Coypu

We have south of Paris after an uneventful journey. I stretched my legs around the local lake where I often spot coypu. 'Coypu' sounds so much better than 'water rat' but they are destructive creatures and get out of control. In the United Kingdom, coypus were introduced to East Anglia, for fur, in 1929; many escaped and damaged the drainage works, and a concerted programme by MAFF eradicated them by 1989. However, in 2012, a 'giant rat' was killed in County Durham, with authorities suspecting the animal was, in fact, a coypu.