‘Shocking’ iguana numbers pose environment crisis
(CNS): Local experts now believe that there are around half a million invasive green iguanas on Grand Cayman. Early estimates indicate the population is doubling annually and there could be well over a million by this time next year. Research by the Department of Environment has revealed that the number of iguanas is far higher than originally estimated and they have gone well beyond a nuisance, reaching an environmental crisis and posing a real threat to the islands’ natural resources and for some species. such as the red birch, extinction.
Speaking at a press briefing Friday, Fred Burton, who is better known for his work saving the famous blue iguanas from extinction but is working with DoE to find ways to reverse the alarming growth of the greens, explained that the invasive iguanas are decimating foliage and competing with other native animals and birds for food. They are also stripping trees and bushes in the wild and in gardens and farms, Burton said, warning that the situation is extremely serious.
“It’s hard to grasp the magnitude of the problem,” he said. “We had no idea that the rate of increase was so great.”
Burton said that, given the massive problem for the environment because of the impact on vegetation, there had to be a determined cull. As well as causing havoc in gardens, out in the wild the green iguanas could cause the extinction of some of Cayman’s unique species.
With the speed at which the iguanas are stripping plants, bushes and trees of flowers and berries, Burton said, “We don’t know what might happen.”
The green iguanas are eating the berries on many local trees, including the red birch, which many local birds also eat. They are consuming at such a rate that not only are they competing for food, but also putting the tree, which is already threatened, at risk of extinction if the number of iguanas is not dramatically reduced and contained.
DoE Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie explained that over the past year, after the National Conservation Council was given $200,000 from the Environmental Protection Fund for the purpose, researchers and scientists have been analyzing the population and working on options to cut the numbers, as it is clear that a “major solution” is required and quickly.
The DoE began the cull pilot study with a group of professional cullers, who were tasked with reducing the population in a given area by 90%. The three hunters brought in around 4,000 iguanas. With baseline data in the area from the surveys, DoE researchers are now calculating how much of an impact that has had on the population numbers in the survey area.
The second pilot study begins Monday and will last for one week using only local registered cullers who had expressed an interest at a public meeting last year in taking part in any national culls. The department has signed up 18 individuals who will be using different methods, from dogs to air rifles, and will be given $5 per iguana culled on the western side of the island.
The registered cullers have been asked to dispatch the iguanas quickly and humanely, cutting down on unnecessary pain and suffering. Although they can enlist others to help them, only the registered cullers will be paid at the end of the week for the iguanas they bring in and have committed to taking responsibility for any teams they assemble and seek permission from landowners wherever they hunt.
At the end of the week the DoE will than compare the pilot cull results and make a decision on the way forward for a sustained long-term project to cut the numbers. The goal of the pilot studies is to determine whether a small number of highly trained high-tech cullers or a larger group of locally registered hunters receiving a bounty will be the most successful.
Category: Land Habitat, Science & Nature
Mon, me’s a culla a’ready, now dis wan mek me be a hi-tec culla
As a tourist there nothing worse than having the iguanas around the pool area and the poop all over the place. When I first started coming to Cayman you NEVER saw a green iguana!
Well, if you live at Caribbean Paradise, you will learn they just cut down the trees that the iguanas lived in so they would stop pooping on the pool furniture and an owners car. They think that solved the problem. So let’s just cut down the trees and get umbrellas.
Let this be a lesson for the lovely Aedes mosquito (also an invasive species) that us clever people would like to bring in more of like 22 million more. Say they don’t die then we have an island overrun with green iguanas and mosquitoes – lovely. Only we can’t shoot the mosquitoes and can’t kill with insecticides since they live in close proximity to humans. Who is the genius that allows these species to be brought in? One way to ruin an island.
What the hell is a “highly trained, high tech” iguana culler? Who makes this stuff up?
What a waste of tax payers money! Do they really believe air rifles and a couple of nooses is going to eradicate these evasive creatures? I recalled in my younger days when there was a bounty on agoutis. I got my fair share and made a couple of pounds. But today the agoutis are still here despite the bounty on their heads and are now hardest hit due to destruction of their habitats and over development. I know of a couple of hunters that still hunt the agoutis to this very day some time 6 and 7 in one day yet there’s no reduction in their population and considering they only have 4 to 8 young ones a year compared to the iguana that has 50 – 75 eggs at one given time 4 to 5 times a year.
Someone is getting rich I say!
So many people mention rotting dead animals. Who has responsibility to regularly remove them from the public places? Sanitation control?
DEH: Not us!
DOE: Not us!
DOA: Not us!
DOT: Not us!
Altogether: Not us!!!
Idea: total responsability. You run over an iguana, you dispose of it. But wait. Kill me now. I don’t want to live in a world where people take responsibility for their actions. What kind of world would that be? Good bye.
Yes. Let’s all randomly come to a halt on the main roads, get out of our cars and start scraping up squashed iguanas. Genius.
I have to wonder what environmental dept says about this and their own failings here. The law should have been changed many years ago to allow for the culling of the green iguanas and Environmental Dept should have led the charge. Instead the green iguanas were protected by the law which was intended to protect the blue iguanas. Everyone could see that they were a destructive invasive specie and nothing was done to even begin to address the problem until it was too late. There is talk about the iguanas carrying diseases too. The actual harm they have been allowed to cause is yet to be fully determined or known.
Farmers have complained for ages that it has an effect on their crop.
In regards to the no-action – you are probably wrong. I am sure someone within the relevant departments has meanwhile gotten a promotion for good the “good work” done…
thou shall not KILL!!
Do you eat meat?
He said kill.
You shalt not eat dogs and cats … but innocent cows, chickens, and pigs you may slaughter. 😉
What has the DOE and the NCC really done in over a year, nothing because. They are useless and ineffectual.
yes of course you would like everyone to believe that but if you don’t have an agenda against conservation then I hope you will support all of the good stuff they are bringing online.
And all together they equal… the Dart group.
Coming soon. More Dart.
Re: Unison at 1237:
There’s a reason they started in West Bay!
Ok, this needs to be PROTESTED about using pellet guns! Now our cats or dogs or kids or anyone will be shot with pellets because these people will make mistakes with these pellet guns! ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDIN ME???? THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO SEND PEOPLE TO OUR YARDS & NEIGHBORHOODS TO SHOOT WITH PELLET GUNS??? HELLLLLLOOOOOO, DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND THIS COULD KILL OUR DOGS, CATS, KIDS AND AND ANY PERSON???
HELL NO CAYMAN, JUST HELL NO!!!
There are other ways to go about this, NOT LEGALIZING PEOPLE TO COME INTO RESIDENTIAL AREAS AND FIRE OFF PELLET GUNS!!!???
NO NO NO!!!
Calm down. They send pest controllers to lay noxious, indiscriminate poisons in your yards and they fly over and drive around spraying insecticides over your yards, cats, dogs and children.
We’re not talking about snipers sneaking through the bush, these animals are often in the open and very approachable, so shooting from a close range shouldn’t be a problem.
That is why they are allowing licensed shooters and not saying to all ‘go shoot an iguana’, the risk of an accidental shooting is almost zero and if you had any sense, when the pest controller comes around, take your kids and animals inside.
we don’t use Pest control hardly ever, we are very sensitive and wise of such harsh chemicals, i cannot calm down because nothing is ever done right in this island or when it’s too LATE! If another neighbour allows them in their yard those pellets can hit into my yard, so it is no protection to my yard even though i would NEVER allow them in my yard!
They say they will allow the registered shooters to round up their own little gang to work with them. Now BOYS, you gonna tell me with all your testosterone that they and you will not let them use the gun sometimes too. C’mon BOYS, you know you have testosterone OVERLOAD and all want the excitement of firing the gun!
I don’t know any country that would allow such a horrendous thing to take place especially in the city and residential neighbourhoods!!!
I can’t even wrap my head around this being legal and allowed by GOVERNMENT to take place!!!
HAVE YOU ALL LOST YOUR MINDS???!!!
How DARE the GOVERNMENT EVEN SUGGEST OR AGREE WITH THIS MADNESS!
FIND ANOTHER WAY!!!
I’ve seen Filipinos and Hondurans skillfully catch iguanas many many times with no guns!
Don’t tell me there is any excuse to endanger residential neighbourhoods and family homes with this outrageous shooting method to kill iguanas!
An air rifle is likley to be lethal (to Iguana’s) over a short range, 40 yards is probably the outside limit of an air pellet, so I would doubt you are in any danger from a stray pellet. I was shot when I was a kid, barely broke then skin at about 25 yards. 25 yards is pretty close, unless someone is standing on your property line aiming directly at you, which you would probably notice.
They come in my yard, I’m shooting back. Where can I get me one of those pullet guns.
Stop shouting!
I’m not sure I follow, are you saying that if we had more pellet guns people would be shooting cats and dogs and kids by accident, or on purpose? I haven’t read up on accidental deaths of kids with pellet guns in the UK, but I’m fairly sure it would have made the news…
1, Nobody is going into your yard without having received your permission
2. What is your proposed solution?
http://eattheinvaders.org/green-iguana/
Puerto Rica realized they had a green iguana problem years ago. What did they do to control them?
They began eating and exporting iguana meat.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/150831-invasive-iguana-meat-puerto-rico-vin
Thank you for the link.
I am surprise that no one seems to have latched on to this as in investment opportunity. Believe me, i have considered it and mentioned it to a couple friends but we dont have the capital or resources. Even government can look into it..the skin and the meat and with everyone being more health conscious and going organic, you cant get better than this meat. Even if no one wants to eat it locally, there is an export market. When you find yourself with an excess of lemons….dont let them rot, make lemonade!!
They stopped paying off their debts.
Thanks a lot Nembhard!
Legalize pellet guns, and let’s go crazy on them.
The public in Cayman have been talking about the decimation of the landscape and the fight for survival of other birds etc. for ages. No one would listen!! When the lion fish were threatening the environment in the sea something was done about it quickly. Not so when the islands landscape was being destroyed. Not to mention poop in pools and all over the gardens and tunnels everywhere as well. Anyway, it is wonderful that someone is finally listening and understanding the severity of this terrible problem. It would have been so much easier if the ears that could do something about it well over a year or more ago were not deaf to all concerns previously expressed.
If ever there was a case of poor judgement by the department of environment this is the text book example. Dithering for years and years and years
Lion fish openly swimming in the reef off Reef Resort on SMB, saw two this morning..and that’s 10 yds from the shore..
Oh my dear God. Run away. Close the ocean now before anyone else has to see one
I agree. Reactive instead of being proactive wait until the matter is serious and out of control before they do anything!
What can one expect from the Minister? Do nothing, say nothing, wait until they are out of control to spend money.
Damn furreners get everywhere…and no work permits…
furreners? Driftwood that you?
The dark side of the imported pet trade. Readers may remember many years ago some twits proposing to import ferrets.
Back in the sixties it was the agouti. But even rabbits don’t breed like iguanas, although farmers were paid a head tax to kill agoutis.
A massive culling program is required. The current solution of relying on drivers and pets is not enough and the island is totally disgusting with rotting carcasses everywhere.
Great idea! We could bring in ferrets to kill the iguanas!
nah mate, we need more Hondurans…
They got mongoose in Jamaica…no snakes left as a result…maybe we should bring one across?
Because our Jamaican sourced law enforcement system has been so successful?
No! Monkeys. Monkeys are funny!
Bart and Marge take the lizards to the Springfield Birdwatching Society. Principal Skinner, a member of the society, explains that they are Bolivian tree lizards, a type of lizard that steals a bird’s eggs and leaves their own eggs to be watched after by the mother bird, which is then eaten by the offspring once they hatch. Skinner says the lizards must be killed by law, because they have killed many bird species. Bart escapes and runs away with the lizards, but before he can get away, Skinner catches up to him and they both struggle on top of the building. Suddenly, the lizards glide to the ground, where they start to eradicate pigeons in Springfield.
Since the town considered the pigeons to be a nuisance, they are delighted that the lizards have eaten all the pigeons. So, Bart is thanked and honored by Mayor Quimby with a loganberry scented candle. Lisa worries the town will now become infested by lizards rather than the pigeons, but Skinner assures her they will send in “wave after wave of” Chinese needle snakes, then snake-eating gorillas, and then “when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.from the simpsons:
This is an Immigration Department matter. The iguanas don’t have permits!!
Nope,dont need no work permit. They are the only indigenous inhabitants of these Cayman Islands, not Arden!?
They are NOT indigenous – that is the problem, coupled with all the people who used to decry any attempt to eradicate them, ignoring completely their devastation on the local flora AND fauna.
Their corpses just litter the roads all over the island and its really disgusting to see them squashed on the road with their guts outside their little bodies. I wish the cullers luck in getting rid of as many as possible. Hey for $5 bucks each I’m gonna beeline my truck into every single one I see.
Make arrangement to ship them Honduras. They are very limited down there, so we could supply them with the meat.
My dog killed at least two on the weekend and I got one with my truck last week. Where do I collect the $15 for doing my part?
Any cull should be done humanely. No creature deserves to be torn apart by dogs.
…apart from foxes obviously…
No, that’s why it’s illegal to hunt with dogs in the UK. It’s only the moronic and deeply disturbed who find pleasure in allowing an animal to be ripped apart by dogs.
But hey it’s Cayman, the home of the moronic and deeply disturbed!
CNS: Fox hunting in the UK was banned just 12 years ago with the passing of the Hunting Act (which was supported by just six Conservative MPs at the time). Prime Minister David Cameron, like many now sitting in Westminster, a keen fox hunter back in the day, tried to repeal that ban six months ago in December 2015. You know that, right?
What’s your point CNS? It is still illegal in the UK and has been for 12 years. Are you saying that somehow doesn’t count?It’s about the same period of time that homosexual relations were legalised in Cayman. Shall I denigrate that change in law as well since it hasn’t been on the statute book for long enough to really count? How long does it have to be before a country get credit for reformist legislation according to your perspective?
CNS: Clearly I am not denigrating the change in British law to outlaw fox hunting, since it is something that I very much agree with and well remember the struggle to get there — the anger and sometimes violence directed at the hunt saboteurs (people who spent their Saturday’s during hunt season trailing aniseed around the countryside). The joy at having beagles rip foxes apart for sport was a very hard custom to break. And while Britain took a huge step forward by banning a disgustingly barbaric practice, no, I don’t think that 12 years is long enough to be smug about it, especially when there was a serious move to bring it back just six months ago.
Again, maybe Oxitec can make genetically modified iguanas… you know, cross the males with the females, and keep the offspring at 5mm lizard size 😐
Just one thing worries me, if they can do this with mosquitoes and reptiles, who is to say they don’t GM people… :/
If they can do it with humans I think they should! there is way too much feral youth running around the place.
So you shoot 20 iguanas, you make $100 dollars …Question: seeing so many Caymanians without jobs, will the registered cullers be foreignors???
I have to ask, because we have the reputation of outsources our own people!
If an unemployed Caymanian wants to do the job, make them show the interest themselves! The job isn’t going to just be handed to them whilst they sit around!
Question is, do they want a job that badly?
I agree, but I very much doubt it. Why isn’t it open to everyone local especially those unemployed to do this – as usual only a chosen few. Would like to know how many of these are locals.
It shouldn’t be conducted by anybody who is not directly employed by the DoE. The last thing we need are the local unemployable, dopped up and/or drunk on 345 carrying a potentially lethal weapon.
The idea of offering a bounty for what has become a national emergency is frankly stupid and a waste of public money. Spend the money on a long term fix, not a short term gain.
Why can’t the DoE employ more Conservation Officers to combat this problem? I’ll tell you why, because DoE management are dictated to by our petty politicians whose own agendas come first. Instead of employing enough professional officers to protect all of our environmental treasures, the member for EE and his buddy on NS just want to bully government departments and private companies into taking on the inexperienced and uneducated just to fill their nationalistic agenda. My god, they don’t even have enough staff to protect the conch and lobsters from local poachers, but I bet good money that these MLA’s will have a plentiful supply of local marine life at their pre election gatherings.
With clowns like these two in power, how on earth will this country ever progress, let alone get to grips with an impending environmental catastrophe on many fronts?
Stop settling for ordinary, employ the best people to do the job, from wherever they may come from and don’t let the bullies win.
There is a tourism opportunity here for pathological US dentists who enjoy taking their hunting rifles on overseas vacations.
Great. Another problem for our government to form committees about addressing while they do nothing.
Isn’t this the same Department which, just last year, issued the number at approximately 60,000??!!
Just imagine how many are in the mangroves and other forests!! The estimate of half a million is still probably too little!!
Give me approval for a BB or air rifle!!
im sorry animal lovers… but i killed two big iguanas with big rocks in my backyard and i can say for sure your bb gun will no hurt them. they take hits better than most men : /
How do you know? How many men have you hit with big rocks?
I am sorry but the truth is that it only takes one well placed shot with an air rifle to kill any iguana. Its quick and humane but requires a highly trained shooter.
As usual, we had a law which was poorly written! It protected all iguanas instead of the indigenous blues, therefore killing the invasive greens was illegal for years, until recently. So, poorly written statutes also contributed.
Then the wise powers-that-be outlawed, air rifles, BB guns, slingshots and wrist rockets which would now help in the control of these pests but alas, we have to resort to trying to snare them!! Good luck with that in any meaningful quantities!!
Poorly written laws in Cayman? Say it ain’t so…
That shibboleth is a convenient myth spread to justify the relevant Govt departments ignoring the problem.
Any constitutional lawyer just out of school can tell you that the law as drafted was not intended to protect green iguanas.
5$ per iguana… so it will only cost us 2.5 MILLION to get rid of them all.
Worth every penny!
We could continue to commission sloppy amateur culls with air rifles and dogs, or we could humanely trap, cull, skin, tan, and turn into a viable leather product export. Why not create a sustainable self-funding industry if there is the opportunity to do so?
What keeps you from getting it started?
Status
Genetically modify them to have different skin colors like yellow, red, pink – a tourist attraction!
How is it I keep talking and no one’s listening to me???! :/
I agree that it is an opportunity lost. I have been told that iguana meat sells for more than shrimp in Honduras so that could be part of this venture too.
One of the obvious problem is if it is successful it would not be sustainable unless iguanas were then bred in captivity once all of the wild ones are captured. Another issue would be people purposely breeding them to collect the bounty. This could potentially make the problem worse if people are breeding them faster than the cullers can capture them.
Yeah, like they will do if you give them $5 per kill! This is horrible and needs to be done humanely.
I’m guessing that if they were easy to catch we wouldn’t have 1/2 million of them!
Luxury goods made from reptile hides may not necessarily be in vogue in NA or EU, but they remain popular in Russia and China. Only a handful of high-end tanneries get the business of the top buyers like LVM. Dolce & Gabana sells a black iguana evening clutch for $1500 retail. Hugo Matha’s exquisite iguana handbags, a favorite of Katy Perry and Rihanna, sell for $4600 each. These are sufficient margins for an entrepreneurial fashion-savvy Caymanian.
http://www.marketplace.org/2013/08/27/business/louisiana-alligator-hunters-set-reel-profits
we don’t want it “sustainable”!!
“$5 per iguana culled on the western side of the island.”
Did I read that right???
Who knew you could get rich off government money for killing iguanas.
At the Golf, owned by Dart, they are shooting them with a BB gun or something similar. Can someone explain how is this possible? Can we be sensible and allow air compressed rifles so people can deal with the ones around their own houses? Lets be realistic, who will commit a robbery with an air compressed gun. This things are pest, do something please
Air rifles are classified as firearms in Cayman, the individual you will have seen holds a licence. I think in the UK low powered air rifles don’t need a licence and can be used for pest control (rats, rabbits etc) with the relevant permissions.
Let’s be honest. Many people would use them for stick ups.
Not to mention the health hazard the thousands of squished ones on our roads present… Whilst walking in the South Sound area I notice a dead rotting iguana almost every 25ft and I’m sure other districts are just as bad.
Maybe cuz there isn’t one?
The green iguanas didn’t swim here from Honduras , fishermen , & other individual/s ( one comes to mind, that operates a large dive vessel ), brought them here. You used to see the people at night clubs with a small green iguana on their shoulder, the iguana wearing gold & silver jewellery . Much like its owner .
Pet stores brought them here too… That little pet store in central GT in the Village shopping plaza used to sell them.
Who? He use to catch and sell them??? …
A Genius :))
Did they go after the lady tourists?
Dept of Environment, Department of Agriculture and other govt agencies have sat on their collective thumbs and allowed this disaster to happen over the last 25 years.
Other than enhancing govt’s books and doling out a few dollars for party favours, what is the purpose of the so-called Environmental Protection Fund??
Should be called the vote protection fund.
How can individuals get registered to be a culler?
All those out of work Caymanians can do this job in between finding proper day jobs.
True, and many of them already have their own guns.
Opps….. that reply made the coca cola I was drinking come out my nose! Too funny!
Stop sniffing coke!