The consortium is an informal partnership of 12 area environmental education providers. In partnership with federal, state, and private organizations associated with the Maryland Nutria Project, the members of the consortium are developing educational and outreach materials focused on nutria.

Since its introduction into the area during the 1940s, the nutria has contributed to the destruction of 7,000 acres of wetland on the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. To date, the Maryland Nutria Project has removed over 8,600 nutria from 36,000 acres of public and private marshland on Maryland's Delmarva Peninsula.

The goal of the project, led by the Service's Chesapeake Bay Field Office and the Chesapeake Marshlands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, is to eradicate this non-native rodent from the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is a unit of the refuge complex.