Talk:Nutria/Archive 1

Untitled
I am unsure about the map references regarding the eradication of Coypu in the UK. As far as I know there is a small population in the Norfolk Broads. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.83.83.138 (talk) 08:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you'll find that MAFF really DID the job...? --GRM 20:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd never heard of it growing up in the UK. First time was when I moved to Oregon.

Snowbound 02:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

That photo -- doesn't look like an ALBINO anything...


 * I would have to agree that that particular nutria doesn't look like an albino but rather a light morph. A quick wi == search on google reveals several photos that look more like albinos to me. Perhaps we can get permission to post one. Katr67 17:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Can we therefore CHANGE the caption on this page???--GRM 20:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Coypu Limerick
Just for fun, this limerick by Brendan Beary about the coypu appeared in the Washington Post's Style Invitational on 1 October, 2006. :

The coypu has breasts on her back,

So whenever her pups need a snack

While she floats in the water,

This kin of the otter

Is glad for her roof-mounted rack.


 * shame it's no relation of otters, but a rodent! --GRM 20:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Import
I've heard that the nutria were imported to help irradicate an imported plant that had grown out of control in lousiana (because it had no local natural consumer).Eno-Etile 07:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have never heard this. In the 1930's many farmers were scammed into buying "pedigree breeding pairs" for about $3,000 each.  Beaver were scarce at the time due to over harvest and other factors, and nutria fur was supposed to replace it in the market.  Nutria fur never became a great demand item, and when the farmers that expected to get at least $50 for each pelt found out they would get about $1-3, it is speculated that they set them free in disgust.  If they were not freed purposefully, fierce storms probably liberated many of them.  It is said a great storm in the 1930's destroyed a nutria operation near Tillamook, and that became the root of Oregon's problem.  See this ad: Nutria Scam Ad  -[[User:Tsarevna|Tsarevna] 23:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This is actually correct. Settlers in Louisiana brought flower called a "water lily" over because of its beauty, but because the water lily had no predator, it spread vastly throughout the marsh area until it was discovered that the nutria was a predator of the flower. They were then brought over and made quick work of the water lily, but the nutria population got out of hand and created a similar situation to the one it was meant to fix.Snazzyy (talk) 21:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Sighting of Coypu
Hi!

I just want to say that I have sighted one Coypu in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in river Ljubljanica.

Have fun.

Jauzi 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC) Joze M.

If you want to see coypu, and i've seen numerous, go fishing in France. The little critters undermine the banks by digging large holes thought them and are just a general pain in the backside. They may mess up the food chain in their native lands, but in Europe they are just a pest that needs to be eradicated.

Hillbilly shootout, mistaken for nutria
Methhead shoots a diver, claiming he thought it was a nutria, hilarious. SchmuckyTheCat 06:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Youch. Glad it was only a .22! 4.249.21.23 15:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Think we saw them in Oxshott Woods Surrey UK ??? Certainly looked like the pictures. Melanie

Clarification needed on damage

 * ...coypu are believed to have destroyed 7,000 to 8,000 acres of marshland...

The term destroyed needs a lot of clarification. Did the nutria destroy it by eating all of it? By manufacturing, planting, and detonating a whole lot of TNT? Tempshill 06:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The way nutria destroy wetlands: They pull plants out by the roots on the bottom of the river/stream/wetland. They breed proficiently, den in colonies (year round), and tolerate the presence of others leading to high densities of nutria and overgrazing.  The plant life of the wetlands are stripped clean, making the soil erode away from that wetland.  Without soil plants can no longer grow, so you no longer have a marsh, but a mud-flat at low tide, and a shallow sea at high tide.  Eventually tides wash away the mud and you just have ocean.  This is what has happened in the gulf coast area, especially Louisiana.  When people stopped trapping them in Louisiana because the bounty was lifted, the population exploded, and the damage to wetlands could be seen from space on satellite images.  In non-coastal areas the nutria "eat outs" make large bald spots which also erode.  Muskrats don't do this, they nibble at plants here and there, but nutria wipe out vegetation in an area and move on to the next.  There's an excellent Discovery News video on Youtube about this: Nutria Mash Damage  Tsarevna 23:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * An episode of the A&E TV series Billy the Exterminator, "Spider Invasion", features Billy live-trapping two coypu. Billy does a really good job explaining the history of nutria in Louisiana (the show is based in the Shreveport area) and showing the damage they inflicted on his client's lakefront property. The nutria tore apart the vegetation and dug so deeply into the shoreline that the homeowner had lost 20 feet of property at least. Highly enlightening as to the destruction a single invasive species can wreak. Scarletsmith (talk) 00:46, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Nutria in Scandinavia
They have been observed in Denmark recently, I know this for a fact, and pictures have been taken - very clear ones that show the orange teeth, so there's no doubt. It's in Jutland, so maybe it isn't Scandinavia proper, but they're in Denmark, at least. Whether this is a re-immigration or they've been there all along I don't know, but I suspect the former. But, they're not extinct there at all (anymore?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.50.126.38 (talk) 00:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Fur harvesting
I'd like to see the article clarify whether the harvesting of nutria fur is always from killed animals. Nutria fur is still used in the making of felts; for such use, nutria could be simply sheared, though my guess is that they are killed. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 23:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * They are most likely killed because they are a considered a food source by many cultures, and an environmentally destructive agricultural pest in North America/Europe/Asia. Their meat has been described as a cross between rabbit and chicken.  Old males have scent glands that taint the flavor of the meat, but females and young males are considered a delicacy called "ragoudain."  The French, Creoles, Southerners in general and some Oregonians enjoy them, often times diced and stewed.  The fur of the nutria is often plucked and sheared for garments, with the rex rabbit-like soft belly fur being the most desired area. (Plucking and shearing requires the hair to be attached to the tanned skin.)  There is a dorsal stripe of slick, long black guard hairs that need to be removed for the back fur to be attractive, and this problem is compounded in the females due to their six nipples being located in the same area.  This makes the back fur undesirable, and the belly fur prized.  Nutria is sometimes mislabeled "rabbit" because it is so similar.  Tsarevna (talk) 10:12, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * An episode of Dirty Jobs set at an alligator farm in Louisiana shows the farmer feeding his alligator babies "ground nutria" (host Mike Rowe clarifies that "'nutria' is another word for 'really big rat'", so they're definitely discussing coypu), so I would bet a lot of nutria fur harvesting comes after they've been killed to provide a food source for certain animals. The alligator farmer says that ground nutria is especially high in protein and is used to help the alligator hatchlings grow to 4 feet long in their first year of life, allowing them to survive when they are released back into the wild. Scarletsmith (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Coypu = "swamp rabbit"?
The coypu is theorized to be the "swamp rabbit" of Jimmy Carter's nightmares.

Nutria in England
Nutria are considered extinct in England and a couple papers have been published outlining the program. The reason it was successful were: (1) They were in a limited region and their was not possiblity of immigration from outside. (2) The eradication crews had an incintive to get the last nutria. They got paid even after the eradication was completed. (3) They had break in the weather. A couple sever winters knocked the population back significantly.

New Tag
I believe allowing the search "Nutria Rat" should bring up this page as well.Snazzyy (talk) 22:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

How to kill this critter
do anyone no how to get rid-of this problem rate. digging around my home. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.133.7.197 (talk) 17:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Basic trapping might work. Depending on your county laws may be able shoot them. Perhaps a dog? I'd avoid poisons as they would affect many other animals, and remember that you can have nutria prepared and cooked? They make a fine meal.. The only real problem I have is with raccoons, possums and sometimes coyote. At least for me I am far enough away from the creek that they rarely visit. Bdelisle (talk) 00:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

skull
There's a good illustration of a coypu skull. Maybe it could be included in this article? Gary (talk) 23:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Picture
Perhaps interesting for the article. --Mbdortmund (talk) 11:22, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Levees and Katrina
The article suggests that coypus were responsible for weakening levees prior to Hurricane Katrina, thus giving the impression that coypus are partially responsible for the failing of the levees and therefore the extent of the damage. This isn't verified and I find it suspect. I'll research into this more, and if I come up emtpy, I'm removing the sentence. --Bentonia School (talk) 00:43, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

What eats them?
They must have predators in their original range. What animals might prey on them elsewhere? I would guess alligators would eat them in the States -- if there were enough alligators. One problem may be that populations of large carninvores have been largely elimininated in North America and Europe. Can any Wikipedia regulars who specialize on zoology provide additional information? Thanks (71.22.47.232 (talk) 06:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC))


 * See the entry on "Fur Harvesting" above on a Louisiana alligator farmer who feeds ground nutria to his alligator hatchlings. Scarletsmith (talk) 17:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

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Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved. Despite relisting, no consensus has been generated to move this page, and the discussion seems to boil down to which of two reliably sourced and commonly used variations should prevail, a situation that does not militate in favor of a change of status absent community consensus to do so. bd2412 T 13:36, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Coypu → Nutria – "Nutria", which was the article's original title and which already redirects here, is the common (WP:UCN), English (WP:UE) name for the animal. Most of the article's sources use this name and this Google nGram shows it has been consistently more common in books over time. --Relisted. Cúchullain t/ c 23:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)  —  AjaxSmack   01:11, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose I am an English native speaker and I have heard of this animal, never heard it referred to as anything other than the coypu. PatGallacher (talk) 01:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't dispute your personal experience but mine is the polar opposite. Anyway, why would most sources use "nutria"? —  AjaxSmack   02:28, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose While I'm in the "never heard it called anything other 'coypu'" camp, I agree that that isn't evidence. However, the word "coypu" does get 1.2 million ghits, compared with 1.0 million for "nutria", a small, but real, difference. Perhaps more significantly, there have been 4,678 page views of "nutria" and 33,288 page views of "coypu" in the last 30 days. The latter presumably includes people re-directed from the former, but that's still a pretty significant difference. These suggest that, while the word "nutria" may be more common in technical sources (which I agree it clearly is), "coypu" is the more common term used by people searching for the page. This may be because "nutria" is a North American word, and more people use the more broadly understood international one, which is also the name used locally where it lives wild - reasons which I'd argue would be compelling in themselves, even if the page hit stats were different. Anaxial (talk) 06:37, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * A couple of things about the points you made. First, the Google hits in the millions include duplicates.  A trick I learned here on Wikipedia talk pages is to click on the last page of results down at the bottom of the search page where it says "Goooogle" and "1 2 3...10".  click on the "10" and the duplicates are eliminated.  In this case, you get 317 hits for "coypu" and 346 hits for "nutria".  Second, I don't know what the "international word" means but "coypu" is not used in any other major language that I can determine (unlike "nutria").  The animal is naturalised in the United States and Canada and "nutria" is used there.  Likely, South Americans or Europeans seeking will use other language Wikipedias to search for the animal. —  AjaxSmack   01:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Eliminating duplicate Google results doesn't work quite like you think (though like you, I'd seen this trick mentioned on Wikipedia talk pages, and for a while, I thought it worked to establish which term was more commonly used). Google never serves up more than 1000 results for a query . When you go to the last page of Google results, any duplicate pages in that sample of 1000 are eliminated, but there is no guarantee that the 1000 were a representative sample in the first place (see Search engine test for more on this). There are certainly more than 317/346 non-duplicate pages on the internet for coypu/nutria, but you won't see them with a simple search. Result numbers for simple one-word searches are also contaminated by uses for things besides the animal. "Coypu" is also piece of software, a charitable foundation (presumably named after the animal). Nutria gets results for a nutrition company, another piece of software, a town in Colorado, and Spanish language pages on otters. Granted, most of the results are for the animal, not other meanings of the term.


 * If you add additional search terms, you can pull up pages that Google wouldn't have given you in their sample of 1000 for a one word search for coypu/nutria. And if you try multiple term search another problem pops up! Look at this example. Google knows that nutria is a synonym of coypu, and in the example, is happy to serve up pages where only the term "nutria" appears, even when the search term was "coypu" (Google also knows something about plurals, and thinks that the species name coypus is a plural of "coypu").


 * It's unfortunate that Google tests have all these issues, since they ought to be be useful to determine common usage. I'm not saying results of a Google test shouldn't be mentioned, but they should be taken with a large grain of salt and several caveats. Plantdrew (talk) 21:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Looking into this further, this appears to be British v American usage. I suppose all things being equal American usage takes priority, but sometimes all things are not equal.  "Coypu" is what the animal is called in Latin America where it mostly lives, it is similar to its scientific name, "coypus", and "nutria" could cause confusion as it refers to the otter in Spanish, so I still oppose. PatGallacher (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The animal has been exterminated in Britain, and outside of Guyana, English is not a major language in South America. In South America, the animal is called coipú, ratão-do-banhado, et al but apparently not "coypu"  However, nutrias are quite common in English-speaking North America where they are called nutrias. —  AjaxSmack   01:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per nom; so this existed in Britain? Let's use the Monroe Doctrine, and use New World usage instead of European ones, since this is an animal from the Americas. -- 70.24.250.235 (talk) 09:55, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Not aware that the Monroe Doctrine applies to Wikipedia naming decisions, gringo. PatGallacher (talk) 16:55, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Monroe Doctrine as it goes in this case, why are we using the European English name for something no longer found in Britain, and not native to Britain, for an animal from the New World? It seems that we should be using some variety of English where the animal is found, not one where it is not found. -- 65.94.77.36 (talk) 05:51, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This definitely seems to be a WP:ENGVAR issue (in Britain we might use "nutria" for the skin, but not for the animal itself) and the article does seem to have started life as coypu. I can see no evidence that it has ever been moved (the redirect from nutria was created after the article). The fact they are not found in Britain is a red herring, since they are found in countries that call them coypu (or something very close). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:14, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The article was created as "nutria" with no mention of coypu but was moved shortly after that. That was aeons ago, though, before WP:RM even existed.  If you have any evidence they are called coypu in countries where they live, please enlighten. —  AjaxSmack   02:12, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
 * We'd really need evidence that they're called "coypu" in countries where they live that have a native variety of English. They did formerly live in Britain, but they've been eradicated for years, and as I say below, "nutria" (among other names) is well established in British English.--Cúchullain t/ c 05:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
 * That's pretty compelling to me, other than someone below suggested the text started saying nutria and the page title started as coypu. I think people fetishize way too much about "first major contributor" and "original article title" stuff, anyway.  It should be what's most useful for the largest segment of our readership, and that's going to be nutria, not coypu.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that appears to be saying that all articles should be in American English, since Americans probably make up the largest segment of our readership, which completely goes against WP:ENGVAR. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I certainly wouldn't argue along those lines. But what we have here is an animal that lives in North America but not Britain that is almost never called coypu in North America but is often called "nutria" in Britain.  The WP:COMMONALITY aspect of ENGVAR kicks in (along with WP:UCN) in this case. —  AjaxSmack   02:53, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Possibly, but I was answering SMcCandlish's comment, which appeared to go against policy. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:55, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I definitely didn't intend that either, just noting that Spanish use shouldn't influence the title when there are well established names (several of them) in English).--Cúchullain t/ c 14:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. There are multiple reasons that "Nutria" is the better name for this article:
 * 1. It's much more common across the board, as AjaxSmack has definitively shown.
 * 2. This isn't an ENGVAR issue. "Nutria" for this animal and its fur is well established in British English, going back at least to Charles Darwin. Britain's own Oxford English Dictionary has articles for both nutria and coypu, but gives no indication of regional preferance. Modern British sources using Nutria are easily found.
 * 3. Even if it were an ENGVAR issue, "coypu" may not even be the most common use in Britain. Those sources note terms like "water rat", "Louisiana water rat", "bayou water rat", etc., in addition to "nutria" are common, if not more common.
 * 4. "Coypu" appears to be quite rare in the U.S. and Canada, where, unlike Britain, the creature is still common. The New York Times website returns 477 hits for "nutria" compared to only 7 for "coypu", several of which are very old and at least one of which doesn't actually use the name. The Toronto Star has no articles on "coypu" but does for "nutria". Per WP:COMMONALITY, even if "nutria" was somewhat less common in Britain than "coypu", it would still be preferable as it's universal across the English-speaking world.
 * 5. Despite what's claimed above, non-English use is irrelevant when there's an established term (let alone multiple terms) in English, per WP:UE.
 * Without those other reasons to prefer "coypu", we should default to what's the clear common name, nutria.--Cúchullain t/ c 23:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
 * AjaxSmack points out that the article was actually created as "nutria" on January 12, 2004, and was moved to "coypu" on April 2, 2004. So even if this were an ENGVAR issue, it would be better to use "nutria" per WP:RETAIN.--Cúchullain t/ c 05:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
 * While the original article begins "The Nutria...", it does actually appear to have been entitled Coypu. There is no record of it having been moved in the history. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:10, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmm, interesting. I wonder if there are logs that haven't been preserved from so long ago. Nutria has its own edit history that implies the article was moved to Coypu on April 2, 2014 and then converted into a new stub on the animal's skins. A minor point either way.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Support per Cúchullain's first 5 points.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. Actually, the OED defines Nutria as "The skin or fur of the coypu. Also: the animal itself" and Coypu as "A South American aquatic rodent..." This doesn't quite tally with Cúchullain's point #2 above, since it certainly does suggest that (in the opinion of the OED editors) coypu is the commoner term for the animal and nutria for the skin/fur. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:50, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The point was that "'Nutria' for this animal and its fur is well established in British English", which it is. Other evidence suggests it's actually fairly common in Britain (where the creature is extinct), while "coypu" is rare in Canada and the U.S. (where it's abundant). Encyclopedia Britannica uses nutria.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Coypu in the UK
The Europe map in the section headed Distribution shows coypu as having been eradicated in the UK in 1929. I think that was in fact the date they were introduced. | This article says they were eradicated in 1989.Thomas Peardew (talk) 09:47, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

New/worse ecological problem now in Japan
NHK's TV program "Newsline" today reported that the Nutria is now becoming an even bigger ecological problem in Japan. Not only does it eat rice plants etc. costing about a million dollars loss (yearly?), but now it has started eating many clams, which is heading toward devastating the local industry. A quick Google search didn't find any written report about this new problem, so I'm not proposing the info be added to the main article yet. 198.144.192.45 (talk) 03:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC) Twitter.Com/CalRobert (Robert Maas)
 * Being a herbivore, I would doubt the Coypu are eating the clams, at least not at a prevalence to be a financial concern. Perhaps they are disrupting clam beds while looking for food?__DrChrissy (talk) 14:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, NHK wasn't clear how they were disrupting the clam industry, so I could have misunderstood and you could be correct how, thanks for the correction. 198.144.192.45 (talk) 01:27, 19 October 2015 (UTC) Twitter.Com/CalRobert (Robert Maas)

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Section needs editing
Could someone please edit this and take out the weasel words, and what seems to be someone who discovered an online urban dictionary.

"As of 2016 however, the meat is used successfully in a Moscow restaurant, Krasnodar Bistro, as part of the growing Russian localvore movement and as a 'foodie' craze drawing widely amongst the 'hipsters' and monied intelligentsia, and has attracted positive attention from the style-setters of Moscow society on the internet." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.202.233.174 (talk) 07:28, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

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Omnivore?
According to the Univ. of Michigan, it's an herbivore. http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Myocastor_coypus/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.247.8.137 (talk) 00:49, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Eradicated from California? Nope
Nutrias certainly have not been eradicated from California, despite the range map's claims:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/15/nutria-california-rodents-wetlands-environment — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.85.61 (talk) 17:50, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Natural predator
What is its natural predator(s) in South America? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.138.90.39 (talk) 23:45, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Categorization as invasive species
There's been a lot of back-and-forth in the article about whether coypus should be called invasive or destructive, including this sentence:


 * However, that characterization is becoming increasingly controversial as current ecological science is beginning to challenge the "invasive species" metaphor as overly emotional, militaristic, and thus unscientific.

My personal opinion is that any discussion about whether "invasive" species should be called as such belongs on that article's talkpage, and that the coypu page is not the appropriate venue. Further, there are a wide swatch of sources showing that as coypu have minimal predators, their natural behaviors are harmful to the environments they have found themselves in. I think we can't blame the coypus for this - coypu gonna coypu - but Wikipedia is not the place to rehabilitate their image; it is a place for collecting information from reliable sources. NekoKatsun (nyaa) 20:56, 22 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Having reverted one of these edits (and having been about to do so to the very first batch when NekoKatsun preempted me), I agree with the above. Wikipedia follows the most general usage of terms and coverage; this precludes reshaping an entire article to use more "sensitive" language, if the sources do not. Coverage of current discussion driving such a change is naturally of interest, but not in an individual species article. As indicated, I would suggest having a look at treating this material at Invasive species instead. As that is a well-developed and -maintained article that will have a fair number of people watching over its continued health, it might also be a good idea to suggest and discuss such changes on the article's talk page first before inserting them into the text proper. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:04, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

(ported text from user's talk page that was apparently meant to go here -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:19, 22 March 2019 (UTC))

Hi I'm trying to respond to discussion initiated by... Oh my I've forgotten the username. Anyway I hope I'm doing this right and that this is going to the right place!

Thank you and thanks for your patience as I learn to navigate all this. I really do want to have this discussion wherever it's acceptable. I'm very new here and want to learn! It's just really important to me that wiki pages reflect all the facts, rather than positing opinions masquerading as fact (eg, positing that nutria are "invasive" without acknowledging that this is an opinion not shared by many current ecologists).

Really not trying to start an edit war or push an agenda, I'm just really a stickler for accuracy in this regard and I feel like I was thorough in my citations and accurate in what I said.

Well, lessee whether this post goes back to the person I'm hoping to reach. :-) Catharsis Jones (talk) 21:09, 22 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, to the point: being an ecologist myself and having spent several years working in New Zealand, which has invasive species problems like you wouldn't believe... I can assure you that the term and associated expanded terminology is very definitely the current mainstream position. Hence the sources used in articles reflect this, and so do our summaries. - Having said that, there is a lively scientific discourse on the matter, and it's worth reporting. Just not in an individual species article, as this one. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:24, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Invasive species
There has actually been considerable evolution in the past 6 years in our thinking regarding whether or not it is accurate or helpful to label a species as "invasive" and to craft militaristic solutions based on that metaphor. After decades of using this label and responding with eradication efforts, we have found that this approach is just not as scientific, and thus not as effective, as we wish it were.

Most of us turn to wiki as our first source of general info on a new subject. So when someone wants to know what a nutria is, if we simply posit that they're "invasive" then we are encouraging one side of that controversy over another.

Not sure how much room to devote to all the mounting evidence that the "invasive" categorization is flawed and unhelpful in the restoration of habitat, but there is a lot of it. Things like, for quick examples, 1. Some of the most destructive animals in the US are native species (eg the pine beetle); 2. Some species long thought to be invasive and destructive turned out to have been harmless and to have actually increased biological diversity and ecological robustness (eg, "invasive" honeysuckle in Pennsylvania, tamarind in the US SW); 3. The damage associated with nutria is often the result of a number of factors having more to do with predator removal and ecological disruption than with nutria; 4. Efforts to eradicate nutria based on the militaristic metaphor, over the past 6 decades, have proven futile in controlling them, because high birth rates and migration from both upstream and downstream quickly overrun eradication efforts. Even after the killing of hundreds of thousands of animals, their numbers remain consistent. New conservation efforts aimed at strengthening the overall ecosystem, studying the animals in the environment, and coexisting with them as an accepted part of a new niche have proved much more effective, in a short time, at mitigating any damage.

Thus the assertion that this is a controversial topic rather than settled science. You and I, both ecologists, are clear evidence of this controversy. I did not remove your position, that many often consider the nutria to be invasive, but balanced it out with multiple, reputable, peer reviewed sources from multiple perspectives. Catharsis Jones (talk) 21:45, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Distribution Map not up to date/incorrect
Just wanted to note that, as I couldn't see a lot of regions in the map that include this animal including some parts of the Americas, and mainly large parts of Europe and Israel. I think a more accurate map should be based on this https://www.fws.gov/fisheries/ans/erss/highrisk/Myocastor-coypus-ERSS-FINAL-Sept-2017.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaron Feldheim (talk • contribs) 08:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 29 November 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vaticidalprophet 11:43, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Coypu → Nutria – per WP:COMMONNAMES and WP:COMMONALITY. As seen in this Google Ngram, 'nutria' has always been far more common in print sources. And whilst 'coypu' is almost never heard in the U.S. or Canada where the animals are plentiful, 'nutria' is relatively more commonly seen in the UK. (And 'water rat' seems most common in the UK — here's the Ngram with 'water rat'.)  NB, that the original title of the article was 'nutria' and that the one subtopic with an article is at nutria fur. —  AjaxSmack 01:09, 29 November 2021 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:41, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Support - Nominator demonstrates convincingly that nutria is the common name. ModernDayTrilobite (talk) 15:20, 29 November 2021 (UTC)