The nutria is an Argentine swamp rat that's destroying the wetlands of Louisiana. It's also a cultural touchstone, as scientists and mascots, SWAT teams and chefs all respond to this bizarre pest. In the tradition of "Cane Toads", Nutria presents a people and the animal they love to hate.

Nutria premiered at the 2003 SXSW Film Festival.

Ted Gesing is a producer and director of non-fiction media. Since 2006, Ted has worked with veteran Frontline producer Ofra Bikel as her field producer. They produced When Kids Get Life in 2007, The Hugo Chavez Show in 2008, and most recently Close to Home, a piece about how the recession is experienced in one New York City hair salon.

Ted has also produced and reported radio pieces for This American Life and All Things Considered. Ted’s 2003 documentary short film Nutria, about the swamp rats of Louisiana, won awards at South by Southwest, Ann Arbor and Chicago International Film Festivals in 2003. He has also served as associate producer for Josh Aronson (Beautiful Daughters), Jesse Moss (two episodes of The Investigators for Court TV) and served as production manager on Nanette Burstein’s American Teen.

Ted hails from Andover, Massachusetts, earned his BA in English Literature at Yale, and an MFA in Film from the University of Texas at Austin.

• Frequently Asked Questions about Nutria
  http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/invnutriafaq.asp
• Nutria Recipes
  http://www.chefphilippe.com

Interview with Ted Gessing The nutria is a cultural touchstone, epidemic and wacky pest in Louisiana.

t21: Why make a film about a rat?
TG: The film in my mind was an homage to an Australian documentary called Cane Toads. And I actually just recently heard there's some kind of sequel coming out to Cane Toads, 15 years later.* But it's a film about an Australian pest that's an invasive species that has gone awry and it's hilarious. It's by a guy named Mark Lewis. I loved the way it dealt with natural history and serious science issues and at the same time, really bizarre regional cultural issues. So I was looking for an opportunity to do something like that, and I was going to grad school in Austin, Texas. I had read about some invasive species in the South -- kudzu, nutria -- and just started making some calls to Louisiana and it seemed like there was a story to tell there. 

t21: You totally caught the regional fascination with this animal. They're disgusted by it and repelled by it and it's causing problems. But then it's also the mascot of the local team.
TG: The mascot thing and that love-hate relationship was how I tried to tie it all together in the end. I think that as a state and a culture, the people of Louisiana have been obsessed with eradicating that animal and coping with it. And it's also become a source of cultural pride with them.

t21: In the film, you asked, "Is it as undesirable as a rat?" Besides the fact that we learn it urinates when it meets something new --
TG: -- as a sign of affection, yes --

t21: -- what about it is so undesirable? As a New Yorker, I carry a whole host of idea of what makes a rat undesirable. But it seems that this particular animal isn't that undesirable.
TG: To cohabitate with? Or, I mean, it depends on your purpose. The truth is, it's very unlike a rat. The real problem with the animal is that it's like a beaver. It eats tons and tons of vegetable matter and destroys the wetlands that help protect cities like New Orleans. It's as damaging as some of the misguided efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers in terms of threatening the long-term sustainability of New Orleans.

t21: The first image you show is the rat coming up out of the pond, and it seems so natural and beautiful.
TG: It's true when you look at it, it's cute and cuddly and could be an Ewok. People hate it deeply and there are good scientific grounds for that. It's problematic in the cities because it's in the canals and when they're told to eat it, they can't do it because they think of it as a rat.

t21: I have to say I was squealing at the beginning when the ranger is holding it by the tail and it's making a noise. But by the end when people were eating it, I felt like it was a logical avenue to take.
TG: It's totally logical. If that market could be developed it would make sense.

t21: How successful was it?
TG: I think it's been very unsuccessful. The biggest challenge was always cost. Because it's a small animal, it's not efficient. So unless it's a specialty meat that people are going to pay a premium for, it's not gonna work.

t21: And it's hard to get a premium on rat meat.
TG: Yeah, I met one guy who was trying to develop it for the pet food market. But it's too much work. Processing an animal that size doesn't make sense.

t21: Did you eat it?
TG: Yes. In fact, we served it as part of the promotion for the film at festivals. The film premiered at South by Southwest in 2002. My favorite part of the film was the food section, so I got some samples of nutria sausage and we served it to people as they went into the theatre.

t21: So what does it taste like?
TG: It's good. It's like a rabbit meat. And you know -- I never had it alone. Like in a sausage it's cut up and processed. One of the problems with it as a food is that it's so small, you can't really make a Nutria steak.

t21: At the end, the chefs who were serving it were so earnest. Hearing the description of the meal they'd made -- alligator sausage, frog legs and nutria --- it didn't seem like a far-fetched campaign.
TG: I think it was actually one of the most innovative things I've ever heard from a government bureaucracy, to try to deal with a problem of this scope by trying to create a gourmet food. It's kind of brilliant and it's shame that so far it hasn't caught on. Maybe some day it will. But it's a massive undertaking to burn an animal like that into the consciousness of people who know nothing about it. On some level, I think maybe this film helped do a little bit of that.

* Cane Toads: The Conquest premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

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