Great Lakes and

Atlantic Region office of DU, one of my favorite organizations; and

Mr. James Rapp, director of the Salisbury Zoological Park.

As you gentlemen are taking your places at the table behind your

sign let me just reiterate that in the interest of our schedule and

time we have allotted each of you 5 minutes for your opening statement and that your entire statement will be included in the record

should you desire.

And so, sir, Doctor, you may begin at your leisure.

STATEMENT OF EDWARD C. SOUTIERE, PRESIDENT AND

MANAGER, TUDOR FARMS, INC.

Dr. SOUTIERE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Mr.

Gilchrest, my name is Ed Soutiere. I am manager of Tudor Farms.

Tudor Farms is a privately owned wildlife management area and

hunting preserve located on the Transquaking and Chicamacomico

River watersheds upstream of the Blackwater River and Fishing

Bay marsh complexes. I manage the farm’s 5,500 acres for a vari-
19

ety of wildlife both upland and wetland species, but managing for

waterfowl is our priority.

Our 2,400 acres of tidal marsh and 200 acres of manmade freshwater wetlands are important habitat to thousands of ducks, geese

and shorebirds. All the tidal marsh upstream and immediately

downstream of Tudor Farms is privately owned, and all of this

marshland is either owned by waterfowl hunt clubs, leased to waterfowl hunters by the owners, or hunted on by the owners themselves. Today this Committee is addressing the loss of valuable

wetlands at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge caused in

part by the nutria. I welcome this opportunity to remind the Committee that private owners of wetlands in Dorchester County,

Maryland are suffering the same losses and damage and that we

too are interested in finding a solution.

In the 9 years that I have managed Tudor Farms, 500 acres of

vegetated tidal marsh have converted to mudflats and open water.

Marsh loss is greatest, averaging 30 percent to 40 percent in the

in the broad marsh expanses adjacent to the Transquaking and

Chicamacomico Rivers, and least in the narrow headwater marshes

of the creeks feeding into these rivers. Early on my staff and I recognized that nutria were damaging the marsh with their feeding

and traveling activities. In addition, nutria feed in our crop fields

and landscape plantings, and dig and burrow in our water control

dikes and structures causing thousands of dollars of damage annually. I might also add that last year our veterinarian bills for our

hunting dogs was $2,000, that is they had confrontations with nutria and it took that much to put them back together again.

Hoping to control, if not reduce, the population of nutria on

Tudor Farms, I opened the farm to trapping by several local trappers in 1992. These trappers were of course most interested in

trapping muskrat, raccoon and fox for which there is a good, strong

fur market. There is no market for the fur of nutria in Maryland,

so I gave the trappers the cash incentive of $1.25 for each nutria

killed. In 1995 Tudor Farms awarded a research grant to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore to study the nutria on Tudor

Farms and to determine what if any effect, the trapping was having on the nutria population. The graduate student, Lara Ras, who

conducted the research will complete her program of study at the

University of Maryland Eastern Shore this fall and Ms. Ras is also

sitting in the audience.

At this time, I can tell you that the number of nutria trapped or

shot each trapping season since 1992 has remained relatively stable at about 5,000 per year. The estimates of nutria numbers on

Tudor Farms have also remained stable at 17,000 to 24,000, or 7

to 10 nutria per acre of marsh. This means that at best we have

succeeded in removing only 25 percent of the nutria population

each year. For nutria, which reach sexual maturity at 6 months of

age and which can have two or three litters of four or five young

per year, this is no control at all.

I have concluded that traditional trapping during the 4-month

fur-bearer season in Maryland cannot alone control nutria numbers. Furthermore, the removal of 25 percent of a nutria population

each year is insufficient to arrest the loss of vegetated marshland.
20

Eradication, a much more difficult objective than control, is a desirable goal for Maryland if we are to have any hope of retaining

our valuable tidal marshes. But eradication would require the dedicated effort of a professional staff working full-time and year-round

for several years and some help from Mother Nature to achieve.

Public support for the eradication effort will be essential, for as Dr.

Gosling noted during his 1994 seminar at Tudor Farms on the subject of the United Kingdom nutria eradication program, in the

eradication program ‘‘the only nutria you are paying for is the last

one.’’

Tudor Farms will support the pilot project, ‘‘Marsh Restoration:

Nutria Control in Maryland’’ with contributions of cash and in-kind

assistance. We have a vested interest in maintaining a healthy

wetland system in the Chesapeake Bay. I believe our neighbors

share our interest. I urge this Committee to support the funding

request for the proposed pilot project. We clearly need to move

quickly to find and develop techniques to save and restore our fast

vanishing marshlands.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Soutiere may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. Doctor, thank you very much.

Mr. Pierce.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD B. PIERCE, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS FOR DUCKS UNLIMITED, INC.S GREAT LAKES/ATLANTIC REGIONAL OFFICE

Mr. PIERCE. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Congressman

Gilchrest. My name is Richard Pierce, and I am director of operations for Ducks Unlimited Great Lakes and Atlantic Regional Office. My staff and I are responsible for delivering Ducks

Unlimited’s conservation programs along with the mid-Atlantic

coast.

Ducks Unlimited is the largest non-government waterfowl and

wetland conservation organization in the world, having more than

a million supporters. Since its founding in 1937, Ducks Unlimited

has raised more than $1 billion to conserve over eight million acres

of critical wildlife habitat in all 50 States, eight Canadian provinces, and key areas in Mexico.

Since 1987, Ducks Unlimited has worked with State, Federal and

private conservation partners to restore, protect and enhance over

40,000 acres of wetlands and associated habitat within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. In May 1997, we announced our Chesapeake

Bay initiative, a joint partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other partners, to restore wildlife habitat on an integrated landscape approach and improve water quality by reducing

sediment and nutria loading into the Chesapeake Bay. This initiative is an ambitious effort to restore over 90,000 acres of wildlife

habitat and raise some $20 million to support our conservation efforts and the efforts of our State and Federal partners. Through

this initiative we have been working with the U.S. Department of

Agriculture and Interior to implement conservation programs including the Partners for Wildlife Program, Conservation Reserve
21

Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program.

The tidal marshes of the Chesapeake Bay provides habitat for

over 1 million wintering waterfowl which accounts for approximately 35 percent of all waterfowl wintering in the Atlantic

Flyway. Species of continental importance including the American

Black ducks, Canvasback, Leser and Greater Scaup, and the Atlantic Population of Canada Geese. In addition to waterfowl, the Bay’s

ecosystem support over 2,700 species of fish and wildlife.

As you have heard from previous testimony, nutria, an introduced exotic species, have caused severe damage to the tidal

marshes of the Chesapeake Bay. Due to the dependence of large

populations of waterfowl and other wildlife on these affected ecosystem, Ducks Unlimited finds that controlling nutria populations

and restoring tidal wetlands is a priority for our Chesapeake Bay

initiative. Impacts to tidal marshes are a result of several factors,

including sea level rise, land subsidence, erosion and nutria. Nutria

are large herbivore that feed directly on the vegetation that provides structure to a marsh. Their impacts result in a change in the

vegetative composition of an emergent marsh, and even the total

loss of the marsh to open water. In either case the vegetative communities are altered and productive waterfowl and wildlife habitat

is lost.

Nutria feeding habitats create a highly erosive conditions and

leave the marsh pitted with holes and swim channels and often

void of vegetation. The primary food source for nutria is three

square bulrush. That same bulrush is also a favorite and valuable

food for wintering waterfowl. The loss of this vegetation component

leads to a reduction in the vertebrae populations which migratory

waterfowl readily depend upon.

Additionally, increased rates of erosion in concert with rising sea

levels and the increase in the hydroperiod or flooding regime of the

marsh, which limits the ability of three square bulrush and other

plants to regenerate a site. The swim channels through the marsh

also permit the tidal inundation of many isolated and interior

ponds that support submerged aquatic vegetation. The increase in

salinity and turbidity limits the growing conditions for submerged

aquatic vegetation, and has reduced many interior ponds to barren

mud flats. Submerged aquatic vegetation is an important food

source for migrating and wintering waterfowl, especially the American Black duck, a species of priority concern in the Atlantic

Flyway.

The restoration of tidal wetlands is an important component of

our Chesapeake Bay Initiative. Tidal wetland systems are some of

the most productive ecosystems in the world, supporting thousands

of aquatic and terrestrial species, including many that are threatened and endangered. Maryland has lost over 73 percent of its

original wetlands making the remaining wetlands vital to maintain

the health of the Bay’s ecosystem.

Unfortunately, large expanses of Maryland’s remaining marshes

have been degraded by nutria. Therefore, Ducks Unlimited supports this plan and its goal of controlling nutria populations and

restoring marsh habitat. We also support the plan’s efforts to study

alternative restoration techniques in order to minimize cost and in-
22

crease restoration effectiveness once it begins. Controlling nutria is

just one step in slowing the rate of marsh loss in Chesapeake Bay.

Restoration projects should also be implemented as soon as possible

in order to study restoration techniques and to establish demonstration projects that educate the public on the importance of

these coastal marshes.

Mr. Chairman, members of this Committee, thank you for your

time and attention. I have provided a copy of my written testimony

and ask that it be included in the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pierce may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Pierce. That was very

informative and articulate testimony and we appreciate it.

Mr. Rapp.

STATEMENT OF JIM RAPP, DIRECTOR, SALISBURY

ZOOLOGICAL PARK

Mr. RAPP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Gilchrest.

My name is Jim Rapp and I’m director of the Salisbury Zoological

Park in Salisbury, Maryland. I’ve worked for the zoo for 10 years

serving in a number of capacities including the zoo’s education director.

The Salisbury Zoo has been a member of the American Zoo and

Aquarium Association, the AZA, since 1972, and has an annual attendance of about 250,000 visitors including 15,000 local school

children.

The Salisbury Zoo appreciates the opportunity to testify before

the Committee on the pilot program proposal. The zoo supports this

proposal and expects to be an integral partner in carrying out the

educational mission of the proposal.

As I am the last speaker today, my comments will focus on the

educational impacts of introducing exotic species to our Nation’s

ecosystems, and the importance of educating the public to prevent

further destruction of Maryland wetlands.

Exotic species introductions, whether intentional or unintentional, seem to be an inevitable result of human activities which

may result in both economic and ecological problems. It has been

estimated that over 90 percent of all such introductions have been

harmful in some respect. As U.S. Fish and Wildlife Director Jamie

Clark said, ‘‘invasive species tend to be very adaptive, aggressive

and resilient. Once they are established, we are unlikely to ever

completely eradicate them.’’ In fact, Mr. Chairman, this last past

Sunday, CNN aired a new segment from their ‘‘Earth Matters’’ program called ‘‘Invader Animals’’ that illustrated the devastating effects of exotic species in the U.S.

The United States has been the unfortunate recipient of exotic

species since colonial times but the problem has grown to new

heights during this century. In the late 1920’s the migration of the

sea lamprey into the Great Lakes began its reign of terror on populations of lake trout. Since that time our Nation has been in a constant battle to prevent either the spread of established exotic species or the introduction of new ones. However, one species in particular, the zebra mussel, truly heightened the dangers of exotic

species to local ecosystems and what is necessary to prevent fur-
23

ther damage. The zebra mussel was unintentionally introduced into

the Great Lakes during the 1980’s through untreated ballast of

ships and in less than 10 years it has established itself throughout

the Great Lakes to Mississippi River, and many other of our national waterways. The zebra mussel has caused tens of millions of

dollars in damage through filtration systems throughout these

areas and at the same time has smothered populations of native

clams, mussels and other aquatic life.

In addition to zebra mussels, exotic species such as the gypsy

moth and pine boring beetle, have caused billions of dollars in damage to our forests, fields and waterways as well as our agriculture

and timber industries. Other exotic species affect a number of ecosystems by displacing native species such as the exotic mute swan,

the giant reed known Phragmites, and the devastating brown tree

snake. The brown tree snake was introduced to Guam in the late

1940’s aboard military equipment. The snake has since then spread

throughout the formerly snake-free island, eating the majority of

Guam’s native bird population. The result: there are no more native birds in the wild on Guam and the forest is eerily silent. The

brown tree snake’s devastation is also felt throughout Micronesia.

Two critically endangered species, the Guam Rail and the Micronesian kingfisher are the focus of a breeding program and recovery

plan involving the Department of the Interior and 30 institutional

members of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. Hopefully, these two species can be returned to their native island habitat someday.

In an effort to preserve native ecosystems and species that depend on them and to curb the adverse effects of exotic species introductions, biologists have recommended numerous methods of population control and sometimes complete eradication of exotic species.

The State of Maryland, particularly the Eastern Shore of Maryland, finds itself with a serious nutria problem. Mr. Chairman, as

the Committee is well aware, the Chesapeake Bay and the wetlands of the Eastern Shore are recognized as some of the most important ecological areas in the United States and have received

global recognition as wetlands of international importance under

the Ramsar Convention Treaty. Maryland’s wetlands are used for

fishing, hunting, trapping, berry and timber harvesting, and the

growing interest in bird-watching and outdoor photography. The

Salisbury Zoo has been an active partner in developing ecotourism

on the Eastern Shore to the promotion of the Delmarva Birding

Weekend, and the creation of the Delmarva Birding Guide. The

Wetlands in this area are home to hundreds of species of animals

and plants and serve as important or nursery sites for many thin

fish and shell fish. These wetlands are also vitally important to

over one million waterfowl that winter in the Chesapeake Bay or

use it as part of their migration. Resource managers fear that without intervention the significant ecological, cultural and economic

benefits of wetlands in Maryland will be completely lost within the

next decade.

While it is important to confront the threats of develop, erosion,

and agricultural runoff to Maryland wetlands, dealing with the exotic nutria can be perhaps an easier task. The goal of the Nutria

Control Program is to develop methods and strategies to control
24

nutria populations, restore marsh habitat and promote public understanding of the importance of preserving Maryland’s wetlands.

The pilot program for control and eventual eradication of nutria

will also be extremely beneficial in preventing future species from

being added to the Endangered Species Act, especially if the nutria

continues its conquest of wetlands habitat in the U.S. The primary

mission of the Salisbury Zoo is to increase the public’s awareness

and appreciation of wildlife and encourage citizens to become active

in conservation efforts. The zoo would be a natural partner with

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and other members of the

public education committee, for sharing information about the significance of wetlands restoration and nutria control.

I believe this proposal is a good practical first step in trying to

better understand the scope of nutria problem in the Blackwater

watershed, and how to best take on this destructive adversary. An

ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure, and weighing

the cost of long-term nutria destruction and the cost of this pilot

program, I believe the answer is clear.

Thank you for allowing me to testify in support of the proposed

pilot program for marsh restoration and nutria control.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rapp may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Rapp. I’m particularly

pleased that you spoke of other non-indigenous species that have

been either introduced intentionally or unintentionally throughout

not only our country but some other parts of the world as well. It

seems to me that what we’re experiencing here can be a lesson that

we should take very seriously. So thank you for your testimony.

I would also like to make note that Mr. Greg Linscombe who is

the programs manager, Fur and Refuge Division of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is here with us today and has

submitted some testimony which I ask unanimous consent be included in the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Linscombe may be found at end

of hearing.]

Mr. SAXTON. And I think it’s noteworthy, this problem, along

with being an Eastern Shore problem is obviously a horrendous

problem in Louisiana as well. This testimony says in part that the

control of nutria in Louisiana is among the top priorities for the

State of Louisiana, where over 3.3 million acres of coastal wetlands

now exist. Wetland damage in Louisiana attributable to nutria is

now conservatively estimated to exceed 80,000 acres in the South

East portion of the state.

So this is, indeed, a very serious problem and one that this member and I know, Mr. Gilchrest, take very seriously. We’ve been

chatting here during the last hour or so about how to proceed and

I don’t know that we have come to any firm conclusion except to

say that we are going to put the finishing touches to Mr.

Gilchrest’s bill or he is and then we will proceed in an expedited

fashion to deal with it through this Committee and on the floor of

the House.

Mr. Gilchrest, do you have any questions at this time for this

panel?

Mr. GILCHREST. Just a few, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
25

Dr. Soutiere, it’s good to see you again. We haven’t seen each

other for quite a few years now.

Dr. SOUTIERE. You again, sir.

Mr. GILCHREST. Family doing all right?

Dr. SOUTIERE. They’re doing well.

Mr. GILCHREST. I guess the kids are grown up now.

Dr. SOUTIERE. Well, Shawn, we finally got him out of college.

Mr. GILCHREST. You did? I have two still in college but they’re

about ready to—one more year.

Dr. SOUTIERE. Thank you for asking.

Mr. GILCHREST. Shawn’s doing all right?

Dr. SOUTIERE. Yes.

Mr. GILCHREST. That’s great. Tell him I said hi. I taught Shawn

in high school.

Dr. Soutiere, this nutria population, has it impacted or reduced

the population of opossum on Tudor Farms, or raccoons or fox or

anything? Have they displaced any of those other animals?

Dr. SOUTIERE. It has not displaced any of the uplands species

which you happen to have listed. There’s some sense that the

muskrat has declined as the nutria numbers have increased. Trappers certainly are not catching as many muskrat on our marshes

as they did historically. I can’t point that there’s any direct antagonism between the two species but certainly they’re occupying similar habitats and eating the same kinds of plants. And I would say

when nutria eats its dinner muskrat doesn’t get a chance to eat it.

Mr. GILCHREST. You said, did you say that there can sometimes

be pretty violent conflicts, confrontation between the nutria and

hunting dogs?

Dr. SOUTIERE. I have had both staff injured and my dogs have

been injured. Dogs of course don’t know better and will attack nutria cornered. They’re very aggressive. You can see that the long

incisors on that mounted nutria in front of you. They cut and slash.

They’re very capable of defending themselves and I’ve had one employee who, he boxed in a nutria so I guess in a way you could say

he put the animal on the defense, tore right through his hip boots

and made a pretty bad gash wound in the upper thigh. They’re capable of defending themselves.

Mr. GILCHREST. Are there any beaver down there at Tudor

Farms?

Dr. SOUTIERE. There are no beaver on Tudor Farms.

Mr. GILCHREST. You also mentioned, is there a difference between the hide of muskrat, opossum, raccoon, nutria that makes

nutria not a very profitable hide to sell?

Dr. SOUTIERE. Very definite differences. Probably the best to

compare is with the muskrat and the nutria. The muskrat has a

thicker fur, it’s finer, denser. The fur of the nutria tends to be quite

coarse and has a longer guard hairs and the only good hair, a good

portion of the fur tends to be on the belly so if there is any market

it’s only for a small portion of the actual pelt. In recent years

there’s been no economic market to speak of for the nutria. The fur

industry and the fur market for fur coats has been weak in general.

Mr. GILCHREST. Has there ever been any reports of nutria with

rabies?
26

Dr. SOUTIERE. Not to my knowledge, no.

Mr. GILCHREST. This is a little off the subject but is there a

phragmite problem in Tudor Farms?

Dr. SOUTIERE. We don’t have a problem per se because we’ve ag- gressively attacked phragmites. We spend about $25,000 a year

controlling phragmites. I guess you could say that’s a problem. But

it’s certainly not like the Delaware marshes where it’s totally taken

over. Ours is limited to smaller pockets and we’re aggressively

going after it.

Mr. GILCHREST. Are you aware of nutria living—I would guess

Delaware has a similar problem or at least some problem. Can nutria—and I’m not suggesting this as an alternative——

[Laughter.]

Dr. SOUTIERE. You’re about to ask me if we eat phragmites.

Mr. GILCHREST. No, can nutria live in, within phragmites given

the difference between that and marsh grass and what Doctor, Mr.

Pierce has referred to as——

Dr. SOUTIERE. Square bulrush. Three-square bulrush.

Mr. GILCHREST. Three-square bulrush.

Dr. SOUTIERE. Only three square. Three square. Only three

square is the preferred food of both the nutria and the muskrat.

Nutria certainly live in phragmites stands but we see very little

evidence that they do much grazing on the root tubers of

phragmites. Certainly not enough to do any damage to it unlike the

damage they do to the three square marshes.

Mr. GILCHREST. We’re in a 3-year, I think we’re in the third year

going into the fourth year of a moratorium on Canada goose hunting based on the population.

Dr. SOUTIERE. On the migratory——

Mr. GILCHREST. On the migratory Canada goose. Have you seen

any change in the population of Canada goose in and around Tudor

Farms in the last three, 4 years?

Dr. SOUTIERE. I can read that question two ways: The

migratory——

Mr. GILCHREST. Totally academic. I just want migratories. I’m

not concerned with the——

Dr. SOUTIERE. The migratories, we saw a very nice increase in

the numbers of migratory birds during the last fall migration. Now

our resident flock of geese are rapidly approaching nuisance numbers.

Mr. GILCHREST. Really?

Dr. SOUTIERE. Yes.

Mr. GILCHREST. Another pilot program. We’ll get Duncan Hunter

down there, turning the animals. The whole posse.

A couple of other quick questions. Mr. Pierce, what would be—

and I know someone mentioned in their testimony that the stamp,

part of the money from the stamp program would be contributed

to the Nutria Elimination Program. Was I correct when I heard

that?

Mr. PIERCE. The comment was from the lady from Maryland and

I believe she was referring to the waterhouse stamp issued by the

State of Maryland.

Mr. GILCHREST. What would be Ducks Unlimited’s contribution

to the Nutria Eradication Program?
27

Mr. PIERCE. Our contributions would primarily be in the restoration field in restoring the marshes and both our technology and expertise here.

Mr. GILCHREST. So then you would work with Dr. Baldwin from

the University of Maryland in that program that he described?

Mr. PIERCE. That’s correct.

Mr. GILCHREST. How have you restored—you mentioned restoring 40,000 acres of wetlands in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

Could you give us some idea how that process went? How you restored some of those wetlands? Was it through mitigation system,

was it restoring wetlands that had been drained or filled in the

past?

Mr. PIERCE. A couple of different approaches. The first approach

would be working with private land owners to restore impacted

wetlands on their property at their wish and their desire; providing

again technical assistance and monetary assistance; helping the

natural resources, conservation service deliver those programs

throughout the Susquehanna River drainage, through all the

States impacted there. And also working on the public-owned

marshes with our Federal and State partners to do restoration

work on those marshes.

Mr. GILCHREST. Has that been a pretty successful operation?

Much resistance? Pretty good working relationship with Federal

and State agencies and private land owners?

Mr. PIERCE. Very good, particularly with our partners in the

Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Federal and State partners

included so a great number of people are interested in this area

and are working very well.

Mr. GILCHREST. I would suppose then you would agree with the

total elimination policy of the nutria?

Mr. PIERCE. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Mr. GILCHREST. Have you seen an increase in the laboratory

county goose population in the last few years?

Mr. PIERCE. The Atlantic population has recovered, not fully recovered, but has rebounded very well. Last fall we had very good

fall flights and we’re not going to recommend or we’ll not be increasing hunting. But yes, a very good increase and an explosion

in the locals and that created confusions amongst people living in

the area.

Mr. GILCHREST. So you said your recommendation would be to—

now the moratorium was three to 5 years and I think we’re going

into our fourth year.

Mr. PIERCE. I believe the Fish and Wildlife Service has said they

will continue for one more year with it.

Mr. GILCHREST. So do you agree with that assessment?

Mr. PIERCE. We agree with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s recommendations.

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you.

Mr. Rapp, Salisbury Zoo, do you have any live nutria down

there?

Mr. RAPP. We have in the past and we’ve discussed it as part of

a South American exhibit but not a native Eastern Shore exhibit.

Don’t want to give people that impression.

Mr. GILCHREST. So are you going to have a display of nutria?
28

Mr. RAPP. We discussed it. We’re doing a master plan right now

for the zoo that we really want to focus. Our collection is based on

north and South American wildlife which is fairly interesting as to

the nutria problem and we’ve exhibited them in a South American

context before. We’d like to bring them back in, especially with this

program being introduced, it would be very beneficial for local

school children to see what they look like and create an awareness.

It is a bit of an issue, you know, talking to children about basically eradicating an animal but conservation and ecology is what

we talk about in zoos. It goes beyond just an appreciation for living

things. Very interested in exhibiting nutria again but just females.

Mr. GILCHREST. You couldn’t put a little display next to that, you

know, cage where the nutria would reside with a little table there

and some kind of a hot sauce, whatever they use. A sample.

Mr. RAPP. A sample table.

Mr. GILCHREST. A sample table.

Mr. RAPP. We sure could. Could be a good fundraiser for us. I

don’t know.

Mr. GILCHREST. They could come in with a little tooth pick.

Mr. RAPP. On a tooth pick?

Mr. GILCHREST. Do you have any—would you say that the pilot

program as you understand it is—I guess you would agree with—

would you agree with elimination?

Mr. RAPP. Yes, I would. I go to Blackwater frequently, birdwatching and wildlife viewing. It’s a tremendous growing industry

in our area and just the effects, as has been demonstrated by most

folks up here, of what nutria can do to a marsh would severely destroy a lot of the opportunities we have done there for wildlife

viewing and that is, we’re beginning that market now.

We’ve been very pleased with the responses we’ve had. Not just

the zoo and other partners in promoting, not just birdwatching, but

canoeing, kayaking and the like and you don’t want to canoe

through a nutria marsh. What are you going to look at? But you

want to go through a healthy—only you see a lot of adversity.

Mr. GILCHREST. What do you see are the Salisbury’s Zoo’s contribution to this project?

Mr. RAPP. We’d like to develop a program focused toward school

children and adults as well, but a program dealing with the subject

of introduced species. We do that quite a bit as it is right now. We

have a program actually adopted through a National Wildlife Federation Environmental Education Manual called ‘‘Invaders in Paradise’’ that deals with introduced species on Hawaii, and it’s actually

a play that kids do that takes about 15 minutes.

You start off in the pristine era of Hawaii a couple of hundred

years ago, you bring in the rats and the pigs and the goats and all

these animals don’t belong there. And Hawaii is a great case in

point. I believe it’s about 50 percent of their birds are endangered

right now and they lost 50 percent, extinct. Island species is a little

bit more sensitive on occasion than some of our species in the 48

States but nonetheless it’s a very serious problem on the island nation as well as on the Eastern Shore, but it really gives kids an

idea that this isn’t part of what the national system is all about.
29

You mentioned very well in your earlier statements, about tying

in machinery of nature and nutria just don’t fit. Not up here they

don’t.

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Mr. Rapp, Mr. Pierce, and

Dr. Soutiere. We welcome your input and we’ll do what we can on

this level to help everybody out down there, Great State of Maryland plus the Eastern Shore. Thank you gentlemen, very much.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Gilchrest. Let me just pause to discuss one other issue that has been raised here on a couple of occasions and that is the local Canada goose issue. I guess I learned

a while back that in as much as this is a sub-species, it wasn’t necessarily indigenous to the Eastern part of the country. Is that what

you understand, Mr. Pierce?

Mr. PIERCE. That’s correct. The giant Canada geese were reintroduced by Fish and Wildlife agencies throughout the upper midwest

and the east coast.

Mr. SAXTON. They were indigenous to the upper midwest?

Mr. PIERCE. Yes.

Mr. SAXTON. But not to the east coast?

Mr. PIERCE. Mr. Chairman, I can’t answer that. I don’t think so

but that’s a guess.

Mr. SAXTON. In my lifetime I’ve seen different patterns seemingly exist. One pattern is the one that you’ve mentioned about the,

what do you call them, an epidemic of local geese or something like

that. In addition to that, I’ve always been curious. When I was a

young adult, I think we almost had to go to the Eastern Shore if

we wanted to see or hunt Canada geese and then over a decade or

two all of a sudden I guess determined short stop in New Jersey

and Pennsylvania, that seems to me to be a different pattern even

with regard to the migratory species. Is that correct?

Mr. PIERCE. The Giant Canadas basically don’t migrate.

Mr. SAXTON. The Giant Canadas are what we refer to as local?

Mr. PIERCE. As local, yes, and the migratory birds, their pattern

has been impacted by these resident geese who stay there, who attract and hold the migratory birds also by changes in agriculture

that’s opened up the landscape and made good wintering areas in

the upper midwest and in further northern areas with farm ponds

and large reservoirs constructed by man and also in part by the

refuge systems.

Mr. SAXTON. So the introduction of a non-indigenous species, or

what we believe is probably a non-indigenous species, the Giants,

had an effect on the life patterns of the migratory birds? You surmise?

Mr. PIERCE. I’m not sure I could say that but probably. The Canadas colonized this area on their own. I’m not sure they were even

brought into this area. They were introduced in the upper midwest

and I think have expanded to these areas.

Mr. SAXTON. I see.

Mr. GILCHREST. Jim, if I could give you an unscientific perspective. I think Mr. Pierce is right when he said the changes in agriculture when they went from growing tomatoes on the Eastern

Shore to growing wheat, they had inefficient combines, they left a

lot of corn on the ground and things like that. So that the migratory birds, instead of going to North Carolina, they begin to stop
30

more often on the Eastern Shore and then since then, you know

change in climate and patterns and, I remember, and then the

change of some of these Canada migratory birds stopping in New

Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, mild winters and the whole

thing.

But I think it was the change of agriculture that really began the

migratory birds from stopping, or started them stopping on the

Eastern Shore.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much. I’d like to thank you for your

insights and also Mr. Gilchrest for his great effort on this nutria

problems. Members of the Subcommittee may have some additional

questions for the witnesses and we will ask you to respond to them

in writing. The hearing record will be kept open for 30 days for

your responses. If there is no further business, the chairman again

thanks the members and the Subcommittee, and our witnesses as

well.

The Subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned subject to

the call of the Chair.]

[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
31

STATEMENT OF GLENN A. CAROWAN, JR, REFUGE MANAGER, BLACKWATER NATIONAL

WILDLIFE REFUGE, CAMBRIDGE, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES FISH AND WILDLIFE

SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to be here today to discuss the Fish

and Wildlife Service’ efforts, along with many other interested parties, to control nutria at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and elsewhere. I began my career with

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) 28 years ago at Mattamuskeet National

Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in North Carolina, and after many other assignments became manager at Blackwater NWR in June 1989.

Damage caused by nutria is a major problem at Blackwater and elsewhere in

Maryland and in the southern United States. Tidal, fresh-to-brackish water marshes

along the Eastern Shore of Maryland are some of the most biologically productive,

ecologically valuable, and economically important habitats in the United States. Unfortunately, they are disappearing at an alarming rate. Since 1938, thousands of

acres of brackish tidal-marshland, dominated by Olney three-square bulrush

(Scirpus americanus) and other emergent plants, have been degraded and converted

to open-water habitat along Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore.

Marsh losses may be most severe on and around the Blackwater National Wildlife

Refuge in Dorchester County, which currently includes approximately 10,000 acres

of combined vegetated marsh and open-water habitat. Refuge biologists estimate

that over 7,000 acres of vegetated marsh have been lost along the Blackwater River

in the past half century, and that the rate of loss has accelerated substantially during the past decade (as much as 500 acres a year in recent years). Resource managers fear that these wetlands, which provide significant ecological, cultural, and

economic benefits, will continue to disappear at an increasing rate unless prompt

action is taken.

The Olney three-square bulrush that dominates these habitats on Maryland’s

Eastern Shore is a vital component of the brackish tidal-marshes. The rhizomes of

these plants form a dense root mat that retains sediments and stabilizes the marsh.

The structural integrity provided by these root mats promotes habitat diversity and

determines the functional qualities of the marsh. These coastal marshes provide extraordinarily valuable ecological services and human benefits. For example, decomposing marsh plants provide detritus that supports the food-web of the Chesapeake

Bay estuary. Commercial and non-commercial fish and shellfish depend upon the efficient transfer of primary to secondary production that occurs in these marshes,

and many species depend upon these habitats as feeding and nursery grounds. Approximately 35 percent of all migrating waterfowl in the Atlantic Flyway depend on

these marshes as resting and feeding sites. Bald eagles fish and scavenge the

marshes to support the largest nesting population of this species north of Florida

on the Atlantic Coast. A half billion dollar a year sport fishing industry is directly

linked to the productivity of Maryland’s marshes, as is an impressive commercial

blue crabbing, oystering, and fishing industry which is also valued in the millions

of dollars.

Costanza and Farber, in their report on ‘‘The Economic Value of Wetlands in

Terrebone Parish Louisiana’’ estimated the value of the coastal marshes to be

$28,200/acre/year for all types of economic benefits and recreational activities. Based

on the Louisiana estimate, the 10,000 acres of existing and potentially recoverable

marshland on Blackwater Refuge can therefore be estimated to be worth about

$282,000,000 a year (for all types of economic uses and benefits including, but not

limited to, sport and commercial fishing, hunting, wildlife observation, and a wide

variety of ecotourism activities). However, such economic assessments, while important to the economic well-being of Maryland, do not begin to account for the myriad

of other ecological functions provided by these marshes such as nutrient removal,

erosion and flood water control, improved water quality, and exceptional wildlife

habitat. The health and stability of Chesapeake Bay wetlands contributes directly

to the quality of life for Maryland residents.

The decline of these tidewater marshlands along Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore

and the resultant adverse environmental, economic, and cultural effects may be due

to several factors; however, recent acceleration in marsh loss appears to be directly

related to increases in populations of nutria (Myocastor coypus). Nutria are alien,

non-indigenous species that are highly invasive. These semiaquatic rodents are

equipped with long front teeth and powerfully clawed feet that enable them to excavate the root-mat and devour up to 25 percent of their body weight a day. Nutria

often grow up to 3-feet long, and can weigh up to 30 pounds. They are extremely

prolific animals, reach sexual maturity at four to six months, breed year-round, and

produce average litters of four to five offspring, two or three times a year. Picture
32

a pack of brown Pac Men with a taste for precious marshland, and you have a fairly

good concept of nutria.

Nutria are indigenous to South America; their original range was in Argentina,

Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Fur-farming introductions extended

that range into the United States between 1899 and 1940 with introductions into

California, Washington, Oregon, Michigan, New Mexico, Louisiana, Ohio, and Utah.

But fur-farming attempts failed due to high mortality rates and low reproductive

success in captivity. Many of the nutria were freed into the wild when the businesses failed in the late 1940s. State and Federal agencies and individuals

translocated nutria into Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas with the intent that nutria would control

undesirable vegetation and enhance trapping opportunities. Nutria were also sold

as ‘‘weed cutters’’ to an unsuspecting public throughout the Southeast, and a hurricane in the late 1940s scattered nutria over wide areas of coastal Louisiana and

Texas.

Accidental and intentional releases have thus led to widespread and localized

feral populations in 22 states and Ontario, and to reports of sightings in at least

40 states and three Canadian provinces in North America. The other states with

established populations include Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, North Carolina,

and Virginia. Range expansion of this highly adaptive rodent seems to be limited

only by extreme cold. All national wildlife refuges and wildlife departments in the

22 states with established nutria populations are currently being surveyed to determine nutria abundance, habitat damage, and management activities.

The first recorded introduction of nutria in Maryland occurred in 1943, although

it is probable that nutria were first released in Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore

marshes in the late 1930s. The Fur Animal Station on the Blackwater National

Wildlife Refuge was in operation from 1939 to 1947, and during that time nutria

were reared in captivity for experimental purposes. In 1943, nutria reportedly escaped from the pens. In the spring of 1951 and summer of 1952, adjacent landowners released 5 pair of nutria on Coles Creek marsh and 20 nutria on Gibbs

marsh at Meekins Creek, respectively. In 1956, refuge personnel were instructed to

remove nutria from the refuge by any means available. During 1957-59, it appeared

that the nutria population on the refuge was under control.

However, during these years, nutria populations on adjoining private marshlands

exploded, and animals eventually found their way onto the refuge once again. From

1962 through 1968, the population on the refuge was estimated at less than 150 nutria per year. But the population made a giant leap in 1969 to an estimated 2,075.

By 1976, the population had expanded even further, and 2,894 nutria were harvested on the refuge. The total harvest of Maryland nutria fluctuated between 1,500

and 5,000 from 1971 to 1976. During the 1976-77 trapping season, the harvest

peaked at a record 29,679 (due to increased market, ideal trapping conditions, and

trapper interest.) In the winter of 1976-77, an estimated 90 percent of the Maryland

population froze to death during a prolonged period of freezing in January and February of 1977. The population quickly recovered, and by the late 1980s State-wide

estimates were higher than ever before. From 1990 through 1997, 35,000 nutria

were killed on Blackwater Refuge alone. On Tudor Farms, an adjoining privately

owned tract in Dorchester County, between 4,000-5,000 are harvested annually. The

current refuge population is estimated to range from 35,000–50,000, but there is the

need for more rigorous studies to validate these numbers.

Alarmingly, nutria numbers and their range appear to be increasing and expanding, as considerable amounts of marsh damage is occurring and there are numerous

new sightings on the western shore in the Patuxent and Potomac Rivers.

The story is very similar, but even worse in Louisiana where thirteen nutria were

released in 1937; by the late 1950s that population was estimated to exceed 20 million animals. Populations in the United States are most dense along the Gulf Coast

of Louisiana and Texas. In Louisiana, autumn densities of about 18 animals per

acre have been recorded in freshwater marshes. In Oregon, summer densities in

freshwater marshes may be as high as 56 animals per acre, while on Blackwater

Refuge, population densities range from 1 to 6 animals per acre (with 3.3 animals

per acre being the average during the last population survey in 1995).

Nutria have devastating effects on marsh vegetation because they forage on

rootstalks and excavate entire plants. At Blackwater, 80 percent of their diet is composed of three-square bulrush. The result is that they not only denude the marsh,

they also destroy the root mat that is the structural fabric holding the marsh Together. Furthermore, nutria fragment the marsh with innumerable swimming canals, which serve to focus tidal currents and promote erosion, leading to the lowering of the marsh and conversion of emergent marsh to open water. Nutria, however, are not limited to causing damage to the marshlands. In many states, they

are also
33

responsible for damage to forested wetlands, bald cypress restoration efforts, agricultural crops, and levees. Nationwide, nutria may pose significant ecological and

economic impacts.

While nutria may be the dominant factor contributing to marsh loss, it is likely

that other forces, including increased salinity (due to land subsidence and sea-level

rise), play a role in determining the ecological structure and function of these tidal

marshes. Resource managers have little power to control land subsidence, sea-level

rise, and salinity changes, but nutria populations can be controlled for the benefit

of the marsh ecosystem. Therefore, an effective plan to preserve and restore these

fragile brackish tidal-marshes and their ecological, cultural, and economic values

must involve efforts aimed at eradicating nutria; wetland restoration efforts would

be severely jeopardized if nutria were allowed to continue foraging.

Accordingly, 17 Federal, state, and private organizations have joined forces since

1993 to develop a plan to determine the feasibility of eliminating nutria from Maryland. The initial phase of this effort, entitled ‘‘Marsh Restoration: Nutria Control

in Maryland,’’ is based upon years of collaboration among the partners; input from

private landowners, trappers, watermen, scientists, marsh ecologists, and animal

control experts; recommendations from private and agency wetland restoration experts; and recommendations from Dr. L.M. Gosling, a world renowned nutria expert

from Great Britain. Dr. Gosling planned and supervised Great Britain’s successful

1O-year nutria eradication program, and was invited to visit the Eastern Shore by

the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in 1994.

His recommendations have helped guide many of our efforts to date. Based on

both his successes and failures in Great Britain, he recommended that the first

strategy should be to confirm that nutria were the primary cause of the extensive

damage to the marshland ecosystem. To accomplish this, he recommended that a

series of enclosures be randomly erected in the Blackwater/Fishing Bay marshes to

measure the impact of nutria damage, and to demonstrate the ability of the marsh

to recover. This research activity has been conducted in a joint effort between the

State of Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Geological Survey’s

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Mr. Michael Haramis will testify to the details

of this study, ‘‘The Effect of Nutria (Myocastor coypus) on Marsh Loss In The Lower

Eastern Shore of Maryland: An Exclosure Study.’’ Preliminary results of the study

indicate that nutria are indeed greatly accelerating marsh loss.

Secondly, Dr. Gosling strongly recommended that a pilot eradication scheme be

designed to help estimate the size of the trapper force required, and to gain more

information on nutria behavior and movements to help plan trapping tactics in more

extensive marshland areas. Dr. Gosling also recommended that we test a trapping

organization, establish the strategic deployment of trapping effort based on catch

per unit effort, evaluate trapping techniques on target and non-target species, determine changes in reproduction as population size changes, and develop public awareness about the need to control nutria within Maryland (and other areas of the country). The proposed pilot program includes all these recommendations, and additionally includes an experimental wetlands restoration demonstration project. Several

of our partners have agreed to help in educating the public about the importance

of nutria eradication.

The pilot program, a copy of which I am providing for the record, has generated

high hopes for halting marsh loss. In answer to the question, ‘‘Is it possible to eradicate nutria in Maryland?’’, Dr. Gosling’s assessment is that ‘‘a number of factors

make the prospects of eradication in Maryland even more likely than they were at

a comparable stage in England. These include a more efficient trapping technique,

better mobility over water, and lower population fecundity. Experience in England

has shown that it is possible to eradicate a substantial nutria population over a

large area of wetland habitat, and given the successful resolution of the issues (in

the pilot eradication scheme discussed above), there is no impediment to eradication.’’ Dr. Gosling concludes by saying, ‘‘On balance, the factors favoring eradication outweigh potential obstacles, and it could be possible to complete the task

more quickly than in England.’’

The National Wildlife Refuge System exists for the protection and management

of plants and animals native to the United States. The policy of the Service is to

prevent further introduction of exotic species on national wildlife refuges, and to

protect trust resources from the adverse impacts of competing with exotic species.

Therefore, in addition to being extremely important to the future of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, the information gained from the pilot program will also be

applicable to other refuges within the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS), to

state-managed areas, and to private marshlands throughout the United States and

the world. The Maryland Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at University

of Maryland Eastern Shore is currently surveying all state wildlife agencies and
34

other units of the NWRS to determine the extent of the nutria problem in an effort

to work cooperatively to help address these concerns and educate the public on the

national level.

If successful, this program will certainly help Blackwater and other national wildlife refuges achieve the mission of the NWRS and the purposes for which these individual units were established by Congress. The severity of marsh loss and the adverse effects of nutria foraging and burrowing on our forested and emergent wetlands, agricultural areas, dikes and levees, waterfowl management impoundments,

water control capabilities, moist soil management areas, and wetland restoration efforts are seriously compromising our ability to achieve our wildlife management objectives, adversely affect the function and productivity of our marshes, disrupt or

change cultural activities, significantly harm economic benefits, and have long-lasting environmental consequences as previously noted. Accordingly, we believe that

this proposed pilot effort is extremely important to the future welfare of the migratory birds, anadromous fish, and endangered species which the Fish and Wildlife

Service has been entrusted to manage for the benefit of the American people.

This concludes my formal statement. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you, and will be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.

STATEMENT OF G. MICHAEL HARAMIS, RESEARCH WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST, U.S.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, PATUXENT WILDLIFE RESEARCH CENTER, LAUREL, MARYLAND

The purpose of this testimony is to provide information that is relevant to the conservation of the nation’s natural resources, and in particular the wetlands of the

Blackwater River Basin and adjacent rivers and specifically those wetlands now

part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge,

Dorchester County, Maryland. I have been familiar with these wetlands and the

marsh loss issue since arriving in Maryland in 1976 when I started my employment

as a Research Wildlife Biologist at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, now part

of the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey. For the past 3 years, I

have been directly involved with the problem of marsh loss in two capacities: first,

as a research scientist conducting a cooperative study with the State of Maryland’s

Department of Natural Resources and the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to

investigate the role of exotic nutria (Myocastor coypus) in the loss of emergent

marsh vegetation, and secondly, as a member of a multi-agency task force, including

Federal, state, local, and private organizations, to develop a pilot nutria control proposal for Maryland. In reference to these activities, I offer the following comments.

NUTRIA: A BRIEF HISTORY

As brief background, the South American nutria became a subject of attention in

the fur industry back in the early 1930s when their large size and high reproductive

potential held promise for fur farming businesses in North America. Many hopeful

investors started small captive colonies in many locations in the United States, Canada, and many European countries. Many of these farms, however, did not succeed

and the animals either escaped or were released to the wild. In some locations feral

animals died when released into unsuitable habitat or exposed to severe winter

weather. However, nutria populations did develop and persist in many areas. A survey conducted in 1983 found viable populations in 15 states and one Province of

Canada; a 1994 survey found nutria in 22 states. Our multi-agency task force is currently conducting a new survey to update this information.

In Louisiana and Maryland marshes, escaped nutria found a suitable natural environment, both a rich food base and favorable climate, and large populations developed as a consequence. Maryland’s population is relatively small in comparison to

Louisiana where the annual harvest was about 1 million pelts annually in the mid1980s.

With few natural predators and a decline in fur demand, nutria populations have

at times experienced severe overpopulation. These periods of overpopulation have

brought severe damage to marshes through the animal’s intense feeding on emergent plants. Over time, resource managers recognized that these populations could

not be controlled or managed by traditional harvest methods because of (1) lack of

harvest incentive (inferior fur quality, declining fur markets) and (2) the animal’s

own high survival (lack of predators) and remarkable productivity. Nutria may reproduce throughout the year depending on food availability and climate; they may

produce 3 litters per year and average 5 young per litter.

Nutria also are not popular with trappers: in comparison to the native muskrat

(Ondatra zibethicus) they are too large to carry, hard to skin and only a portion of

the fur is of value. Average-sized nutria are 8-18 pounds (4-8 kilograms) or 5-10
35

times the size of muskrats. Where the larger, more aggressive nutria has become

abundant, the muskrat has declined through competitive displacement. Nutria are

semi-aquatic surface feeding herbivores that can be extremely destructive to marsh

vegetation. Their beaver-sized incisors and powerful forefeet allow them to forage

directly on the marsh root mat, leaving the marsh pitted with holes and deep swim

canals. No other marsh herbivore as large and destructive to wetland vegetation as

nutria has ever existed in the Blackwater Basin during the entire development of

these marsh ecosystems in the post-glacial period.

ROLE IN MARSH LOSS

At the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Olney three-square bulrush (Scirpus

americanus) is the food plant of choice for nutria. Results of a recent study on the

refuge found a loss of 3,500 acres of mostly Olney marsh to open water since 1938;

53 percent of remaining marsh was considered in unhealthy condition and likely to

be lost in the near future. Why is this marsh disappearing and what role do nutria

play in this event and in the continuing process of marsh loss?

It is my view that while other factors may also be contributing to marsh loss, nutria are the primary force that has accelerated the rate of marsh loss in this basin

by attacking the very structure that holds the marsh together, the vegetative root

mat. The root mat has been especially critical because much of the marsh in the

Blackwater Basin is a type of floating marsh above a layer of fluid mud. Once the

nutria chew through the mat and expose the mud to erosional forces of tidal current

and wave action, the marsh surface sinks and the vegetation is lost to inundation.

The particular vulnerability of the interior marsh to nutria damage is likely the reason why marsh loss did not occur near the mouth of the Blackwater River (source

of rising water), but in the interior basin many miles up-river where this delicate

Olney marsh was under attack by foraging nutria.

It is likely that stress from marsh inundation reduces plant vigor by inhibiting

plant germination, growth, ability to recolonize denuded areas, or recovery from nutria grazing. Clearly, plants that are stressed from too much water from flooding

are unable to recover from damage by nutria. It is impossible to accurately reconstruct past events and there are many other subtle factors continuing to operate

that affect the health of the marsh. Nonetheless, it is my opinion that nutria foraging activity likely initiated and certainly greatly accelerated the rate of marsh

loss in the Blackwater Basin. I conclude that an overabundance of nutria is the

major factor in the observed rapid conversion of emergent marsh to open water

along the Blackwater River.

THE NUTRIA EXCLOSURE STUDY

In 1995 I became directly involved with the marsh loss issue when I began a cooperative study with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to investigate the role of nutria in the loss of

emergent marsh on the Refuge. My study proposed using fenced enclosures to eliminate nutria herbivory and measure the subsequent vegetative response. Specifically,

this experimental approach would determine whether in the absence of nutria the

marsh vegetation could stabilize and recover from nutria damage. Conducting this

enclosure study was the first of several recommendations made by the British researcher Dr. L.M. Gosling, who assessed Maryland’s nutria/marsh loss issue at the

request of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in 1994. Dr. Gosling had

successfully removed nutria from a marsh in England in a 10-year trapping campaign that is well documented (see Literature Cited at the end of this report).

In my study, large 100 x 100 ft plots were selected to maintain the ecological integrity of fenced plots and minimize physical effects of enclosure. The size of these

enclosures, requiring over 1.4 miles of fencing, make this one of the largest enclosure studies of its kind. Nineteen randomly selected control plots and 19 paired

plots (adjacent to fenced enclosures) were also included in the study to test for possible differences in nutria densities. I wanted to be reassured that densities at random control and random treatment (fenced sites) were similar. This is important because if by chance densities were different at the fenced and unfenced sites, it could

bias the results of the study. Vegetative coverage was measured through spring and

fall measurements of 346 fixed subplots and helicopter photography of whole plots.

Preliminary results following one growing season indicate that the vegetative response is as predicted, i.e. moderate expansion of vegetation within enclosures, and

a measured reduction outside. Although the magnitude of this response within enclosures was not great, it is positive evidence that (1) nutria activity is contributing

to marsh loss and (2) the marsh is showing some capability of recovering in the absence of nutria foraging activity. However, vegetative recovery is likely limited because of elevation differences between the vegetative surface and the adjacent
36

denuded marsh surface. It is clear that the cumulative sediment transport processes

are negative on the marsh surface (erosional) and without the vegetation to stabilize

the marsh, the mostly organic debris torn up by nutria simply washes away.

The sensitivity of the marsh surface to erosion is significant because it indicates

that in the absence of nutria, only partial recovery of vegetation can be expected

unless restoration is done to fill in eroded areas or otherwise augment the elevation

of the marsh surface to a level conducive to vegetative growth.

Damage from nutria occurs along a gradient from light to heavy. Plots that have

lost more than 70 percent of vegetation, and exhibit only scattered tufts of remaining vegetation are essentially unrestorable without invasive procedures. Sites where

damage has been light and little erosion has occurred, seem to have a good chance

of recovery if protected from nutria. Unfortunately a large percentage of the marsh

exhibits cumulative damage from nutria over the past several decades and seems

to have little restoration potential because the damage has progressed too far. As

a matter of fact, two of my plots completely eroded away in the early phase of the

study and had to be relocated; 3 other plots are now on the edge of large areas completely denuded of vegetation. A number of growing seasons is required before making more definitive statements about recovery potential. I note that in the current

year I have also included in my study an investigation of the effects of elevation

change on plant recolonization. This study is scheduled to continue through 1999.

NUTRIA ERADICATION

I have been a member of the nutria eradication proposal task force since its inception and wish to make some comments about the pilot control initiative. First, much

of the plan was originally derived from recommendations from Dr. Gosling, who forwarded a very well formulated eradication plan to the State of Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Dr. Gosling is the only person who has experience with

a large-scale, long-term nutria eradication program, and I might add, a successful

one. Dr. Gosling’s success is remarkable because he was constrained to use live

traps for capturing nutria in Great Britain, and not the more effective traps available in the United States. Dr. Gosling is a research scientist and conducted his experiment in eradication in a systematic and well documented way. It is a consensus

of our task force that our plan must also incorporate the research needed to document the process and especially the population effects related to removal of nutria.

This is essential if the work is to be properly evaluated and documented. Also, the

research component is essential to fill in information gaps in our knowledge, for instance, in determining the most effective trapping procedures or the best marsh restoration methods.

I wish to mention the diverse partnership involved with this initiative. At last

count at least 17 different partners, including several from the private sector, are

actively involved in the proposal’s design and in contributing time, equipment, facilities, and dollars. Their commitment helped to create a diverse base of support for

the proposal.

Lastly, the task force reached a noteworthy consensus during its deliberations. All

members are well aware that although nutria have been a management problem for

many years, no program has ever been adopted at a proper scale to address the

issue. Thousands of acres of marsh have been lost in Maryland. The task force believes that marsh loss can be mediated by controlling and eventually eliminating

nutria from Maryland. This concludes my statement, and I will be pleased to respond to any questions.

LITERATURE CITED

Gosling, L.M. 1989. Extinction to order. New Scientist, 4 March 1989:44-49.

Gosling, L.M. 1994. Towards an eradication plan for nutria in Maryland, a report

to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. 14 April 1994. 14pp.

Gosling, L.M., and Baker, S.J. 1987. Planning and monitoring an attempt to

eradicate coypus from Britain. Symp. Zool. Soc. Lon. 58:99-113.

Gosling, L.M., Baker, S.J., and Clarke, C.N. 1988. An attempt to remove coypus

(Myocastor coypus) from a wetland habitat in East Anglia. J. Appl. Ecol. 25:49-62.

STATEMENT OF DR. SARAH J. TAYLOR-ROGERS, PH.D., FOR THE MARYLAND

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Mr. Chairman, my name is Dr. Sarah J. Taylor-Rogers. I am the Assistant Secretary of Resource Management for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

On behalf of the State of Maryland, I appreciate the opportunity to address this
37

Subcommittee on initiatives relating to control of expanding nutria populations

within our State.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Nutria are an invasive, semi-aquatic South American rodent. This non-native species was first introduced into Dorchester County, Maryland in 1943. Nutria are a

foreign addition to Maryland’s wetland ecosystems, therefore no inherent biofeedback mechanisms exist to naturally control their populations. Consequently,

succeeding population increases and range expansion has now resulted in established populations in at least 8 counties. Population estimates on the 10,000 acres

of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge have grown from less than 150 animals in

1968 to between 35,000 to 50,000 currently.

Loss or degradation of Maryland’s coastal marshes has reached alarming proportions. It is estimated that up to 65 percent of our wetlands have been lost since the

1700’s. Nutria feeding behavior damages or destroys the root mat that cements the

marsh together. When this fibrous network is compromised, emergent marsh is

quickly reduced to unconsolidated mudflats. These areas in turn are highly susceptible to erosional processes and are eventually converted to open water. While nutria

are not the sole reason for marsh loss, they have been implicated as the catalyst

that has greatly accelerated losses during the last decade. Annual loss rates at

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge are now approximately 5 percent of total vegetated acreage.

Although this project focuses primarily on Blackwater NWR, the 10,000 acres of

the refuge only represents a small portion of the nutria’s occupied range in Maryland. Maryland’s problems encompasses a much larger scale and scope than those

described in this proposal. However, the accompanying scientific investigations are

the first logical step in addressing our problems.

Current efforts have evolved to the inclusive, systematic strategies now presented

to Congress (see attached proposal). A brief synopsis of the labors that led to this

hearing is as follows:

CHRONOLOGY OF APPROACH

1989

During the mid-1980’s Maryland’s non-native nutria population exhibited seemingly exponential growth rates. Likewise, resident population densities, occupied

range and accompanying marshland degradation paralleled these increases. This

prompted the Maryland Department Of Natural Resources (DNR) to initiate the

CUE (catch per unit effort) project in 1989 to assess nutria population characteristics. The study generally supported qualitative field assessments of rapidly increasing populations.

1993

DNR formed the first multi-agency nutria task force. The group was charged with

the overwhelming responsibility of development or a workable approach to control

of non-native nutria populations. Efforts of the task force resulted in completion of

the first draft eradication plan. The concept of nutria eradication also received legislative support in 1993 with the passage of Senate Bill 27. This legislation mandated

that 50 percent of the proceeds from the sale of State duck stamps be designated

for nutria control.

During preparation of the 1993 plan, literature searches revealed that successful

nutria eradication efforts had been completed in East Anglia, Great Britain. Under

the direction of Dr. Morris Gosling, the Coypu (nutria) Research Laboratory, and the

Coypu Control Organization reversed decades of futile efforts and eradicated the entire resident nutria population during the 1980’s. This victorious endeavor resulted

from the marriage of systematic applied research and field control activities (see attached ‘‘Extinction to Order,’’ M. Gosling). These successes led DNR to solicit critical

review of our initial plan from Dr. Gosling.

1994

Communications with Dr. Gosling highlighted the complexities of a large scale

eradication program. Upon realization of the enormity of the task before us, DNR

entered into a contractual agreement with Dr. Gosling to provide technical expertise

in development of a revised eradication plan.

Dr. Gosling completed field assessments of Maryland’s nutria population and occupied range, and submitted his recommendations to DNR. He felt that eradication

in Maryland was an achievable goal, however basic natural history and control

strategy information had to be obtained prior to the implementation of control efforts.
38

Dr. Goslings expertise and comments were then synthesized with the initial eradication plan. Project descriptions were developed, and resulted in production of the

initial working concepts of our current proposal entitled ‘‘Marsh Restoration: Nutria

Control in Maryland.’’ All of our ensuing efforts have closely paralleled the recommendations offered by Dr. Gosling.

1995

Quantifiable data documenting the deleterious consequences of established nutria

populations is critical to enlisting public understanding and support. Accordingly, in

1995 DNR entered a joint research endeavor with the U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center designed to assess the impacts of nutria grazing

on marshland vegetative communities. This study entitled ‘‘The Effect of Nutria

(Myocaster coypus) on Marsh Loss in the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland: An

Exclosure Study’’ has proven to be the largest investigation of it’s kind ever initiated

in a marshland ecosystem. Mike Haramis, the project’s principle investigator will

provide accompanying testimony on preliminary findings of this study.

1997

The DNR and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have continually solicited critical

input of the draft eradication plan. These requests led to convening of a ‘‘Nutria

Control Summit’’ meeting in 1997. Representatives of various agencies, organizations, and disciplines contributed valuable insights and perspectives to augment the

existing plan.

As a result of this meeting, 17 governmental agencies and private organizations

formed partnerships and appointed two complimentary task groups. The first was

an expanded technical committee which was charged with refinement the draft

plan’s experimental design, and development of the three year pilot project. The second committee was charged with development of a public education campaign to cultivate support for the program.

1998

Both of these committees have worked in unison to produce the proposal with

which you are now presented. The attached document entitled ‘‘Marsh Restoration:

Nutria Control in Maryland’’ details the specific approaches necessary to ultimately

address control of nutria populations.

THE PLAN

History has demonstrated that normal commercial harvest of nutria is not adequate to substantially reduce population levels. Prolific reproductive rates and

adaptability in response to high mortality rates have allowed nutria populations to

expand through time. Detailed records kept on a 7,000 acre landholding adjacent

to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge document this phenomena. Nutria population densities and associated ecological damage on this parcel continue to increase

in spite of sustained annual harvests of approximately 25 percent to 35 percent of

the total population.

As demonstrated by Dr. Gosling, the key to successfully eradicating nutria is to

modify existing harvest equipment and strategies. The information necessary to capitalize on critical behavioral traits and characteristics can only be obtained through

the systematic, and quantitative investigations included in the attached proposal.

Accurate home range, movement, reproductive and control equipment evaluation

data is essential to the development of efficient harvest strategies.

Key components of the proposal and brief descriptions are as follows:

1. Impacts of nutria on marsh ecosystems (enclosure study).

This cooperative research endeavor will quantitatively document the impacts on plant species composition and densities in marshland vegetative

communities. This data will be employed by public education personnel to

garner the public support necessary for an eradication project.

2. Nutria natural history characteristics.

(a) Temporal, spatial and gender specific home range characteristics.

A variety of techniques including radio-telemetry, mark recapture, and Forward Looking Infra-red Radar will be utilized by researchers to assess these

behavioral manifestations. A basic understanding of when, where, why and

how animals occur and travel is necessary for control personnel to develop

efficient harvest schemes.

(b) Reproductive characteristics.

Reproductive dynamics including age of sexual maturation and failure, compensatory reproductive rates, litter size, and average number of litters per

year are essential to predicting control personnel force size and control in-
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tensity levels. Researchers will obtain this information by performing

necropsies on animals supplied by the control unit.

3. Pilot Control Project.

(a) Develop and evaluate control equipment and strategies.

Eradication based harvest schemes will require evaluation and modification

of existing control equipment, as well as development of new and innovative

apparatus. Likewise, current sustained yield harvest strategies will require

systematic alterations. Information supplied by project researchers will enable control personnel to investigate and modify all of these parameters.

(b) Age and gender specific harvest characteristics.

When population densities are reduced to a critical level, harvest efficiency

may dictate targeting specific age classes or gender for maximum reduction

values. Research and control personnel will work cooperatively to obtain

this mutually beneficial information.

4. Marsh restoration.

(a) Investigate recuperative capabilities of degraded marshland ecosystems.

Researchers will determine the gradient of recovery for untreated marsh

vegetative communities when nutria are removed.

(b) Investigate mechanical techniques for restoration of severely degraded

marshland ecosystems.

Researchers will evaluate if changing elevational levels of degraded marsh

through the application of sediments will facilitate recovery of severely degraded areas. The treatments will be applied in areas with and without nutria present.

5. Public education and support.

Information supplied by both research and control personnel will be crafted by

education specialist into a media campaign that conveys the urgency and inherent value of the eradication project to the general public.

This body of work is the culmination of over nine years of labor by recognized experts in the biological science. It represents the best available, systematic and scientifically based approach to resolution of an extremely urgent problem. Thank you

for your consideration.
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STATEMENT OF DR. EDWARD C. SOUTIERE, PRESIDENT AND MANAGER, TUDOR FARMS

INC.

Tudor Farms is a privately-owned wildlife management area and hunting preserve located on the Transquaking and Chicamacomico River watersheds upstream

of the Blackwater River and Fishing Bay marsh complexes. I manage the Farms’

5,500 acres for a variety of wildlife, both upland and wetland species, but managing

for waterfowl is our priority. Our 2,400 acres of tidal marsh and 200 acres of manmade freshwater wetlands are important habitat to thousands of ducks, geese and

shorebirds. All the tidal marsh upstream and immediately downstream of Tudor

Farms is privately owned, and all of this marsh land is either owned by waterfowl

hunt clubs, leased to waterfowl hunters by the owners, or hunted on by the owners

themselves. Today this Committee is addressing the loss of valuable wetlands at the

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge caused, in part, by the nutria. I welcome this

opportunity to remind the Committee that the private owners of wetlands in Dorchester County, Maryland are suffering the same losses and damage, and that we

too are interested in finding a solution.

In the nine years that I have managed Tudor Farms, 500 acres of vegetated tidal

marsh has converted to mudflats and open water. Marsh loss is greatest, averaging

30 percent to 40 percent, in the broad marsh expanses adjacent to the Transquaking

and Chicamacomico Rivers, and less in the narrow headwater marshes of the creeks

feeding into the rivers. Early on, my staff and I recognized that nutria were damaging the marsh with their feeding and traveling activities. In addition, nutria feed

in our crop fields and landscape plantings, and dig and burrow in our water-control

dikes and structures, causing thousands of dollars of damage annually.

Hoping to control, if not reduce, the population of nutria on Tudor Farms, I

opened the Farms to trapping by several local fur-trappers in 1992. These trappers

were of course most interested in trapping muskrat, raccoon and fox for which there

is a fur-market. There is no market for the fur of nutria in Maryland so I gave the

trappers a cash incentive of $1.25 for each nutria killed. In 1995, Tudor Farms

awarded a research grant to the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore (UMES) to

study the nutria on Tudor Farms and to determine what if any effect the trapping

was having on the nutria population. The graduate student, Lara Ras, who conducted the research will complete her program of study at UMES this fall.

At this time, I can tell you that the number of nutria trapped or shot each trapping season has remained relatively stable at about 5,000, ranging from 4,000 to

5,000. The estimates of nutria numbers on Tudor Farms have also remained stable

at 17,000 to 24,000, or 7 to 10 nutria per acre of marsh. This means that, at best,

we have succeeded in removing only 25 percent of the population each year. For nutria, which reach sexual maturity at 6 months of age and can have two or three

litters of 4 to 5 young per year, this is no control at all.

I conclude that traditional trapping during the 4 month fur-bearer season in

Maryland cannot alone control nutria numbers. Furthermore, the removal of 25 percent of a nutria population each year is insufficient to arrest the loss of vegetated

marshland.

Eradication, a much more difficult objective than control, is a desirable goal for

Maryland if we are to have any hope of retaining our valuable tidal marshes. But

eradication will require the dedicated effort of a professional staff working full-time

and year around for several years, and some help from Mother Nature, to achieve.

Public support of the eradication effort will be essential for, as Dr. L. M. Gosling

noted during his 1994 seminar at Tudor Farms on the subject of the United Kingdom nutria eradication program, in an eradication program ‘‘the only nutria you are

paying for is the last one.’’

Tudor Farms will support the pilot project, ‘‘Marsh Restoration: Nutria Control

in Maryland.’’ We have a vested interest in maintaining a healthy wetland system

in the Chesapeake Bay. I believe our neighbors share our interest. I urge this Committee to support the funding request for the proposed pilot project. We clearly need

to move quickly to find and develop techniques to save and restore our fast vanishing marshlands.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD B. PIERCE, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS. DUCKS UNLIMITED,

INC.’S GREAT LAKES/ATLANTIC REGIONAL OFFICE

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. My name is

Richard Pierce, I am the Director of Operations for Ducks Unlimited’s Great Lakes/

Atlantic Regional Office. My staff and I are responsible for delivering Ducks

Unlimited’s conservation programs along the Mid-Atlantic Coast. Ducks Unlimited

is the largest non-government waterfowl and wetlands conservation organization in
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the world, having more than a million supporters. Since its founding in 1937, Ducks

Unlimited has raised more than $1 billion to conserve over 8 million acres of critical

wildlife habitat in all 50 states, each Canadian province, and in key areas in Mexico.

Since 1987, Ducks Unlimited has worked with state, Federal and private conservation partners to restore, protect, and enhance over 40,000 acres of wetlands

and associated habitat within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. In May of 1997, we

announced our Chesapeake Bay Initiative, a joint partnership with the Chesapeake

Bay Foundation and other partners to restore wildlife habitat on an integrated,

landscape approach, and improve water quality by reducing sediment and nutrient

loading within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This Initiative is an ambitious effort

to restore over 90,000 acres of wildlife habitat and raise over 20 million dollars to

support our conservation efforts, and the efforts of our state and Federal partners.

Through this Initiative we have been working with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior to implement conservation programs, including the Partners for

Wildlife Program, Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, Wetland Reserve

Program, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, to improve wildlife habitat

and water quality across the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The tidal marshes of the Chesapeake Bay provide habitat for over 1 million wintering waterfowl, which accounts for approximately 35 percent of all waterfowl wintering in the Atlantic Flyway. Species of continental importance include American

Black ducks (Anus rubripes), Canvasback (Aytha valisineria), Lesser and Greater

Scaup (Aytha affinis, Aytha marila) and the Atlantic Population of Canada Geese,

(Branta canadensis). In addition to waterfowl, the Bay’s ecosystem supports over

2,700 species of fish and wildlife.

As you have heard from previous testimony, nutria (Myocastor coypus), an introduced exotic species have caused severe damage to the tidal marshes of the Chesapeake Bay. Due to the dependence of large populations of waterfowl and other wildlife on these affected ecosystems, Ducks Unlimited finds that controlling nutria populations and restoring tidal wetlands is a priority for our Chesapeake Bay Initiative.

Impacts to tidal marshes are a result of several factors including sea level rise,

land subsidence, erosion, and nutria. Nutria are large herbivores that feed directly

on the vegetation that provides structure to a marsh. Their impacts result in

changes in the vegetative composition of an emergent marsh, and even the total loss

of the marsh to open water. In either case, the vegetative communities are altered

and productive waterfowl and wildlife habitat is lost.

Nutria feeding habits create highly erosive conditions and leave the marsh pitted

with holes and swim channels, and often void of vegetation. The primary food source

for nutria is three square bulrush, (Scirpus onleyi). Three square bulrush is also a

valuable food resource for wintering waterfowl. The loss of this vegetation component not only effects wintering waterfowl populations, but also leads to a reduction

in invertebrate populations, which migrating waterfowl readily depend on. Additionally, increased rates of erosion in concert with rising sea levels increase the

hydroperiod, or flooding regime, of the marsh, which limits the ability of three

square bulrush and other plants to revegetate a site. The swim channels through

the marsh also permit the tidal inundation of many isolated, interior ponds that

support submerged aquatic vegetation. The increase in salinity and turbidity limits

the growing conditions for submerged aquatic vegetation, and has reduced many interior ponds to barren mud flats. Submerged aquatic vegetation is an important food

source for migrating and wintering waterfowl, especially American Black ducks, a

species of priority concern in the Atlantic Flyway.

The restoration of tidal wetlands or marshes is an important component of our

Chesapeake Bay Initiative. Tidal wetland systems are some of the most productive

ecosystems in the world, supporting thousands of aquatic and terrestrial species, including many that are threatened and endangered. Maryland has lost over 73 percent of its original wetlands, making the remaining wetlands vital to maintaining

the health of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and the over 2 million waterfowl that

migrate through or winter in the Chesapeake Bay each year. Unfortunately, large

expanses of Maryland’s remaining marshes have been degraded by nutria. Therefore, Ducks Unlimited supports this plan and its goal of controlling nutria populations and restoring marsh habitat. We also support the plan’s efforts to study alternative restoration techniques in order to minimize cost and increase effectiveness

once restoration efforts begin. Controlling nutria is just one step in slowing the rate

of marsh loss in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Restoration projects should also

be implemented as soon as possible in order to study restoration techniques and to

establish demonstration projects to educate the public on the importance of the restoration of coastal marshes.
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Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for your time and

attention.

STATEMENT OF JIM RAPP, DIRECTOR, SALISBURY ZOOLOGICAL PARK

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Gilchrest, and Members of the Committee:

My name is Jim Rapp. I am the Director of the Salisbury Zoological Park in Salisbury, Maryland. I have worked for the Salisbury Zoo for ten years serving in a number of capacities, including the Zoo’s Education Director.

The Salisbury Zoo is a twelve-acre facility that displays over 100 different species,

over 350 specimens, and specializes in exhibiting North and South American species. The Zoo has been a Member of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association

(AZA) since 1972, and has an annual attendance of 250,000 visitors, including

15,000 local school children. The Zoo is also involved in a number of education programs with a sister zoo in Belize and a nature reserve in Mexico.

The Salisbury Zoo appreciates the opportunity to testify before the Committee on

the pilot program proposal entitled ‘‘Marsh Restoration: Nutria Control in Maryland.’’ The Zoo supports the proposal and expects to be an integral partner in executing its educational mission.

As I am the last speaker today, my comments will focus on the overall impact

of introducing nonindigenous species to our Nation’s ecosystems, and the importance

of educating the public to prevent further destruction of the Eastern Shore Wetlands.

Species introductions, whether intentional or unintentional, seem to be an inevitable result of human activities. They may result in both economic and ecological

problems; it has been estimated that over 90 percent of all such introductions have

been harmful in some respect. As U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie

Clark said, ‘‘Invasive species tend be very adaptive, aggressive, and resilient. Once

they are established, we are unlikely to ever completely eradicate them.’’ In fact,

Mr. Chairman, this past Sunday, the Cable News Network (CNN) aired a new segment from its Earth Matters series called ‘‘Invader Animals’’ that illustrated the

devastating effects of introduced species on local ecosystems and the high cost associated with controlling or eradicating them.

The United States has been invaded by nonindigenous exotic species since the colonial period. However, in the late 1920s when the United States became home to

the sea lamprey and witnessed its reign of terror on lake trout in the Great Lakes,

we truly came to realize the destruction these species could cause to local ecosystems and our native species. Since then, it seems our nation has been in a constant state of war to prevent either the spread of established exotic species or the

introduction of others. One species in particular, the zebra mussel, illustrates well

the economic and ecological dangers of nonindigenous exotic species. The zebra mussel was unintentionally introduced into the Great Lakes ecosystem in the 1980s

through the untreated ballast tanks of vessels, and in less than ten years, it has

established itself throughout the Great Lakes region, portions of the Mississippi

River, the Arkansas River, and Lake Champlain in New York. The zebra mussel has

caused millions of dollars in damage to filtration systems throughout these areas,

and has smothered populations of native clams, mussels, and crayfish.

In 1990, Congress responded by passing the Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and

Control Act. The Act created the Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force to coordinate

Federal and state agencies combating the expanding problems associated with the

zebra mussel, as well as other introduced aquatic species. The Task Force is charged

with developing and implementing a program to prevent the introduction and dispersal of aquatic nuisance species in U.S. waters, and to monitor, control and study

such species.

In addition to the devastation caused by the zebra mussel, other introduced exotic

species such as the gypsy moth, pine boring beetle, Phragmites reed, and brown tree

snake have inflicted damage on various ecosystems and displaced a number of native species. The brown tree snake is a particularly good example of the effects of

exotic species on native wildlife.

The brown tree snake was accidentally introduced to Guam in the late 1940s with

a shipment of military equipment. In the absence of natural predators, the snake

population spread quickly throughout the island. Animals native to Guam, especially birds, lacked the natural adaptations to protect themselves since snakes had

never before existed on the island. The result: there are no more native birds in the

wild on Guam, including the once-common Guam rail and Micronesian kingfisher.

Although brown tree snakes are nocturnal and are rarely seen by people, they have
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been known to enter people’s homes and farms, killing small pets and farm animals,

and even attacking children. Guam’s forest is eerily silent.

Now Hawaii, home to more endangered plants and birds than any other U.S.

state, may be the brown tree snake’s next victim. Without the diligence of the Department of Interior and the state of Hawaii and their extensive inspection program

at airports and other transport centers, the brown tree snake might already be established on Hawaii, and Hawaiians would eventually hear the same eerie silence

experienced by Guam. The cost associated with this inspection program is understandably high—in the millions—but the alternative is the extinction of hundreds

of species.

The AZA has also been active in conserving the endangered species of these islands. Through its Species Survival Plan (SSP), AZA coordinates a breeding and

recovery plan for the Guam rail involving sixteen institutional members, and a plan

for the Micronesian kingfisher involving fourteen institutional members. The goal

is to someday return these species back to their native habitats. Although there is

a tremendous cost associated with these programs, AZA zoos know their involvement is critical because they are the last hope these species have from becoming

extinct.

Biologists are familiar with numerous methods to curb the adverse effects of introduced animals and to preserve native ecosystems and species. Complete elimination

of the exotic species is sometimes advocated, but it can be a prohibitively expensive

technique. Controlling populations at low levels has also been proposed. Ways to

carry out these solutions have ranged from live capture of animals to shooting and

poisoning.

As the other speakers today have discussed, the State of Maryland, particularly

the Eastem Shore, has a serious nutria problem. It also has a growing problem with

the mute swan, another introduced species. Currently, Maryland has a mute swan

population of 3,000, the largest concentration of any state. The population of the entire eastern seaboard is 10,000 birds. These birds are very aggressive and have displaced a number of local bird populations, especially the threatened black skimmer.

Mr. Chairman, as the Committee is well aware, the wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay

are some of the most important wetland areas in the United States, and have received global recognition as ‘‘Wetlands of International Importance’’ under the

Ramsar Convention Treaty.

Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems in the world, yet over half

of this country’s original wetlands have already been destroyed, either by development, erosion, subsidence, or nonindigenous exotic species.

Maryland’s wetlands are of tremendous importance to the state’s residents. They

serve as a place for fishing, hunting, trapping, bird-watching, berry and timber harvesting, agriculture and livestock production, and the growing hobby of wildlife

viewing and photography. The Zoo has been an active partner in promoting

ecotourism on the Eastern Shore, especially bird-watching, through the Delmarva

Birding Weekend and the creation of the Delmarva Birding Guide. The Eastern

Shore’s wetlands are home to hundreds of species of birds, mammals, fish, and insects, and serve as important spawning or nursery sites for many finfish and shellfish. Moreover, these wetlands are vitally important to over one million waterfowl

that either winter on the Bay or use it during their migration. Resource managers

fear that, without intervention, Maryland’s wetlands, which provide significant ecological, cultural, and economic benefits to the state, may completely disappear within the next one or two decades.

While it is important to continue confronting the threats to Eastern Shore wetlands of development, erosion, and agricultural runoff, dealing with the nutria is

perhaps an easier task. As you have already heard from the other witnesses, nutria

are prolific, highly invasive, face no natural predators to control their numbers, and

threaten the native muskrat. Most importantly, these powerful animals forage directly on the vegetative root mat, leaving the marsh pitted with digging sites and

deep canals.

Consequently, several Federal, state, and private organizations—many represented before you—have joined forces to develop a plan for controlling nutria. The

goal of the proposal is to develop methods and strategies to eradicate the nutria population, restore marsh habitats, and promote public understanding of the importance of preserving Maryland’s wetlands. I believe the Salisbury Zoo is the perfect

partner to help execute the latter part of this proposal, because our primary mission

is to increase the public’s awareness and appreciation of wildlife and its habitat, and

to encourage people to become participants in conservation.

The proposed budget to develop a public awareness program is absolutely crucial

if the state’s residents are to fully understand and thus become active partners in

controlling nutria in Maryland. The program will help minimize the controversy
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that will most likely surround nutria removal activities. It is important that Eastern

Shore citizens realize the significance of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

proposal, and understand the potential benefits it can have for Maryland and other

states, such as Louisiana. The Salisbury Zoo would be a natural collaborator for the

Refuge in disseminating information to the public, and would offer an excellent

venue for education programs that target school children. The Zoo sees itself as that

bridge, necessary for the program to work, between Federal and state agencies and

the public.

This proposed pilot program for eradicating nutria will be extremely beneficial in

preventing future species from being added to the Endangered Species Act, especially if the nutria continues its conquest of wetlands habitat. Maryland is fortunate; the current nutria population is still small enough for this program to be successful. We can eradicate the nutria now. However, if we wait much longer, we may

only hope to control the nutria’s numbers. To use that famous saying, an ounce of

prevention is worth a pound of cure, even at the cost of $2.3 million. Weighing the

long-term cost of destruction from nutria against the benefits of this pilot program,

I believe the answer is clear.

This proposal is a good, practical first step to better understand the scope of the

nutria problem in the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge and the entire Eastern Shore, and

the best way to eradicate this destructive adversary.

Thank you for allowing me to testify in support of the Proposed Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Marsh Restoration Program to Control Nutria.
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