Fund the Nutria Eradication Program

Nutria are invasive semi-aquatic rodents native to South America that destroy flood protection levees by burrowing extensive tunnel networks into earthen embankments. This budget proposal requests $8.2 million for the 2026-27 fiscal year to expand the eradication program to protect the state’s water conveyance infrastructure and agricultural crops from damage in the Central Valley and San Joaquin Delta. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife first detected nutria in the state in 2017, in Merced County, after the species had been considered absent from California for decades following a previous eradication effort in the 1970s. Since detection, the department has confirmed nutria presence in six counties including Merced, Stanislaus, Fresno, Mariposa, Tuolumne, and San Joaquin, with the population estimated at several thousand individuals. The eradication program employs a combination of trapping, trained detection dogs, aerial surveys, and environmental DNA sampling to locate and remove nutria before they can establish breeding populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Delta is of particular concern because it serves as the hub of the state’s water distribution system, delivering water to 27 million Californians and irrigating approximately 3 million acres of farmland through the State Water Project and Central Valley Project. If nutria were to become established in the Delta’s network of channels and levees, the Department of Water Resources has estimated that structural repair costs could exceed $1 billion and that levee failures could disrupt water deliveries to the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California. The $8.2 million request represents a $3.1 million increase over the current year’s allocation and would fund 22 additional field staff positions, expanded trapping operations in newly detected areas, and a public outreach campaign to encourage reporting of nutria sightings. Agricultural organizations including the California Farm Bureau Federation support the funding request, citing crop losses from nutria feeding on rice, alfalfa, and sugarcane in the San Joaquin Valley that have been estimated at several hundred thousand dollars annually. Environmental groups including the Nature Conservancy have endorsed the eradication effort, noting that nutria also damage wetland habitats critical to endangered species including the giant garter snake and the riparian brush rabbit. Opponents of the funding level are largely limited to fiscal hawks in the legislature who have questioned whether eradication is achievable given the species’ high reproductive rate, with females capable of producing two to three litters per year of four to six young each. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has pointed to the successful eradication of nutria from the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland as evidence that elimination is feasible with sustained investment, noting that Maryland declared eradication complete in 2024 after a 20-year program.