Fundraising around the Portage Bay houseboat community last December was not limited to sales of holiday wrap or wreaths. Instead, eight houseboaters spent two weekend days raising funds for a collaborative effort to stop the nutria invasion that is destroying wetlands and damaging shoreline around Portage Bay and adjacent areas.
Volunteers covered 145 houseboats on 35 docks and by December 8 had received contributions totaling $946 from 48 households, or one-third of the community. By the end of January, 36% of Portage Bay houseboaters had participated in raising a total of $1,101 - an amazing show of support and almost double the original goal!
In January and February Wildlife Services of the US Department of Agriculture spent more than 230 hours surveying and trapping nutria on property owned by the University of Washington and Seattle Parks, around Portage Bay and in the Laurelhurst area. This work, funded in part by an unexpected contribution from NOAA, netted 165 nutria: 78% of the animals from UW property, 20% from Portage Bay/Seattle Parks' Montlake wetland, and the small remainder from Laurelhurst.
At the end of March, contributions from the houseboat community, Seattle Yacht Club, Queen City Yacht Club, and shoreline landowners will fund a contract with Wildlife Services to continue eradication efforts in the non-park portions of Portage Bay. Trapping will also focus on the large nutria population in the southwest portion of Union Bay, but Wildlife Services will continue to monitor all previously trapped locations and respond to calls about nutria sightings. Because the effort is likely to extend throughout 2009 and possibly into 2010, all funds raised will be retained until eradication efforts are complete. Any unspent funds will be returned proportionally to contributors.
Meanwhile, if you spot a nutria in your area, please contact Diana Forman at houseboatdiana@comcast.net or Annie Stixrood, chair of the nutria control project, at astixrood@comcast.net, who will relay the information to a Wildlife Services agent. You may also contact Wildlife Services District Supervisor Matt Cleland at matthew.d.cleland@aphis.usda.gov.
More information about nutria and the control effort may be found at Look Out for Nutria.