Nutria

Nutria represent ecosystem anti-engineering: they destroy wetlands rather than create them. Native to South America, nutria were introduced worldwide for fur farming and escaped or were released. In Louisiana and other coastal wetlands, nutria consume vegetation faster than it can regenerate, converting marshes to open water. They're the inverse of beavers—habitat destroyers rather than habitat creators.

The nutria invasion shows what happens when a species consumes without engineering. Beavers also consume vegetation but their dam-building creates more habitat than their eating destroys. Nutria only eat; they don't build. The net effect is extraction without creation, habitat loss without habitat gain.

The business parallel is extractive versus generative business models. Nutria are like companies that capture value without creating it—regulatory arbitrage, patent trolling, or asset stripping. They consume ecosystem resources without contributing infrastructure. Short-term returns can be substantial, but the aggregate effect is ecosystem degradation. Nutria strategy 'works' for the nutria but impoverishes everyone else. Markets that allow unchecked nutria behavior eventually run out of marshes to consume.