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Trappers of the Barataria: Nutria Traditions By Jon and Jocelyn Donlon Foodways/Lore and Language/The Importance of Nutria to Louisiana/Ecological and Economical Impact/Conclusion
Traditional Trapping Traditional trapping of fur-bearing animals in Southeast Louisiana has not changed much over the last 100 years. The close-knit community of the Barataria region descends from Isleños, French, and German heritage. Jerry Alfonzo, of Isleño heritage, is an experienced trapper with over fifty years of experience. He speaks of making his own stretchers (small frames for stretching pelts), of skillfully skinning the animals, and of traditional methods of laying traps in water-all knowledge he inherited from his father, who learned from his father. His traps are notched, a method used by owners to identify their traps.
Mr. Alfonzo's discussion of trapping traditions is similar to that of Chris Areas (AH-ree-ahs), a young shrimper/trapper in Lafitte who is continuing the heritage thanks to the state's Nutria Control Program. Chris learned how to trap from his grandfather (though he could've learned from Jerry Alfonzo, who is his uncle). Chris speaks knowledgeably of living off the land and water of St. Bernard Parish. To begin his trapping, he bought traps from older trappers in the region, who had stored them in barrels of water (to avoid rusting) for over 40 years. He uses his father's carrying sack, stretchers, and boards. He has his beliefs about what makes for the best haul-that trapping is better than shooting because "shooting drives the creatures away." Because of the dip in the shrimping industry, Chris is learning to trap to survive, much as the older settlers did. Fuzzy Hertz, a retired pelt trader, said that his father learned how to trap to survive: "The rest of the people was doing it, so he got right in with 'em. Everybody's so friendly that a stranger would come in and they'd help him out, learning the trade." The same language applies to the younger Chris. Trapping customs depend heavily on the material culture associated with them. Jerry Alfonzo talked of his collection of traps, from the "Gibb trap" that was discontinued fifty years ago because it is a double-spring trap, to the "V.G. trap," his personal favorite. This trap is made by Victor and is a "single spring" trap. He also uses names such as "jump trap," because it jumps when it snaps to "catch the animal further up the leg." Mr. Alfonzo is very adept at demonstrating the uses of these traps, carefully compressing the springs to set each jaw of the trap. He also owns a "rat wringer," which scrapes the excess meat off the pelt after skinning. He and Chris Areas own a large collection of older traps, as well as handmade stretchers and boards. Chris also owns the trappers' bag used by his father. Many of these items have been handed down from generation to generation. It is also typical for the trappers to have a collection of their favorite pelts. Fuzzy Hertz has a pelt, tanned years ago at the cost of $30, that he keeps because its blonde streak rendered it defective.
Traditional Uses of Nutria: Foodways Most of the trappers interviewed for this project report that they don't eat much nutria meat. As Douglas Robinson said, "If it tastes like chicken, why not eat chicken?!" On the other hand, Fuzzy Hertz, who has owned Fuzzy's Bar in Lafitte for more than fifty years, waxed enthusiastic about nutria meat. Even those who had never tried it had heard reports of it "tasting good." Fuzzy's family started eating the meat long after they began trapping because "the meat was so pretty." They cook it in a variety of ways: stewed, fried, barbequed, smothered, and even in spaghetti. More than for human consumption, nutria meat is often sold for animal feed.
Lore and Language of the Trappers The legend that E.A. McIlhenny is the primary source of Louisiana's nutria problem, either because he intentionally let loose the ones he had been raising on Avery Island, or because the nutria escaped during a hurricane, is so pervasive that is has been widely cited (even in news reports). Shane Bernard, historian and curator for McIlhenny Company, has spent a great deal of time tracking down the truth behind the legend. According to his research, McIlhenny wasn't the first to have imported nutria to Louisiana; he was the third. Moreover, he never imported nutria from Argentina, as is alleged, but bought his first ones from a seller in St. Bernard Parish. McIlhenny intentionally released nutria into the wild because he wanted to establish a nutria-trapping industry. Bernard did discover that a hurricane once allowed some of McIlhenny's fur-bearing stock to escape, but nutria were not recorded among the escapees.
In addition to this legend, nutria-trapping occupational lore includes a colorful variety of stories and expressions. There is the specialized language of the material culture: the "rat wringer" that scrapes meat from the skin, or the names of traps, from "Gibb," to "jump" to "diamond" trap. There is also insider language of the region. Chris Areas, for example, talks of Lafitte folks having to move "out front" (to the city of New Orleans) to make a living. And he also talks about how his father made a living at "bustering crabs," which is the process of farming soft-shelled crabs. In the process of selling nutria, some are "sold round," as Douglas Robinson says, which means that they are sold whole. Jerry Alfonzo contributed a local expression and belief: "when the muskrat patches its nest, we know it's going to rain." And Shane Bernard told of how E.A. McIlhenny was nicknamed "M'sieu Ned," and how young nutria are called "kits." Finally, Fuzzy Hertz contributed a family saying: His father called the process of buying and selling nutria pelts a "'skin game.' The trapper would catch the animal, skin it, and the buyer would skin him, and the next buyer would skin him, and they'd get skint all the way down the line." As historian and curator of McIlhenny Company's historical documents, Shane K. Bernard (son of musician Rod Bernard) oversees the archiving of material owned by the company, much of which has been found in a number of warehouses and in attics of abandoned houses on Avery Island. Some family members and company employees have also donated or sold items. He is a "one-man operation," and takes particular pleasure in what he calls "myth-busting." Before he began working for McIlhenny in the mid-1990s he, like many others, had heard the nutria legend associated with Avery Island. He has seen the legend mentioned in National Geographic, The Washington Post, and Audubon. Shane stumbled across a "nutria" folder in the McIlhenny papers, and became curious to confirm or refute the story. The legend is as follows, in Shane's words: E. A. McIlhenny, the man who ran the Tabasco Sauce business, as a side venture began to raise nutria on Avery Island. And he imported a number of nutria from Argentina, where they're indigenous, and brought them to Louisiana and raised them in a pen somewhere on the Island. A hurricane came along in the late 1930s, early 1940s, knocked down the pen, the nutria got out, and populated the coastal salt marshes of Louisiana. It was all his fault. The legend has variants: sometimes he introduced nutria to Louisiana; other times he introduced them to North America. Sometimes the nutria escaped during a hurricane; other times M'sieu Ned let them out on purpose-for malicious purposes. The story researched by Shane Bernard is much more complex than the popular version. He found that E. A. McIlhenny was at least the third-rather than the first-nutria farmer in Louisiana; he was at least the second nutria farmer to set loose his nutria in the wild, on purpose. He never imported nutria from Argentina. He bought nutria from one of the two pre-existing nutria farms in Louisiana, the one in St. Bernard Parish. What's more, the detail of the hurricane is irrelevant. In fact, McIlhenny purposely released twenty-one nutria into the marsh on June 1, 1940, two months prior to the 1940 hurricane that struck in early August of that year. He did not release all of his nutria until 1945. According to Bernard's article "Reconsidering the Origin of Nutria," published in Louisiana History in 2002 (Vol 53. No. 3, pgs. 281-293), McIlhenny purchased his first nutria in March of 1938-fourteen adults and six kits-all but two of which were born in the United States. The papers do not name the farm owner in St. Bernard Parish, but they do verify that A. Bernstein of New Orleans, a fur dealer, served as middleman in the transaction. He wrote to McIlhenny, "I am able to purchase the nutria for you for the sum of $100.00 and now you will kindly let me know what day you can send your truck to pick the up, as I must let the party know, in order that he may have them ready for shipment" (287-88). McIlhenny posted a check to Bernstein for $100.00 on March 12, 1938, and he dispatched a landscape architect, Jim Kennedy, who was employed at Jungle Gardens, to collect the nutria. Kennedy's documented report and expenses verify the transaction. He also brought advice from Bernstein about maintaining the nutria, advising McIlhenny to "feed them carrots, beets, cabbage, grass, alfalfa, or anything green'" (Bernard 288). Whatever difficulty McIlhenny faced with the troublesome fur-bearers was not entirely a surprise. In 1930, Armand P. Daspit, director of the Louisiana Department of Conservation's Fur and Wildlife Division, was warned in a letter from the Bureau of Biological Survey in Washington, DC (and Daspit sent a copy of the letter to McIlhenny) that "It may be highly objectionable to turn [nutria] loose. . . . Numerous examples exist in this and foreign countries of the introduction of species from one part of the world to another with very disastrous results" (Bernard 286). McIlhenny waited eight years from the date of that letter to buy his first nutria. In the meantime, two other nutria farms began to operate in Louisiana. One was owned by Susan and Conrad Brote in St. Tammany Parish; the other was the unnamed farm in St. Bernard Parish, from which McIlhenny purchased his first nutria in 1938. Once McIlhenny had in his possession five hundred animals, he began to sell live adults to other farmers as breeding stock. He continued to sell breed stock, until he "let all of [his] nutrias go in the marshes" in late 1945. His original aim had been "to establish a fur industry on nutria in the waste marshes of Louisiana" and he believed that he had "succeeded in doing this" (Bernard 291). McIlhenny seems to have contributed to stories of his exaggerated role in the spread of nutria throughout the marshes. According to Bernard, "He often embellished stories, particularly about himself, in the jovial manner of a seasoned raconteur" (Bernard 284). In fact, he did claim to have been the one to introduce nutria to Louisiana, saying in a 1945 letter that later appeared in the Times-Picayune: I originally brought fifteen pairs of the animals from the Argentine . . . [and] have liberated probably one hundred and fifty pairs of these animals in Iberia Parish since 1940, and they have spread to the northern limits of Louisiana and the extreme western limits, and have crossed over Vermilion Bay to Marsh Island (Bernard 284). McIlhenny suffered a debilitating stroke in 1946, and passed away in August 1949. He died known to many as the one who introduced nutria to Louisiana, a legend that he, himself, cultivated. Bernard's research, however, indicates that the introduction of this now troublesome critter was much more complex. Shane Bernard has published two books: Swamp Pop (1996) and The Cajuns (2003), both of which were published by the University of Mississippi Press. An authority on Cajun and Creole History, Bernard published an article on the subject of nutria that was picked up by the Associated Press, and appeared in over 100 newspapers. His understanding of local history is invaluable to discussions of the industry.
The Importance of Nutria to Louisiana When nutria were first brought to Louisiana, the original intent was to sell all parts of the fertile animal. The fur is very high quality while still relatively economical, the meat is said to be tasty, and the residue had potential use in pet or livestock food. And for nearly 100 years, the plan worked. In the 1960s, 70s, and even the 1980s, over a million nutria were caught and sold, according to Jeff Marx of Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries. However, during the 2001-2002 trapping season, the state sold fewer than 1,000 trapping licenses.(http://www.nutria.com/site4.php)
But several factors have contrived to dash this vision, and the businessmen lost interest and animals: namely, the decrease in fur wearing, the lack of interest in nutria meat as a human food, and the overabundance of nutria because of their high reproduction rate. Now, the economic impact of the nutria is chiefly a negative one, with too many of them disturbing the waterways, contributing to erosion of the coasts, and, in arable areas, meddling with the water-control structures necessary for agriculture. From the air, the broad, vegetation-free paths they create are clearly visible. Perhaps urged on by population density, the rodents do travel from fairly wild areas into cultivated fields, doing great damage to dikes, ditches, and irrigation works there as well as destroying portions of crop. The tendency to consume roots is an especially destructive trait, because doing so immediately kills the entire plant.
Ecological and Economical Impact When the hoped-for market failed to develop, would-be fur ranchers began releasing the animals into the American wilds. The overpopulation has resulted in nutria consuming much of the available vegetation in the marshes, causing great damage to coastal parishes, primarily Terrebonne Parish. In coastal areas the effect has been to accelerate coastal erosion, especially if salt-water intrusion has acted to weaken storm-savaged vegetation.
In the trapping season spanning November 2002-March 2003, Louisiana instituted a Nutria Control Program to regulate nutria numbers rather than attempt to eradicate them. Doug Robinson, an Environmental Consultant with Coastal Environments of Baton Rouge (which had the contract to manage the program), made his way into the field every week to collect nutria tails from local trappers and to record the number and location of caught nutria. The program set up six stations along the coastline, in public places easily accessible to trappers. Before they could qualify, each trapper had to officially register with the program, obtain a valid trapping license, and provide documentation that they were trapping with the landowner's permission. Trappers were allowed to turn in tails no less than eight inches long, to discourage the trapping of baby nutria. Trappers could use traditional traps, or kill the nutria with steel pellets only. Hunters were not allowed to use lead in shotguns so that other wildlife-particularly the Bald Eagle-that feed on the dead nutria would not be poisoned. Each trapper also had to follow specific guidelines for disposing of the carcasses. Once the hunter/trapper qualified, he was paid $4.00 per tail. The hunt averaged about 20,000 nutria per week, and some hunters took home an income of $60,000 for four months of work. According to Doug Robinson, most of the captured nutria came from the area starting at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River eastward to Cocodrie. The Nutria Control Program is targeted to last five years, with the goal of collecting at least 400,000 tails per year. Officials are even talking about the program lasting for 25 years. Some trappers sell only the tails; others skin the nutria to sell its meat and fur. One trapper made an extra $7000 by selling fur. Not surprisingly, the market for nutria meat is still quite small, though growing. Between seasons, the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is documenting the impact of the trapping program, as well as areas of excessive damage done by the critters. Trappers throughout South Louisiana are once again turning to the natural environment in part to support a traditional way of life. Many trappers learned the techniques from fathers and grandfathers, but for a long time have not found a viable market. Now, with the Nutria Control Program, trappers can earn a decent, traditional living while helping to save the Louisiana marshlands. Conclusion The research and fieldwork on nutria in the Barataria Region revealed a rich history of waterway traditions. These traditions, so recently threatened by a failing economy for trappers, has been revived by Louisiana's Nutria Control Program. While the program remains vulnerable to charges made by animal rights activists, in particular for the trappers' use of leg-hold traps, it, nevertheless, has helped locals to remain active in family and cultural traditions. Any demonstration of these traditions will, necessarily, involve some difficult questions about the use of traps, the disposal of many pelts, and the overall uncomfortable quality of trapping. No death to the destructive and fertile animals will be pleasant to contemplate. However, it can always be stressed that nutria trapping may be the only "politically correct" form of trapping practiced today. The creatures are, in the end, contributing to the destruction of the Louisiana coastline, and a dramatic reduction in their numbers is necessary for the coast's survival. Moreover, the program provides a supplementary income for fisherfolk, whose shrimping businesses have been hard hit by the importation of foreign shrimp and low market prices. Public programs, including narrative stages and demonstrations, can provide an effective means for educating the general public about family and cultural traditions, and the relationship of these traditions to the Barataria region's economy and ecology.
Jon Griffin Donlon and Jocelyn Hazelwood Donlon are cultural anthropologists who work as freelance folklorists and tourism specialists (as Donlon & Donlon Consultants) in Louisiana and overseas. Together and separately, they have written numerous scholarly articles, and in 2001 Jocelyn Donlon published "Swinging in Place: Porch Life in Southern Culture." They can be reached through their website at www.donlonconsulting.com. This article was written in 2004 for the Louisiana Regional Folklife Program, a branch of the Louisiana Division of the Arts sponsored by the University of New Orleans. |
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