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Article Courtesy of ABC News
By Jon Schlosberg
Published July 5, 2019
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The green iguana population in Florida is exploding -- and consistent warm
weather is only exacerbating the problem.
It has gotten so bad, in a post to its website, the Florida Fish & Wildlife
Conservation Commission is urging residents to "kill green iguanas on their own
property whenever possible."
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"This is a serious
problem from many standpoints," Joseph Wasilewski, part of a
group of scientists at the University of Florida who study
wildlife in Florida and the Caribbean, told ABC News. "They
will destroy agriculture, undermine roads, cause electrical
transformers to fail, they can transmit salmonella and can
be a FAA safety hazard."
Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens' Zoologist Rob Magill
told ABC News, "Iguanas have proliferated with such
intensity in Southern Florida that they are now a common
sight from the suburbs into the city."
The numbers back up Magill's assertion. More than 3,000
green iguanas have been spotted in Southeast Florida alone
since the Center for Invasive Species at the University of
Georgia started tracking sightings in 2005.
According to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation
Commission, iguanas can lay up to 76 eggs per year, and grow
to more than five feet in length. |
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A green iguana looks for food in the grass at C.B.
Smith park, May 8, 2019, in Pembroke Pines.
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Since iguanas are cold blooded, extended warm spells -- like Florida has been
seeing -- allow them to thrive. A cold streak in 2009 made a significant dent in
the population, but with rising temperatures, it's not clear how much Florida
can rely on cold weather to help curb the population.
According to the National Weather Service climate data, temperatures have only
dropped below 50 degrees in Miami once in the last 18 months.
Some worry what this means for the future, as Wasilewski said, "As the climate
changes, even slightly, they can be established into Florida counties beyond
their present distribution."
"Unfortunately, short of removing all vegetation and any water features, iguanas
are here to stay and we are going to have to learn to live with them," Magill
said.
For some, this is a business opportunity. Iguana Control has been helping
homeowners and businesses deal with iguanas for a decade.
Owner Tom Portuallo told ABC News this is his company's "most active season in
10 years," and it has 15 people working every day with hundreds of homeowners
associations to help remove iguanas.
"It's endless what these things can do," Portuallo said.
Iguana Control sometimes removes up to 20 iguanas on a single property,
according to Portuallo.
(MORE: Florida woman pulls alligator out of pants during traffic stop)
Magill suggested an alternative way of dealing with the population surge: eating
them.
"In Central America, iguana is considered a delicacy and there are actually
farms that raise them for meat. If that sentiment could take hold here, the
desire for cheap and tasty protein could play a significant role in controlling
their numbers," Magill said.
Wasilewski understands why iguanas must be killed, but as someone who has
studied iguanas for 40 years, he says it is bittersweet: "It saddens me that all
of these magnificent animals, along with multitudes of other invasive reptile
species have to be put down. There is no alternative for the problems."
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