New Orleans ? Nutria – furry, swamp-dwelling rodents that look like 10-pound rats with webbed feet – are largely regarded as a nuisance in Louisiana’s Cajun country. But they are wanted creatures nonetheless.

Starting today, the state of Louisiana will pay a $4-a-tail bounty – officials prefer the term “incentive” – in hopes of wiping out 400,000 nutria this winter.

The payment is part of an effort to save Louisiana’s coast, which is disappearing at a rate of 35 square miles a year. Nutria, a non-native species that has overrun Gulf of Mexico wetlands since the value of their fur plummeted in the early 1980s, devour plants that keep the soil from washing away.

Nutria, which are nearly as large as beavers, have long, scaly tails, webbed hind feet and orange incisors. They were brought from Argentina in the 1930s and raised on farms for their fur. Some escaped into the wild, and now they are so populous that their flattened carcasses litter southern Louisiana highways whenever high water from a major storm chases them out of the marshes to higher ground.

The state has tried to market nutria meat. Many people say they taste like farm-raised rabbit, and are lean and high in protein. But demand has never been high among Americans, despite the efforts of local gourmet chefs to come up with recipes for nutria gumbo, sausage, chili and jerky.

State officials are looking toward China as a potential nutria market. But until they go nuts for nutria in Asia, the state has decided it will be worth $2 million to pay trappers to kill the rodents.

A nutria is seen inside a drainage pipe in Metairie, La. Starting today, the state of Louisiana will pay a bounty for each kill in hopes of wiping out 400,000 of the large rodents this winter.

To collect the bounty, trappers must present the nutria tails frozen or salted.

In the 1970s, trappers killed about 1.8 million nutria a year and fur coat makers, mostly in Europe, paid $4 to $8 a pelt. But demand fell, especially with the rise in popularity of leather and synthetics.

Pelts might get $1 or so nowadays. Alligator farmers often buy up the meat and grind it into feed, but they do not pay much more than a 25 cents a carcass.