Over 700,000 greens now culled

| 17/06/2019 | 33 Comments
Cayman News Service
Invasive green iguana

(CNS): The nationwide culling programme to control the explosion in the invasive green iguana population is back on target after 100,000 corpses were taken to the dump in May, and at the half-way mark this month another 53,000 had been culled. Between the beginning of the cull last October and the end of last week the army of iguana hunters had removed almost 739,000 greens from Grand Cayman. The target of culling over one million by the end of this year is now well within reach after the surge over the last few weeks as the reptiles become more visible.

During the initial surge in the first few months around a quarter of a million iguanas were culled, but as the numbers dropped they became harder to find. But in the last few weeks, as their breeding season gets underway and the greens have once again become more visible, the cullers’ catch has increased significantly. Last week almost 30,000 iguanas were killed, which was the largest weekly cull number so far this year.

The need to keep pace is now critical because female iguanas can lay dozens of eggs at a time, but Fred Burton, head of the DoE Terrestrial Research Unit, said he was encouraged by the increase in the cull numbers.

The males are coming out of hiding to fight for the females, and coupled with the hotter weather, the iguanas are now easier for the cullers to spot. As the young hatchlings begin to emerge, they should also become easy pickings.

The increase in cull numbers is largely due to the organised teams of professional hunters who are reaping the bulk of the more than CI$3.5 million bounty that has been earned by all of the cullers.

For more details on the iguana cull visit the DoE website here

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Category: Land Habitat, Science & Nature

Comments (33)

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  1. Pastor Alfredo says:

    At the risk of repeating myself …

    739,000 iguanas since the cull started “last October” eight months ago.

    739,000 ÷ 8 months = 92,375 per month

    Assume cullers and counters are working seven days a week and working on public holidays, Christmas, Easter, etc…

    92,375 per month ÷ 30 days = a shade over 3,000 iguanas every day for 8 months

    Assume an eight hour day = 375 iguanas being culled every hour. Just over six per minute of every minute of every hour of every day of every month for the past eight months.

    Utter nonsense.

    Even if you assume that an army of cullers is able to achieve that kind of long term hit rate through their own sheer number, who has been counting six iguanas a minute at the landfill non stop for the past 8 months? It’s just not happening. Go and look for yourself at the entrance to the landfill. At these kinds of numbers there would need to be a constant stream of carcasses being dropped off and people counting them non stop. It isn’t happening.

    Pastor Alfredo

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    • J says:

      375/hour = 6 a minute or 1 every 10 seconds. There’s 2-3 counters. It takes about 2 seconds to throw in a few baby iguanas.

      That works out to counting for about 20% of the work day, and if there’s 100 active cullers out of 300+, that’s only 3-4 iguanas per culler per day.

      Thanks for the reminder of why I’m convinced Pastors will believe any senseless thing, including their own conspiracies. Go look at the skiffs at 5 pm every evening. Do you see only 100 iguanas in there?

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      • Anonymous says:

        No need to insult the pastor(s). He re-worked a bit my comment few month ago.
        The numbers are not plausible. Period.
        P.S.

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        • Anonymous says:

          apologies to the Pastor, he did his own math.

          Here is my comment (and math) few months ago:

          03/11/2018 at 3:37 pm
          I don’t know how many people involved in counting dead iguanas . But lets say it takes at least one second to count one iguana. 60 per minute or 360 per hour. Multiple by 8 work hours, it comes to 2,880 per day per person. But nobody works like a machine 8 hours a day without stopping. But lets ignore this fir now. Divide 40,000 by 2,880, it comes to at least 4 people counting iguanas non stop for 8 hours a day.
          The question is, how many people were actually counting iguanas?

          I also don’t know how many iguanas pet hour a person can possibly, theoretically, physically, spot and kill. Then he must load them into his vehicle and drive to the Dump. At the Dump, the Dump counters are working as machines, so a cullers must wait until it is his turn. But lets assume
          (wild guess) it takes an hour to kill 30 iguanas. Times 6 (hours worked per day), 180 per one cullers per day, times 4=720.
          So it would take 55 cullers to kill 40000 iguanas in 4 days if each works 6hours a day non stop and kills 30 iguanas per hour.
          Now, the question is, how many iguanas per hour can be possibly killed by one person?

          Once we know the answers to the above 2 questions, we would know if was possible to kill and count 40,000+ dead iguanas in 4 days.

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      • Anonymous says:

        I also posted this comment o 04/01/2019 at 10:22 am

        the questions have not been answered.
        1.Justification for hiring Cornwall consultants? Last checked, accountants or property managements skills should be used in an audit or property management, not counting dead iguanas.
        2. Math doesn’t add up.
        3. Who exactly counts dead iguanas and how much time it takes to count one iguana? Knowing that we could do the math to determine if it is possible to manually count $6000 dead animals per day
        4. Where and how dead iguanas disposed? Are they being buried? Where and how? Incinerated?
        Lastly, just for the kicks, do dead iguana counters wear protective gear, while dealing with dead animals?

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      • Anonymous says:

        Sorry, not 3-4 iguanas per culler, that would be 4 * 7.5 hours = 30 iguanas in a day which is still entirely reasonable given that some drop off 50-200 per load.

    • An auditor says:

      I hope AG would audit the whole thing. Analytical procedures in audit include consideration of predictable relationships and its plausibility.

      The math in your comment clearly indicates problems with plausibility of 739,000 number, as well the presence of an unexpected relationship.

      It is indeed, an utter nonsense that:
      * 375 iguanas being culled every hour
      * over six per minute (being culled) of every minute of every hour of every day of every month
      * six iguanas a minute being counted at the landfill non stop

      At these kinds of numbers there would need to be a constant stream of carcasses being dropped off and people counting them non stop

      The auditor would arrive to conclusion that data is not reliable.

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    • Anonymous says:

      I do not need to go to the landfill to count carcasses, all I know is that I have seen only one young one in my garden this year. I think they really did a great job, at least in my neighborhood. BTW stop pretending to be a pastor, you are only trying to redicule a pastor. Watch out of an iguana will turn on you.

    • Anonymous says:

      There are a lot more than 100 registered cullers, but assuming only 100 worked 5 days a week, four weeks a month, for eight months, they each only need to kill 46 a day. If you lay the carcasses out in a line I can probably count 5 a second. So it will take me about 15 minutes to count 4600.

      • Pastor Alfredo says:

        If you think you can manually count and transfer 4,600 iguanas into a skip in 15 minutes then, whatever your day job is now, you’re in the wrong profession.

        Go down to the landfill tomorrow and manually move 100 iguanas from one of the cullers’ buckets into the skip, bending down to pick up each one. If you don’t want to actually do it then just try to imagine…

        How long does it take you?

        Are you tired after manually shifting 100 iguanas?

        Did you lose count?

        How long will it take you to do another 100? How about another 1,000?

        Nonsense.

        Pastor Alfredo

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        • Anonymous says:

          “Did you lose count?”

          Shows how much you know yet speak like you cull..

          They use a clicker counter. Simply push the button, the count goes + 1. The counters don’t do the transferring either.

          Methinks you’re just a bit butthurt because thou shalt not kill

          • Pastor Alfredo says:

            Clicker solves it all, eh?

            Are you tired of shifting 100 iguanas manually? How long did it take you?

            Someone has got to shift iguanas if the numbers are right. Six a minute every working minute of the day without a break for eight months.

            Pastor Alfredo

  2. Anonymous says:

    Let’s face facts guys do you really think we are going to make these nuisances ever to go away for good with a couple of air rifles? Time will tell and we will see that this was such a waste of spending. We do have less iguanas but to ever rid of them for good, keep dreaming or keep funding.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Same argument applies to mosquitoes, as we have just seen when the aerial spraying stopped even briefly. This place has to be maintained as habitable indefinitely. We will keep funding.

  3. Anonymous says:

    When the students are out of school next week (Wednesday), please send cullers to JGHS as there are plenty in that Neighborhood. If the gates remain closed through the summer, there could be quite a lot of iguanas (and chickens) in the school at the end of August. Eradicate the problem now!

  4. Anonymous says:

    Keep up the good work cullers!!

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  5. Ron Ebanks says:

    700,000 times how much per green iguana , equals how many $$$ and not sure how many babies just hatched .
    This is what happens when you don’t get things under control before they get out of hand.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Ron, you ever heard better late than never.. Why don’t you come back home and teach us how to eradicate them . You might have pick up a few pointers by killing alligators.

  6. Anonymous says:

    an audit of this scheme…would make a mockery of all these figures…

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    • Anonymous says:

      Waste of time to reply to you, but the counting is open to public observation and there’s multiple cctv cameras watching everyone in the area.

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  7. Al Catraz says:

    Just wait until the UFO’s return to find out we’ve killed their colonists.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    Does anyone know what is being done with the carcasses?

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    • Anonymous says:

      They would send you to the dump to see for yourself. I doubt it is being appropriately disposed. 1 mil + pounds of dead animals is rotting somewhere. Birds, insects and rodents are happy. I wonder how cholera epidemic mics start.

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    • Who cares. says:

      What does it matter, they are being gotten rid of. Thank God.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Sending them back to Honduras for a proper burial.

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    • Anonymous says:

      buried at the dump.

      • Anonymous says:

        So basically we have thousands of animals carcasses, including the dogs and cats dumped there by DOE rotting. And we dare call ourselves a 1st world country. Cayman needs to get their priorities right.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Still way better than the shithole country you’ve spawned from.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Come see & smell the rotting sea weed on Prospect Point Road beach – by the cemeteries (public access points). It’s rotting & full of garbage caught up in it.
          Similar to the dump but nothing is being done with it. It does not look like a 1st world country.

          • Anonymous says:

            It’s an effect of global warming! What do you expect we do with it. Not only Cayman, it’s happening all over the Caribbean. Beach land might soon be going dirt cheap.

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  9. Anonymous says:

    I sure hope we can get rid of these ugly nasty creatures forever!!!

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  10. Anonymous says:

    Allegedly. Unless the auditor general is counting.

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