Loathsome, tasty rodent stirs passions in Colombia

Chiguiros, also called capybaras, look like hairy water pigs, with short legs, thick bodies, small eyes, and blunt snouts. (Chris Kraul/Los Angeles Times)

HATO COROZAL, Colombia - They look like hamsters on growth hormones, bark like dogs, and swim as fast as otters - all reasons that "chiguiros," the world's largest rodents, are an object of fascination for zoologists and wildlife enthusiasts.

But ranchers in northeastern Colombia fail to see the attraction. They claim the barrel-shaped rodents, which stand knee-high to humans and weigh as much as 120 pounds, consume valuable pasture, foul drinking water, and spook horses and cattle.

That antipathy, plus a booming market for chiguiro meat in neighboring Venezuela, has prompted open season on the rodents and landed them on Colombia's endangered species list.

Rancher Magali Delgado says chiguiros, which were visible recently from the veranda of her house in this isolated settlement in Casanare state, are a costly nuisance. "They are like having a pack of rats in your home," said Delgado, who complained that she has to buy expensive antibiotics for her cows when they drink the spoiled water.

"I have to defend my cattle. They are what I live from," said Delgado, a mother of three whose husband was killed by paramilitary fighters several years ago.

Delgado says she doesn't kill the rodents herself but doesn't stand in the way of those who do.

Chiguiro meat is considered a delicacy in Venezuela. Demand is especially strong this time of year, when Roman Catholics eat it during Lent and Holy Week as a church-sanctioned substitute for fish and red meat. Chiguiros have been wiped out in Venezuela, which prompted the sharp increase in poaching in Colombia.

Over the last two years, 28 tons of chiguiro meat has been confiscated in illegal shipments by truck or plane to Venezuela, said Major Maria Antonio Sanchez of the Colombian environmental police.

That's more than double the 12 tons the police seized in the previous two-year period.

Biologists are concerned that the continued killing of the rodents, which are also known as capybaras (which translates to master of the grass), will not only lead to their extinction but do irreversible harm to the savanna ecosystem. Capybaras, looking like hairy water pigs, have short legs, thick bodies, small eyes, and blunt snouts.

They eat plant life that might otherwise overwhelm the savanna, flatlands that receive enormous amounts of rainfall, attracting hundreds of species of migratory birds as well as mammals and reptiles, said Olga Montenegro, a biologist at the National University of Colombia.

Scientists and government officials say the chiguiros are a resource that can be managed - they reproduce fast enough that herds can be culled at a rate of 10 percent to 30 percent a year and still remain viable.

"The laws surrounding controlled killing of chiguiros are very rigorous, so people avoid them," said Saulo Orduz of the government's Corporinoquia environmental management agency. "We're trying to come up with another model to facilitate people taking advantage of the animals while observing environmental needs."

Biologists are dismayed by the threat to the chiguiros. "If the chiguiros are lost, it's part of our natural heritage gone forever," said Montenegro. "They have a right to exist."