新托福阅读材料：8WildWaystoCombatInvasiveSpecies（1）

　外来入侵物种对本地区的生态系统会造成许多不良影响，科学家们用自己的聪明才智研究出了许多对抗这些“外来侵略者”的有趣方法。接下来我们就一起来看看吧!

　　Fashionable Fur from Louisiana's Wetlands

　　Louisiana's wetlands are infested with more than a million large, beady-eyed rodents called nutria. These natives of South America were brought to the U.S. in the 1930s to stock fur farms. Soon after, farm escapees and took up residence in Louisiana's bayous, among other places. High demand for fur kept the wild population more or less in check for a few decades. But when the fur market crashed in the 1980s, the nutria population exploded. Now, an artist named Cree McCree is trying to make nutria fur fashionable again to control wild populations and save Louisiana's marshes from nutria noshing.

　　Nutria are grazers. After their numbers climbed aerial surveys revealed large swaths of wetland that had been eaten bare. Native muskrats graze, too, but they like to nibble the tender leaves of marsh plants, whereas nutria prefer to feast on a plant's base and roots. "The plant dies, and it relinquishes its hold on the soil," says Michael Massimi, invasive species coordinator at Barataria–Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP), a group set up to protect wetlands affected by nutria.

　　Land managers have tried several strategies to get rid of the pests, including an unsuccessful state campaign in the late 1990s encouraging locals to eat the rodents (nutria jambalaya, anyone?). What has been more successful is a state program that pays trappers $5 for each nutria tail they deliver. The program brings in 300,000 to 350,000 tails each year. If trappers can sell the fur or meat, they can earn even more. But the bulk of these products go to waste because demand is so low.

　　So, in 2009 McCree decided to try and reestablish a market for the fur. With a grant from the BTNEP, she challenged local designers to create apparel featuring the rodent's fur. "We're not trying to promote fur so much as we're trying to utilize a wasted resource," Massimi says. The project—Righteous Fur—aims to market nutria fur as a "guilt-free" alternative to traditional fur. McCree has already held two fashion shows in New Orleans, and many of the pieces sold. Even the animal's enormous orange teeth have made it onto the runway as necklaces and earrings. "When they're attached to a nutria they're pretty hideous," Massimi says. "But when you mount them on some Balinese silver, they actually look quite nice."