- The Nordelta community in Buenos Aires, Argentina is an affluent gated community built on natural wetlands.
- The capybara invaded the community, and environmentalists said they were just going home.
- They are now at the center of a heated environmental debate.
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In Argentina, a wealthy gated community is occupied by unexpected visitors: the world’s largest rodent, the capybara.
The manicured lawns of Nordelta in the capital Buenos Aires are chewed on the grass by raging capybaras, attacking dogs, and shit where they like. Reported by local news media La Nacion.
These rodents are about 39 to 51 inches long and weigh 27 to 79 kilograms. According to National Geographic.
Environmental advocates say that the influx of dog-sized rodents should not be shocking because nearby mansions are built next to wetlands. Some animals came back looking for what they once knew. Enrique Viale, an Argentine environmental lawyer and ecologist, said that we should not see capybara-known as “carpinchos” in Argentina-invading these areas.
“The situation is just the opposite: Nordelta has invaded the carpinchos ecosystem,” Weir told the Guardian.
“Wealthy real estate developers backed by the government must destroy nature in order to sell their dreams of living in the wild—because the people who buy these houses want nature, but no mosquitoes, snakes or carps,” he added.
“Nordelta is a super-large paradigm of gated communities built on wetlands. The first thing it does is to take away the absorption function of the land, so when extreme weather events occur, the surrounding poorer communities will eventually be submerged. As always , It is the poor who ultimately pay the price.”
I never thought I would live to see the capybara tame Chetos and fight against all the mothers of battle in Nordelta.
I am like this: pic.twitter.com/Gy6t7viQUS -? ? ? (@CoupeFuego_) August 18, 2021
Many people are optimistic about Viale, Tweet by one person “I support Nordelta’s Peron capybara in restoring habitat.”
Add to support, alone Replied “The Capybara Revolution!!”
The Paraná Wetlands cover a large area of the country, from northern Argentina to the riverbed and the Atlantic Ocean, but as developers use the land to build cattle and soybean farms, the wetlands are decreasing.
In 2020, due to cattle breeding, drought and soaring temperatures, vast wetlands were engulfed by fires.
