Known by a deceivingly healthy-sounding name —nutria — its eating and burrowing ways can literally destroy natural wetland systems if left unchecked. So far more than 500 nutria have been detected since last year in the Suisun Marsh in the far western Delta. “We’re very concerned,” said Krysten Kellum, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “They are destroying our wetlands.” This foreign creature has plenty of company in this 700,000-acre estuary. More than 95 percent of the Delta’s fish and plants are non-native. While the Delta may look outwardly bucolic, it is one of the most altered places on earth.
—Written by Tom Philp, editorial writer and columnist with The Sacramento Bee