[Faline]

A giant South American rodent weighing at least 100 pounds is captured on camera at a waste-water treatment facility in California recently before disappearing in the brush.
The animal, identified as a capybara, is the world's largest rodent and feeds on vegetation.
‘If you think a giant guinea pig is cute, then you probably would like it,’ said Todd Tognazzini, of the California Department of Fish and Game.



The capybara is believed to be an escaped pet, Tognazzini said.
The animal was spotted at the waste-water treatment facility in Paso Robles, 175miles north-west of Los Angles.
An employee at the plant took photos of the animal as it crawled out of a pond.

The capybara's South American habitat ranges from Panama to northeast Argentina, east of the Andes, according to a description on the website of the San Francisco Zoo.
A capybara can hold its breath under water for up to five minutes, and the animal spends much of its roughly four-year lifespan near the water, he said.
The latest spotting of the capybara comes two years after another sighting of the animal at a ranch around one mile away.
The animal has already achieved celebrity status on the west coast and - following in the footsteps of the escaped Bronx Zoo cobra - a prank Twitter account has even been set up for it.
Its profile description reads: 'Came to the US for vacation and lost my passport. Can someone help a Capybara get home?'
The first tweet it posted, with the user name @CACapybara, read: 'I come from Peru and get famous!'
In California, the capybara cannot be held as a pet without a special permit. But that does not mean that some people do not keep them as illegal pets.
‘The Internet is fraught with examples of people scratching them on the belly and thinking they're cute and making pets of them,’ Tognazzini said.
The California Department of Fish and Game do not view the animal as dangerous.
Andrew Hughan, a spokesman for the organisation, hopes that the local population will leave the creature in peace.
He told the Los Angeles Times: 'You can’t hunt that thing. If we see people out there with nets and traps trying to catch it, we may take a more aggressive stance for the protection of the animal.'
He added: 'We hope that it lives a happy capybara life in Paso Robles.'

The capybara is a supersized relative of the rat and mouse that normally live in grassy wetlands and near rivers.
They can grow to a metre in length and have teeth that never stop growing, as they get worn down by eating grasses, their favourite food.
In fact, capybara means ‘master of the grasses’ in the tongue of the South American Guarani Indians.
Capybara also love water - they have webbed toes to propel them through it - and often mate in it.
They live in groups of 10 to 100 individuals, each one led by a dominant male.

[candymosh]

kind of looks like a nutra rat

[ladypilgrim]

Originally Posted by candymosh2 ↗

kind of looks like a nutra rat

Yuck, some people actually eat them! *gag*

[Wolf]

Did they flush him?

[Peehnut]

they have such cute stubby faces, I remember seeing they in the wild when I was little. I thought they were some sort of farm animal like some kind of goat.

[sassieroses]

Awww! how cute!!

[Eaton]

"The California Department of Fish and Game do not view the animal as dangerous."

[TwistedPrincess]

The California Department of Fish and Game do not view the animal as dangerous.
Andrew Hughan, a spokesman for the organisation, hopes that the local population will leave the creature in peace.
He told the Los Angeles Times: 'You can’t hunt that thing. If we see people out there with nets and traps trying to catch it, we may take a more aggressive stance for the protection of the animal.'
He added: 'We hope that it lives a happy capybara life in Paso Robles.'


OMG! that is the first time i have heard anything come from any dept of fish and game that is actually positive and respectable towards animal life.

[thissiteisfuckedup]

it would be sad to hear of one being killed , look at it just minding its own business lol, totally ignorant of the messed up world it co-exists in .

[Flaka]

Looks like a weird pig, idk lol