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dankearl
04-29-2012, 02:20 PM
I am posting this mostly for interest sake.
Big crop, bad setting, but the first true Albino, I have ever seen in the wild and it was not small,
maybe a 20 lb. or so adult Nutria.
It was across a pond, how it has survived in the Green world I live in is beyond me!
1/800
f7.1
iso800
600mm
Nikon d800

DSC_0382bp.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=112255&stc=1&d=1335727114)

Rachel Hollander
04-29-2012, 03:18 PM
Dan - congrats on the sighting and getting the shot. Very interesting to see. I'm sure local biologists would be interested too.

TFS,
Rachel

Morkel Erasmus
04-29-2012, 04:06 PM
very interesting, thanks for sharing Dan!
are they much like beavers?

dankearl
04-29-2012, 04:24 PM
Morkel, they are about beaver size but are just large rodents, big rat tales, a pest.
They were brought to the NW US from South America for some kind of fur business, let loose when
that failed and have multiplied like rodents do. They are actually destructive to wetlands, burrowing, eating
native plants but impossible it seems to eradicate. They are food when small for raptors and other predators,
however, I have seen hawks killing and eating them.

Steve Canuel
04-29-2012, 07:23 PM
Crop looks good and no problem with the setting for me. Bet you did a double take when you saw this one.

Steve Kaluski
04-30-2012, 04:18 AM
Hi Dan, would echo the above comments, as for, it's a big crop, IQ looks good.

TFS
Steve

Steve Uffman
04-30-2012, 10:20 PM
Amazing. In Louisiana, these rodents are everywhere and actually are part of our problem with coastal erosion. They can be very destructive. nevertheless, I have never heard or much less seen an albino. Thanks for sharing a really quite nice image of a rare sighting indeed. May I ask where?

dankearl
04-30-2012, 10:25 PM
Steve, see post above, a much better photo.
Ridgefield, Washington, National Wildlife Refuge.

Steve Uffman
04-30-2012, 10:41 PM
In Louisiana, damage is so prevalent from Nutria that the State has a bounty program for harvesting Nutria. last year it netted 338,512 nutria tails worth $1,692,560 . Still an albino sighting is special. Are the numbers so large there that they are devastating the marshlands?