08\/05\/2025August 5, 2025Nutrias becoming ever more widespread in Germany \u2014 hunting association<\/p>\n
Nutrias look sweet but are also a nuisance factorImage: Siegfried Kuttig\/imageBROKER\/picture alliance<\/p>\n
The South American nutria<\/a>, a\u00a0semiaquatic rodent that is considered an invasive species in Europe, is continuing to spread within Germany, according to the German Hunting Association (DJV).<\/p>\n The animal was found in 35% of 23,000 monitored hunting districts\u00a0in 2023, the DJV said, double the figure in 2015.<\/p>\n The highest presence was found in the city-state of Bremen<\/a>, at 93%, a sixfold increase over 2015,\u00a0and in Hamburg<\/a> at 73%.<\/p>\n Nutrias were found\u00a0living in\u00a060% of hunting districts in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia<\/a>, while 55% of districts in Lower Saxony<\/a> and 50% of those in Saxony-Anhalt<\/a> had populations of the rodent, which the DJV says undermines riverbanks and dikes with its burrowing<\/a> and destroys reed belts.<\/p>\n The beaver-like, usually crepuscular or nocturnal\u00a0creatures\u00a0are also known to\u00a0transmit diseases to humans and other animals, mainly through water contamination. They have also been known to attack humans and dogs when cornered.<\/p>\n The DJV called for the nutria to be included in German national\u00a0hunting legislation. Most states already have a hunting season for the animal or special permits.<\/p>\n “Owing to illegal feeding, climatic advantages and hunting limits, nutrias can now be found particularly frequently in urban areas, where they often become active during daytime as well and have a great potential for reproducing,” the DJV said.<\/p>\n Nutria populations mostly have their origins in animals that escaped from farms where they are kept for their fur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"08\/05\/2025August 5, 2025Nutrias becoming ever more widespread in Germany \u2014 hunting association Nutrias look sweet but are also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-320687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114978021953840836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}