As y’all probably know Nutria are a bad pest here in Southern Louisiana. A lot of guys will ride around in the marsh and shoot them with shotguns. My question is do you think the fur would still be useable with little BB holes in it or would they make it impossible to flesh without them ripping the hide?

I don't know the answer to your question , but darn that sounds like fun.

is there any meat market for nutria?

If the nutria is swimming all that should be hit is the back. They use the belly on a nutria. I have seen hogs with better hair cover than a nutria has on its back. I have never fleshed a nutria, but I have fleshed a lot of shot gunned stuff and it was never a problem.

Lot of areas in south LA have bounties on nutria - $6 this year. 200,000 to 300,000 usually turned in per year for bounty

Like MGM said, for the fur trade the only thing that counts is the belly. But that begs the question: "Is there a fur trade for nutria these days"? I say no. In Oregon (the best nutria in the world) they are going for $2-$3 Occasionally some are put up "cute" like oval beave,r or tail left on for wall hangers. Most of us that take any nutria get paid to kill them these days if we're targeting them. Most of my incidentals from beaver trapping just get their head taken off for the skull market and the rest ditched.

Oh, and I do disagree with MGM on what the fur quality is. Plucked and sheared nutria are just about as nice as plucked and sheared beaver; with a lesser leather weight. At least Oregon and Washington ones are.

I was meaning on the back of the nutria. I never saw one with fur on its back. It was always amazing the difference in the two sides to me. I will edit my above post.

If you are selling nutria for the hatter market you better not have any shot, especially steel shot (which is required in Louisiana to hunt nutria) in that hide. The shot is not good for machinery, knives, etc. If you are keeping them for yourself those little holes aren't really a issue when fleshing.



I would check the Louisiana trapping reqs as there is actually a season for them for recreational hunting, limit of 5 per hunter on private land and WMAs. Also, recreational taken nutria may not be pelted or any piece sold. Also recreational hunters must remove all carcasses from the hunting area.

To collect the bounty you must be on the Nutria Control Program. If not you aren't going to get anything for the tails.

That’s good to know! So basically unless you trap them you aren’t supposed to be selling the pelts

I don’t know of anybody that buys the meat but I’ve eaten several and they are very good eating! The state was trying to get people pumped up about nutria meat a few years back but it never really got much traction. I think the word rat turns off your average joe on the street lol.

Ok is it an invasive species they want gone or not

paying people in a specific pool of registered commercial hunters to kill something and pay them with tax payers dollars while at the same time charging a citizen a license to hunt them then put restrictions on how many they can shoot.

that seems really messed up

are they that concerned that the citizen hunters will drive the pros out of business and as a tax payer if the armatures paid the state to solve the issue wouldn't that be better than paying out 1.5 million in tax dollars?

Trapping in LA one winter, I could sell every coon/possum we caught but could not give beaver /nutria away. I recall one business making dog treats out of nutria, not sure if that venture was successful.

You wouldn’t believe the hoops you have to jump thru to enroll in the tail bounty program. Landowner permission of course but also aerial maps, section range and township, copy of up to date paid property taxes, W-9 forms and a few other things too. It’s like GreenCountyPete said, do you want the rats gone or not. But that’s usually how it is when the politicians and lawyers get involved in something.

Nutes do have a small place in the craft market. Items I use them for are made for the visual look. Back fur has longer guard hair than has a variation of.color front brown to black. Much better look the short guard hairs on the belly that have th same color throughout.
Meat is definitely good eating. It has a mild neutral flavor. Seasonings are what will give it most of the flavor you will taste. Makes good jerky. At least my dogs think so. Used to take nutria jerky to work and pass it out. Never came home with any.

The main reason they put so many restrictions on the nutria tail program is the carcasses. All carcasses that are involved anyway in the tail bounty must be buried. The reason is due to the raptors eating the lead bullets from .22s and the piles of rotting carcasses comtaminating the area. I helped on some friends' private property to collect tails. We killed 3,600 nutrias in about 4 days. If we didn't follow the rules the marsh would have been a rotten festering compost pile and I can't even imagine how many lead the bald eagles we would have posioned with lead. Its a pain, but the rules are there for reason.

The reason they are really strict about the land ownership, etc, its just like alligator hunting...it keeps the outlaws from running all over the marsh tresspassing and breaking every law known to make money. If you get caught off your approved area or break the law, you have no excusses as you went through all the checks in the box to get approved.