Nutria

A few years ago here in New Orleans we had a big problem with nutria. Those are a kind of large rat from South America. They act more like squirrels than "rats" and some locals eat the meat of nutria. In fact, restaurants in New Orleans tried to market nutria meat on their menus a few years ago, but though people will eat squirrel (another animal in the rat family) they didn't seem eager to munch of nutria steaks. The Cajuns love the meat...but then a Cajun will eat ANYTHING.
At any rate, the problem with nutria was an overpopulation of them. They mate incessantly and produce family members at the same rate as other rats. For years they had been eating away at the banks of canals and in marshes, eating the grass that help to keep the marsh from losing it's banks. So the erosion problem nutria caused meant that something had to be done to reduce the population. If not, erosion would destroy canals and marsh and swamp beds. One method of doing this was a state program of offering bounties to trappers who turned in nutria hides. It worked quite well, as the nutria meat was used in pet food and trappers killed off hundreds of thousands of them- in the wild.
But what about the problem of nutria eating and nesting along city canal banks. Since trappers don't work in cities, there had to be another plan. And that one was... get ready for this.... for the local sheriffs to have target practice (at night) to shoot those nutria as they emerged from their nests. In a big park near my home and along the open canals we have (a legacy of the French settlement of New Orleans) police offers would shine spot lights on the canal banks and shoot the nutria. I can attest to the fact that this proposal didn't work. I see nutria at night along the canal near my home. The police simply had too little man power (sounds like the Iraqi problem) and bullets for those nutria. The program was stopped and the nutria victorious.
Everytime I ride my bike in my neighborhood near one of our open canals, I swear I see those rats smiling a victory smile as I peddle past.