Mark Souder: “The sponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest), the Subcommittee on Fisheries…”

“The sponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest), the Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans chairman, has been working on this issue for many years. In fact, in 1998 Congress enacted a law he sponsored that created the Maryland Nutria Control Pilot Project, and let me briefly, for those who are not aware, as I was not, this is a nutria. It is basically a South American, somewhat of an overgrown rat, smaller sized groundhog, but it is a nonnative species that is destroying the environment in certain areas of our country. Since that time, Federal, State and local partners have worked together to develop an effective strategy on how to address the tremendous amount of environmental destruction that is being caused by an increasing population of a semi-aquatic, non-native rodent known as nutria. The results of the environmental impact studies were shocking. Nutria have no natural predators in Maryland and they have already consumed nearly half of the wetland marshlands at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.”