Thanks to animal rights activists, Hurricane Katrina was more severe than it could have and should have been. It’s a story that sounds so crazy, it could only happen in the Louisiana bayou country, but it is inevitably spreading along America’s coastal wetlands. The direct culprit is the burrowing, grass-inhaling mega-swamp rat called the nutria, but it has been aided and abetted by clueless people. However, viewers will meet some of the hardy Louisianans who are rising to the nutria challenge in Quinn Costello, Chris Metzler, and Jeff Springer’s documentary “Rodents of Unusual Size,” which airs on PBS’s “Independent Lens” on Jan. 14.
Essentially, nutria are just plain varmints. They are an invasive species that was deliberately imported to Louisiana during the Depression to provide jobs on fur farms. However, during one dark and stormy night, a colony of nutria escaped their cages into the swamps—an environment perfectly suited to them.
