Fra Wikipedia:
Coypu meat is lean and low in cholesterol. While there have been many attempts to establish markets for coypu meat, all documented cases have generally been unsuccessful. Unscrupulous entrepreneurs have promoted coypu and coypu farms for their value as "meat", "fur", or "aquatic weed control". In recent years they have done so in countries such as the United States, China, Taiwan and Thailand. In every documented case the entrepreneurs sell coypu "breeding stock" at very high prices. Would-be coypu farmers find that the markets for their products disappear after the promoter has dropped out of the picture.[citation needed]
In the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, specifically Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Nutria (Russian and local languages Нутрия) are farmed on private plots and sold in local markets as a poor man's meat.
In addition to direct environmental damage, coypu are the host for a nematode parasite (Strongyloides myopotami) that can infect the skin of humans causing dermatitis similar to strongyloidiasis.[14] The condition is also called "nutria itch".[15]
Nutria and the damage they cause, in particular the damage to the levees before Hurricane Katrina, were featured in a first season episode of the A&E Television series, Steven Seagal: Lawman. Some were shot by police officers and the dead animals were fed to alligators. Seagal, who is a practising Buddhist, says he is opposed to personally harming another creature without cause and did not actually shoot them. However, he said that he was happy that the food chain was being respected.[citation needed]
