The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1958-03-14
Single Copy 10
MacNEILL MUSES.
ON THE PAST AT
CAPE HATTERAS

Ike Williams was a romping
teen-ager a decade ago, trapping
for muskrats, when he fetched the
first of the species of what has be-
come a plague on this island. He
wanted to know if could identify
it and did I reckon that if he sent
it to Sears Roebuck, along with his
muskrat hides, would they allow
him anything for it. Muskrat hides
were worth about three dollars
back in that day and this critter
was about four times the size of a
muskrat. Ike had visions of plenty.
Neither I nor Ike nor anybody
else in the neighborhood knew the
thing for what it was and he, for
reasons that are obscured by time,
named it the Russian Rat" Even
then we were beginning to be sus-
picious of the Russians, and maybe
the fact that Sears Roebuck had
little enthusiasm for the critters
hide contributed to the low esteem
in which it is held hereabouts. Ike
abandoned trapping as career and
after spell in the Coast Guard,
married Hayes Fulcher's daughter
and has settled down to increasing
ly responsible employment with
Western Electric in Norfolk.
But the Russian Rats stayed on
here and all of sudden they have
become a problem of such magni-
tude that it will require the COM
bined efforts of half dozen agencies
of the government to do something
about them. From time to time, as
specimens have been brought to
this hill, 1 have inquired into the
matter. The Russian Rat is the Nu-
tria, normally an inhabitant of the
west coast of South America Back
in his heydey the late Huey Long
had some of them imported into
Louisiana in the belief that they
would supplement that states in
come from muskrat trapping.
About 20 years ago the owners of
the Goosevilie Gun Club at Hat
teras, Messrs. Lyon and Steel
wagon, brought two females and a
male here and turned them loose.
And now they have about taken
over the island. Some estimates
|place the Russian Rat population
at ten to twelve thousand and they
range as far north as Oregon In
let. They are a problem on Pea Is
land, are about to dispossess wild
fowl and other creatures native to
the Refuge. They are voracious
and they are vicious. Their enor-
nous teeth can and do slit dogs
throat and last week they reported
" attacked a hunter in the woods
and he had to shoot his way out of
gang of them.
! Everybody wants to be rid of
them. The keepers of Pea Island
would like to see the last of them.
The National Park Service people
consider them with horror and DR..
Quay, who teaches biology at State
College and is doing a biological
research for the Park people, has
taken an item of it to Raleigh for
academic appraisal. E. P. White
has invoked the help of the State
Wiidlife people in Raleigh and
there is some indication that a uni
fled campaign to rid the Island of
them may develop.
Capt. Mace Jennette, who is now
approaching his S5th birthday and
who still does a little trapping on
his sound-front marshlands, most
ly for otter, says they are a nuis-
ance to trappers because they are
so supplemented. They clutter up
his traps. Their fur is worthless
and nobody would think of eating
them 1t is still four months
See MacNEILL, Page Eight