Congressman Josh Harder might want to take his reputation of being the nutria’s No. 1 enemy in California to the next level.

All he needs to do is take advice from the United States Fish & Wildlife Service and launch a grass roots campaign to eat nutria meat.

He could even offer bumper stickers reading, “Eat nutria & save the Delta.”

Nutria are the Joey Chestnuts of the rodent world.

Instead of eating 70 or so hot dogs in one setting, they consume 25 percent of their body weight daily by munching through vegetation critical to Delta ecosystems.

In doing so, they damage the integrity of flood control levees and river embankments.

Delta marshlands are essentially the  promised land of all-you-can-eat buffets for nutrias.

If nutrias are a foreign concept to you, it is completely understandable.

They are non-native species in the United States.

Nutrias are swamp rats on steroids that leave rabbits in the dust when it comes to reproduction. One female nutria can produce 200 offspring in a year.

Nutria average 15 to 20 pounds but some get as hefty as 40 pounds.

They were brought here from South America by those believing they’d be a quick way to make a buck in the fur trade. When it didn’t pan out, some were released into the wild.

Harder is part of a bipartisan group in Congress pushing to keep federal funding in place for the eradication of nutria in 17 states including California.

Given the lion’s share of the Delta is in Harder’s district, it was inevitable as a member of Congress tuned into the needs of his constituents that’d he’d become the face of the war on nutria in California.

That’s not to downplay the essential role of 40 or so California Department of Fish & Wildlife employees who hunt and trap nutrias from Millerton Lake on the San Joaquin River near Fresno to the Suisun Marsh.

The USFWS plea to eat nutria — the meat is reportedly lean, is gassy, and tastes like rabbit — may be partially tongue in cheek.

But it does underscore the fact turning a bunch of people hunting down food in the wild to target evasive species that are running rampant and making it difficult for native species to thrive or even survive would help.

It is why if Harder wants to enlist the public’s help to turn the tide against invasive species with the potential to destroy the Delta, he might want to consider adding invasive bass to his list.

The Pacific Marine Fisheries manages the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program that has been in place on the Snake and Columbia rivers since 1991 in Oregon and Washington.

It involves the payout of bounties between $6 and $10 for each pikwminnow over 9 inches that are caught.

The rewards are funded by the Bonneville Power Administration in a bid to aid native steelhead and salmon without releasing more and more water to help them survive against pikeminnow that eat lots and lots of the juveniles of the two native species for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

There were 1,200 people who registered in the fishing reward program in 2022. They removed  more than 140,000 pikeminnow that year.

It includes one angler who earned $69,730 in five short months catching nearly 7,000 of the invasive pikeminnows.

The program in Oregon and Washington gives credence to the potential effectiveness of a plan batted down in Sacramento 12 years ago to save the threatened salmon and steelhead.

The plan was an aggressive cutback on the non-native bass that are huge consumers of the native salmon and steelhead as well as the almost extinct Delta smelt.

Scientific research underlined the predatory problem noting almost 90 percent of the salmon that enter the Delta never made it past Vernalis — a point near the Airport Way bridge south of Manteca — to eventually reach breeding areas on the Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced rivers.

For years the state-federal regulatory cartel emboldened by court decisions have been releasing more and more water from reservoirs to try and prop up the salmon population.

They have curtailed water deliveries at the pumps at the start of the California Aqueduct to reduce the loss of Delta smelt.

Water delivery reductions in a bid to reduce Delta smelt from being killed — even though it has not made a measurable difference in the species’ population — is a big reason there is a push for the tunnel.

Back in 2013, the lucrative bass sportfishing industry successfully fought the plan before the California Fish and Game Commission.

Bass, introduced to the Delta ecological system by man, took to it like fish take to water.

The bass thrived, given the smorgasbord of native fish.

Some of the largest bass fish can now be found in the Delta which helps to lure fishermen from all over the country.

But the question is what is more important — protecting native fish and by extension water supplies for California cities and farms or making sure there is a robust bass sport fishing industry?

The plan was never to eradicate the bass but to bring their numbers — and the size of bass — under control to enhance the survival rate of non-native fish they are devouring.

The proposal was centered around having $5 a head bounty program to help bring a truce to California’s water wars given the population of native fish plays a pivotal role in shaping the state’s water policy.

Some critics contend the Department of Fish & Game’s emphasis on cultivating a bass fishing industry in the Delta is detrimental to the economic health of California and the survival rate of salmon and steelhead.

They cite studies — including estimates by state biologists — showing non-native predators consume between 18 and 50 percent of the native fish population.

If the population of predators is reduced and the number of salmon and steelhead rebounds, it would alter the landscape of California water politics.

If native fish can survive in greater numbers by reducing the ranks of predators imported by man, then it could allow changes in water diversion for farm and urban uses.

That, in turn, would reduce pressure to build more massive reservoirs, significantly weaken the argument for a tunnel, and ease up on groundwater pumping to keep up with California’s insatiable demand for water.

A bounty program would be fairly straight forward.

The state would need to allow bass fishing year round with no limits. Then they would need to put in place a bounty program where authorized bait stores are contracted to serve as agents.

For every bass a customer brings in, they would receive $5. The head would be cut off and the rest of the fish returned to the angler so it doesn’t go to waste

It is a proven and effective way to protect struggling native fish populations.

It is a triple winner for Harder’s district. 

It would protect endangered native fish.

It would allow a redo of water release strategies to benefit farms and urban users without hurting native fish.

It would protect Delta ecological systems.

Bass fish in the Delta need to be seen for what they are: Destructive, invasive species, that are a serious threat to the sustainability of the ecosystem.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com