What Threat Does Nutria Pose to the Health of the Chesapeake Bay?
In the past 40 years, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County has lost over 7000 acres of salt marsh from a combination of nutria feeding activity, sea level rise, and erosion of soil that supports marsh plants. Marsh is also being lost on state and private conservation lands. This represents a significant loss of habitat for nesting waterfowl, including black ducks, which are declining in population, wetland birds, including the state-listed black rail, and a variety of song birds. Fish and crabs depend on salt marsh for shelter and protection from predators and as a source of food, since the plants and sediment support many insects and other invertebrates. The loss of these species, in turn, reduces the value of these areas for commercial fisheries and for local ecotourism, which brings $15 million each year from visitors to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge alone. Nutria poses a significant threat not only to the health of the Chesapeake Bay, but also to the very
