ANNA MARIA ISLAND – They’re not escaped pets, they are wild iguanas, and they are showing up more often on the Island.
And if the Island’s lizards seem a bit larger than they used to, that’s because they are. More and more residents and tourists are spotting the green iguanas on the Island. Some think they are cute; others find them to be quite scary looking, but one thing is undeniable; they are becoming a problem in South Florida, and very little is being done about it.
Burmese pythons, whose population has exploded in the Everglades, are well known to most Floridians. Many outside the state are following the efforts to eradicate these invasive animals, due to national press coverage. There even is a television reality show that follows a group of snake hunters who capture and kill the snakes and claim a bounty offered by the state of Florida based on the snake’s length and weight. While the pythons are now being found north of the Everglades, they are not an issue on Anna Maria Island.
But the same can’t be said for the green iguana.
“In the ’90s, a hurricane came through – kind of the same thing with the pythons – and knocked down a breeding facility,” said Kaeli Dye, head keeper at Sarasota Jungle Gardens. “Also, people have released them as pets, and unfortunately, Florida is the perfect climate for an iguana; they love it here.”
Dye said the numbers are huge in Miami and the Everglades, but they are rapidly increasing farther north due to the Florida climate, which is very reptile-friendly. A lack of natural predators is also playing a large part in the rapid expansion of iguana territory.
Unlike pythons, iguanas are vegetarians, and pose little direct threat to native wildlife, although they have been known to eat certain bird eggs, which could be a problem here on the Island. But this also could be one reason that removing them has not become a priority statewide.
However, they are voracious eaters and do seem to love flowers, decorative plants, garden plants and just about anything else put into the landscape. Plus, their burrowing can cause infrastructure damage to sea walls, docks, and anything else that could be structurally compromised by underground disturbances. They also move around with ease in the many canals along the coast, so expanding their territory is not the least bit difficult.
Since they are much more exotic-looking than a common rat, many people have a hard time thinking of them as pests, but according to wildlife officials, they must be dealt with and humanely dispatched just like a rat or any other nuisance animal.
A bill banning the sale, breeding, import and ownership of green iguanas recently became law in Florida, although iguanas already owned as pets can still be kept.
And while authorities say this is a beneficial step, the statistics say we are at a point where it will probably require further action to even begin to reverse the population explosion.
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