APHIS Nutria Detection Dogs
by USDAgov
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Wildlife Service Specialist, Canine handlers, Lisa Buhr, Carl Dunnock, Mario Eusi, and their canine partners, Mya and Cain, from Maryland’s Montgomery County Animal Services & Adaption Center and Hektor, from the Fulton County Animal Shelter in Atlanta, GA. joined the Nutria Detector Dog program at a graduation ceremony held at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, MD, on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015.
This is part of the Chesapeake Bay Nutria Eradication Project (CBNEP) mission to protect the Chesapeake Bay wetlands by eradicating invasive nutria from the Delmarva Peninsula.
The handlers and the dogs trained for three weeks at the National Detector Dog Training Center (NDDTC) in Georgia and four weeks in the marshes of the Delmarva Peninsula, MD. to detect nutria scat. This program is a part of the final phases of eradication verification.
Wildlife Services eradication efforts began in 2002 at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and have expanded into watersheds from the Choptank to the Pocomoke Rivers, MD.
Nutria have been removed from more than 250,000 Delmarva acres at the refuge as well as other public and private properties with landowner permission.
Nutria are semi-aquatic rodents, similar to muskrats, introduced on the Eastern Shore in the early 1940s. Devouring up to 25 percent of their body weight in plants and roots per day, nutria have devastated Chesapeake Bay wetlands, turning them into barren mud flats. The spoiled marshes offer no protection to fish, shellfish, birds or other and wildlife. Nutria activity accelerates erosion that smothers oyster beds and degrades Chesapeake Bay water quality. Lost wetlands increase tidal and storm flooding and subsequent damage to upland timber and agricultural areas.
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is the parent agency for both Wildlife Services, Plant Protection and Quarantine program, which operates the NDDTC. The CBNEP, a partnership of Federal and state agencies, universities, private organizations and landowners, has combined efforts to protect wetland habitats from the damaging effects of nutria. Members include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Geological Survey; USDA Wildlife Services; Maryland State Departments of Natural Resources and the Environment; Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries; Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control; University of Maryland; Salisbury Zoological Park; and numerous organizations and private landowners including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Friends of Blackwater and Tudor Farms, Inc.
