'Hi, I'm a Nutria' is Horribly Flawed

I am tremendously disappointed in the decision of the New York Times to run an op ed piece in the form of a cartoon which advocates for ignoring the problem of nutria as an invasive and ecologically disruptive species in North America.

The logic of the op ed is fatally flawed in several respects.

First, it glosses over the damage done by nutria without really facing what it all means. Nutria dramatically transform habitats through their burrowing into river banks and their tendency to kill far more vegetation than they even need to survive (they will chew through the stalk of a plant to eat 5% of it before moving on to the next plant). This behavior will eventually lead to the extinction or extirpation of many native species.

What I think that many concerned people lack regarding wildlife issues is a clearly defined rock-bottom set of values. I certainly lacked this for many years even though I was somewhat of an activist, canvassing for US PIRG and doing other such work. My rock-bottom value in making environmental policy is this: that we must prevent extinctions. Protection of endangered species is paramount. This demands that the last 100 examples of an endangered species are more valuable than 100,000 lives of a severely over-populated species that threatens the endangered species. Right now we are witnessing a global wave of extinctions, the likes of which Earth has not seen in tens of millions of years, if at all. These losses are happening because of human behavior and often because of human introductions of invasive species. This isn't just normal natural selection. We have a moral obligation to remedy our own damages.

The second flaw of the Times' Op ed piece is the horribly flawed and intellectually lazy assertion that human beings are an invasive species in North America.

I wrote an article about this question a few weeks ago which I feel is a very thorough examination of that matter. My conclusion is that we are not an invasive species here. If you want to start making a distinction between Native Americans and those of European descent then you are opening up a whole racist can of worms that doesn't even make sense on close inspection.

The big question that the Times piece asks is, 'how long does it take to become a native species?' The answer isn't really a number of years. Its not about time -- its about fitting into an ecosystem in such a way that the species does not cause the extinction or extirpation of native species. Its a question of being part of an ecosystem rather than a saboteur of it. This doesn't mean that we should hate the animal. The animal isn't evil for having been put out of place by humans. But we still have to fix the problem.

Altogether, the piece from the Times was uncharacteristically lazy, sloppy and unreasonable. I expect better from what remains the best newspaper in the world. I don't believe that this is even a case of intelligent minds disagreeing (though I do not accuse the director of being unintelligent). I think that this is a case of people not thinking an issue through in a methodical way. Given what I suspect to be the fundamental values of the editors and the director, I think that my position is more consistent with those values than the op ed piece that they chose to publish.

[Photo copyright 2011, 2012 by Jackson Landers. That is meat from a couple of nutria that I shot in Louisiana, mid-way through their preparation by the great chef Philippe Parola).