Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping Nutria trapping

Any of you guys trap nutria?

No, but my dad has problems with them back home, burrowing into the creek banks, which end up collapsing with a heavy rain. He just wants to get rid of them, not skin them or anything. Snares or Conibears are where our discussion lead. I dont even know if they make conibears any more though.

I trapped quite a few growing up in Oregon. It was more fun to walk the irrigation canals with a 22, but putting a 1/12 in the water at the bottom of their slides or just inside their burrow cought me quite a few.

Didn't know they had them in Oregon. Wonder what size conibear
would be needed.

They do still make conibears, thinking the 220 should be about the right size. The area around my folks house has become urbanized, so shooting may become a problem, stray bullets and all. I am headed back there next month, so may order a few 220's up and try them while I am there.

My primary hunting target (due to the abundance).

BMT

Do you skin them and sell the fur?

Nutria are easy to trap. I prefer foot hold traps for them, but only cause they're easier to handle and all you have to do is set the trap in their trail in about 2" of water. No cover or drowning set is necessary.

Super easy to trap. Their prints and trails are visible everywhere. My neighbor is a trapper I'll ask him what size. We've had 40 traps set in a flooded duck pond one day and had 35 nutria caught by morning. Not bright critters. Don't really need to cover or put in water. You'll have mink, otters, beaver, coons and other all using the same slides and trails as well. He used footholds when I was with him, but I know he uses tons of connibears too. At $5 a tail bounty down here it's pretty good for the trappers when fur prices are down.

220's or 330's in the water for them..easy to trap and the fur isnt' worth much if it does sell at all. .50-2.00 a pelt. They are about the same as a possum.

Trapping
Nutria are easily captured in single door three or four foot long live traps
(Fig. 10). Bait live traps with sweet potatoes or carrots and place them
along active trails or wherever nutria or their sign are seen. A small
amount of bait leading to the entrance of the live trap will increase
capture success.

Due to its classification as a Prohibited Aquatic Animal Species (see �Legal
Status�), all live-trapped nutria should be euthanized and not returned to
the wild.

When cornered or captured, nutria are aggressive and can inflict serious
injury to pets and humans. Extreme care should be taken when handling
captured nutria.

Trapping may not be legal in some urban areas; check with local authorities.
See Trapping Wildlife for additional information, including euthanization.

Sheer profundity...

At least he didn't say "terminated with extreme prejudice."

Cut and pasted straight of the Washington state web site.

Odd.

Oregon use to have lots of nutria, but back in the 80's there were lots of trappers and the pelts were worth quite a bit of money. Then what the duck hunters would do is when they had an extreme high tide it would flood the nutria's out of their holes and they would climb on anything they could find that was floating. I know some hunters were killing 50-100 per trip. Another little tid-bit about the nutria is they cannot tolerate cold weather, they start dying off right and left when it gets below freezing. They are a pretty mean critter, as far as conibears go, a 220 would work just fine and as far a leg hold trap, a No. 2 coil spring or double long spring will work great. I know Oregon department of fish and wildlife did a bunch tagging them. I guess they still have lots of them down South. I don't think there are many people trapping these days, mainly because of outfits like peta and other enviro's. Plus I have not seen what the fur market is doing. I know as far as responsibility goes, as a kid it sure did teach me alot of it. I was earning my own spending money and not out getting into trouble.
Chuck

Nutria are large semi-aquatic rodents which are native to
South America. They look like a beaver or muskrat when
swimming and have nicknames like Swamp Beaver, Argentine
Beaver and American Beaver. Nutria can grow to over 2
feet long and weigh over 20 lbs. Males are typically larger
then females and like beaver, nutria have large incisors
which tend to be yellow-orange to orange-red. Nutria are
mostly brown in color, have short legs and very mistakenly
been referred to as a very large rat.
Nutria have webbed hind feet which make swimming easier
for them. They also have eyes, ears and noses which are
set high on their head enabling them to hold these
receptors out of the water when moving through water.
Their mouth and nostrils have valves which close tight
when submerged which helps them stay under water longer
and more efficiently.

Another interesting fact about Nutria's is the females have the tits on their backs and not on their bellies.
One time I had went over to Portland Oregon to see my girlfriend and when it came time for me to head back to the Oregon coast I went by some swamp land and usually always seen nurtias in the grass eating, but they would always run for the water if you stopped, well this one time I stopped and walked do to this one pretty big one and he just stood there and was not acting the least aggressive, so I picked him up by his tail and put him in the back of my truck, well it was a 2 hour drive back to the coast, I got back there and went and showed some friends who had never seen a nutria. So we jumped in my truck and headed to a local lake and got out and went over to where he was setting in the truckbed, he was still acting funny so me being either brave or stupid I reached down and let him smell my hand, he sniffed it and everything seemed alright so I started to pet him and scratch him under his chin all the while he could have bitten off any number of fingers but he was not aggressive at all, so I picked him up and held him in my arms and my friends came over and slowly petted him and he really seemed to enjoy the attention. So I put him down in the grass and he sat there and started to eat some grass, I then picked him up and took him to the waters edge and let him go, he just swam away. I have had other similar things like that happen to me, I don't know if animals sense I mean them no danger or what. I have had pet skunks, possums and some other little animals. Another animal I have found to be very timid is the beaver. I just thought I would share that story with everyone.