DoE opens up $1,000 ‘lizard lottery’

| 24/04/2017 | 27 Comments

(CNS): The Department of Environment is inviting residents to register for the start of the Grand Cayman Green Iguana Raffle, with a $1,000 prize money up for grabs. The ‘lizard lottery’, which starts next month, is aimed at supporting the first official commercial cull and encouraging all residents to get involved in tackling the massive rise in numbers of the invasive iguana that is munching its way through the island’s plants and trees. Registration opens on Wednesday 26 April and will remain open throughout the cull, which starts 1 May and will last until the end of August, covering the reptiles’ breeding season.

The raffle is open to anyone legally resident in the Cayman Islands and can be done via phone or email. Registration must be complete before culls will be recorded.

Participants will receive a raffle ticket number for every ten iguanas they cull, mark and report. Any size iguana, from the youngest hatchling to the biggest adult, counts the same. The raffle will be drawn twice per month, with the initial prize set at $1,000. Subsequent raffle prizes will be adjusted depending on the extent of participation during each period – the more participation, the bigger the prize.

Raffle terms will place strict obligations on participants to respect property rights, cull the iguanas humanely and dispose of carcasses properly. Reporting of culled iguanas must be done by marking the carcasses, photographing them and sending the photos to the cull manager.

Registration of green iguana cull contractors is open by appointment until the end of business hours tomorrow at the Department of Environment.

See the Terms of Participation for the Green Iguana Raffle in the CNS Library

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Category: Land Habitat, Science & Nature

Comments (27)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    According to the DoE report from last year, “Bounty hunting proved to be problematic in practice, and for future work the contract approach is recommended.”

    Contract approach indicating ‘skilled hunters’ who are licensed firearm users/ ‘iguana hunters’.

    The report says $25K was given to 3 skilled hunters (who reduced the high iguana population in 3 areas by 93%) and $72K was given to ‘bounty hunters’ aka residents who registered to be cullers.

    Despite mentioning that bounty hunting was problematic and $72K was given to registered cullers, why is the DoE promoting residents to register (again) for a set prize of 1K?

    The solution here seems to be saving money, not taking their own advice to tackle the problem effectively.

    Source: http://cnslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/DoE-report-Experimental-Culls-on-Invasive-Green-Iguanas-2016.pdf

  2. Anonymous says:

    DoE have been pussy-footing around this issue for years, ever since the change in law to differentiate between the Blues and Greens.
    They need to apply for the budget and resources to significantly cull the population, not offer a half baked “lottery” solution; this is a national issue of a major scale. No point in having EIA’s on every little development plan because soon the environment will be gone.
    I’m not saying EIA’s are not important, but the time and effort being put into these plans just to define the terms of reference are ridiculous.
    Get a sense of proportion DoE!!!!

  3. kayarrowgrant says:

    A great government initiative: Advertise a cruel crazy competition to attract bored local idiots in order to occupy the time of said individuals and therefore distracting them from occupying their time on other recreational activities i.e. Drugs, Murder, rape, relationships with siblings, cousins, chickens or cows.

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  4. Mr. D says:

    Release some cats and dogs in areas of high Iguana Populations. This will make a huge impact in the iguana population.

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    • Unison says:

      Cats and dogs could get sick and die by consuming these iguanas. I for one saw two cats after eating these iguanas died

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  5. Anonymous says:

    Someone can start at Laguna del Mar. They have an incredible population there and the residents feed them up good too.

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  6. Anonymous says:

    Who do I report the pile of rottening carcases to which are bound to be strewn around Island?

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  7. annewells says:

    What happened to Caymanians being all Godly and loving and respecting all of The Lords creatures? Those poor Iguanas will suffer greatly and this will be at the hands and feet of children, who are enjoying a fun filled family day out to win some money for more reading books about conservation.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    This is so stupid.

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  9. Anonymous says:

    Isn’t gambling (lottery, raffle) illegal?

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  10. Anonymous says:

    Disgusting. Fire the idiot that thought of this money wasting exercise and spend it on where it’s needed, catching poachers and those who destroy our environment.

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  11. Anonymous says:

    GMO Lizards.

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  12. Unison says:

    There is no way you can stop these iguanas from breeding. And the money will run out soon. As you cull them they breed 10 more iguanas. And Cayman … may I add, you are also teaching your children to be cruel and treat animals inhumanely! Note: I understand in the U.S., Florida, inhumane treatment of iguanas is punishable by law.

    With that said, I understand iguanas destroys birds nests, and don’t let the green fool you – they also eat eggs too. 🙂 If these lizards increase in population we could see a decrease or an extinction of our native birds like our parrots! So that is a major concern – unless you can devote time and resource in building wooden bird nests everywhere to save bird species – good luck 😉

    * Here is my take – Before the DOE or anyone takes any drastic action, why can’t we approach this problem like we do the mosquitoes. Invite scientist to study and research these lizards on how to stop them from populating so fast. Maybe, the DOE has no answers … so to cull or shall I say kill them is their best solution. Although the major concerns about these lizards, I am a bit concern about teaching our young people to be cruel to animals.

    Can someone or scientist help our DOE to finding a better solution???

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    • REB says:

      This is so funny, till i remember that we are paying for this and at that time the joke dies!

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    • Anonymous says:

      Havahart Squirrel Traps baited with mango pits work well in Florida, so they’d probably work here too. The reusable traps are about $25 each. Why not make these duty free and bring in containers of them? Discuss.

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      • Unison says:

        It may work well with squirrels, but I’m not sure iguanas.

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        • Anonymous says:

          They are proven to work. This is what thousands of Floridians and pest services use to humanely trap and euthanize the same invasive Honduran green iguanas.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Hey Dingdong 10:33pm, see here “work well in Florida” is what the poster stated.

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    • Anonymous says:

      What the what. They are lizards. Less brains than rats.

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    • Anonymous says:

      There is no way you can stop these iguanas from breeding. What about genetically modified iguanas?

      • Unison says:

        like release thousands of male GM iguanas into the wild with a short life span, so to infect female iguanas, causing them not to breed??? … ehhhh … it sounds kindof creepy … lol. And what about protecting our blue iguanas? What about the huge number of release of GM lizzards drastically destroying our crops? And could scientist really do this thing without ethical issues arising? ://

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