But they're so cute.
This urban wildlife problem is compounded by the fact that nutria are an invasive species in Oregon -- pushing out native muskrats, devouring native vegetation that holds up stream banks, overrunning wetlands and burrowing enough holes to take down entire hillsides.
When Larry & I first started seeing each other, he lived in an apartment in an old house. We kept seeing these cute, roly poly creatures bouncing around in his yard. I couldn't figure out what they were. They didn't seem to be hedgehogs or prairie dogs or anything I'd seen before. I nicknamed them the yetis and enjoyed watching them.
Larry discovered they were nutria. One day, walking up the steps to the front porch, I saw one gazing up at me between the steps from a hole in the dirt. It looked so cute, like an oversized version of the gunni pig I had in high school. I said, "Hi there lil' yeti!" L'il yeti bared his teeth at me and began to advance. Imagine the cutest fuzzy gunni pig with a full set o' human choppers. Looked like it had stolen a pair of dentures from my grandfather's medicine cabinet. They stopped seeming so cute after that.
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we have a shrew mole in our yard. perhaps more than one. according to wikipedia, they aren't supposed to live in this part of the country. but that's gotta be what it is. we've scoured the net for other explanations.
speaking of small rodents, a bunch of squirrels have ravaged my halloween pumpkins. i hate them.
they are kinda cute when they go leaping through the yard real fast, though. and, i do slam on my brakes to avoid killing them as they gaze, immobile, at my oncoming chevy. sometimes i yell at them, "you should be more careful!"
You can, however, see them gamboling in the dew soaked fields on a lovely foggy fall morning in the rural areas along the side of I-5. Big brown bouncy lumps of fluff playing hide-and-go-seek with the sheep. They really are pretty cute, till you get a gander at those teeth. *shudder*