Word: nutria
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Britain's newest animal menace is a big (larger than a muskrat), large-toothed South American rodent called the coypu (Myocastor coypns), better known as the nutria.* Already the coypu has overrun an estimated 40,000 acres in Norfolk, Sussex and Essex counties, and is munching its way inexorably northward. Its appetite is inexhaustible, and by no means limited to farm crops: a Great Yarmouth farm wife recently complained that coypus were boldly gnawing her window frames, and in some East Anglian river towns, coypus have been known to free boats from their moorings by chewing through the lines...
...coypu reached England in 1927 from Argentina, imported by several East Anglian farmers who wanted to cash in on the market for nutria coats. Then one stormy night ten years later, a strong wind blew down the pens on the nutria farm of P.E.T. Carill-Worsley in East Anglia, and some eight animals escaped. The wild coypus in England are descendants of those first escapees...
Since the coypu's natural predators (alligators, crocodiles and certain types of foxes and eagles) are all back in South America, the animal has flourished in East Anglia's bogs and fens. Commercial trappers are not interested in its fur: the nutria vogue in Britain declined some years ago. A few British restaurants serve coypu (whose taste resembles veal), thoroughly disguised as "Argentine hare." But the coypu's only real enemy is England's furious farmer who, prevented by law from using poison-which would also kill off harmless animal life-prowls the marsh with trap...
...named by the early Spaniards, who thought the coypu was an otter. "Nutria" is Spanish for otter...
...colors for winter sound like a low-calorie diet-carrot, eggplant, prune, cherry and mint. Fabrics range from ordinary reversible wools, suede and leather to delicately worked jerseys, crepe, chiffon and much velvet. The favorite by far is fur-Maggy Rouff shows an all-beaver skirt, Patou an all-nutria dress, and Balmain (a sort of latter-day Gregor Mendel) crosses persian lamb with tweed for a hybrid stadium plaid...