Rose Dickson
28 September 2008
0000 – 0020 hours
Bench in the botanical gardens on Willamette University campus, Salem, OR, USA
51 degrees, clear skies
Looking into the stream near the botanical gardens, something catches my eye. Did I just see an animal? It looked as if a cat was just swimming in the mill stream. Is that possible? I run down the stream to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but sure enough, it is not a cat, it’s a nutria (Myocastor coypus)! The creature swims downstream a little way out of my sight. That was my first encounter with a nutria, they look like huge rodents. I’m not sure I like them very much. Is it true that they only come out at night? Where do they reside in the daytime? I cannot imagine the life they must lead with no daylight to look forward to. I create a mental image of a nutria’s home, buried away in a marsh, only coming out as a predator of the night! These large aquatic rodents are not the kind of animal I would like to run into alone in the night!
Image courtesy of:http://www.nutria.com/site5.php
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