(WAVELAND, Miss.) Sept. 9 -- While we watch Ike, many of us are still cleaning up after Hurricane Gustav. But in Mississippi, the clean-up has taken a foul turn because thousands of dead nutria have washed ashore. The storm apparently killed thousands of them and they're carcasses are now showing up in Waveland, Miss. So far 130,000 pounds of dead nutria and other animals have been picked up on the beaches there.
Dakota Stockstill's grandparents are teaching him how to cast a line out into the Mississippi Sound. But odds are, he'll catch more than flounder. Only blocks away from where the Stockstill's are fishing and crabbing, thousands of dead nutria are washing ashore.
"Nutria all up and down," Dakota Stockstill's grandpa Graden said. "They've been dead since the storm so it smells bad."
County leaders say Hurricane Gustav apparently killed the nutria and the tide forced their bodies up on the beach. Workers wear protective suits as they pick up the animal carcasses. So far, 130,000 pounds of nutria have been taken to a local landfill.
"It's kind of mind boggling what is taking place here," Hancock County Supervisor Steve Seymour said. "We've had other small storms, they put a few animals on the beach but never this magnitude of dead marsh animals I call it. We've never had this magnitude of dead animals on our beaches"
And as workers comb the beaches picking of dead nutria, the Stockstill's are just trying to stay up wind of the very stinky situation.
County leaders say they have closed the beaches to the public and they hope to have everything cleaned up by the end of next week.
