Tag: Fred Burton
DoE to address pet parrot problem
(CNS): The Department of Environment (DoE) is giving people who are keeping Cayman’s national bird as a pet the chance to regularise that ownership before they begin a clampdown on the poaching of local parrots. A six-month amnesty will start next month, during which people who have pet parrots can register them. But after that, […]
DoE starts green iguana count
(CNS): The Terrestrial Resources Unit at the Department of Environment will be starting its annual green iguana count this month. And with more than 830,000 culled over the last nine months, researchers are hoping the population will be much lower than the 1.3 million estimated last August. Cullers made massive strides in denting the population […]
Over 700,000 greens now culled
(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 […]
500,000 iguanas culled but more hands needed
(CNS): Although the current team of cullers bagged more than half a million invasive green iguanas in the first six months of the island-wide operation, the Department of Environment is calling on more people to train and register in order to make sure there is not an explosion in the population as the breeding season […]
Cull off target as iguanas set to breed
(CNS): Cullers have exterminated almost 450,000 green iguanas since October, when the nationwide initiative to get the exploding population of pests under control was launched. But the early targets set by the Department of Environment are now falling off just as the summer breeding season approaches. From an estimated 1.5 million greens roaming Grand Cayman […]
NCC presses on with land protection
(CNS): The National Conservation Council has recommended another ten environmentally important sites, nominated by the community, be protected under the conservation law, following a public consultation period. The ten sites cover all three islands and include a diversity of natural habitats, from wetlands to primaeval forest. Following Wednesday’s meeting, the council voted to present the […]
New cullers swell ranks but count off target
(CNS): Another 115 people signed up to take part in the island-wide green iguana cull on Grand Cayman following the latest registration call. but the daily target of around 6,000 being culled is still not being met just a few months after the start of the species’ breeding season. The carcasses of around 400,000 iguanas […]
More hands needed to keep iguana cull on track
(CNS): The Department of Environment is making another call for more registered green iguana cullers, as the number of the invasive species being killed has begun to decline. The current group of cullers has managed to remove around 350,000 iguanas during the island-wide effort to massively diminish the population and reduce the negative impact they […]
DoE seeking to protect 20% of Cayman’s environment
(CNS): Five years after the historic passage of the National Conservation Law, the Department of Environment said that so far it has managed to designate 3,477 acres of land across the three Cayman Islands as public protected areas. Another 634 acres on Grand Cayman are pending for protection, which accounts for just over 6% of […]
DoE keeping close eye on cull numbers
(CNS): The need to ensure that the cull of invasive green iguanas across Grand Cayman keeps pace with the target is at the forefront of the Department of Environment’s agenda, as the numbers began to drop below the 6,000 daily target last week. For the first time since the cull began at the end of […]
New threat emerging from another invasive reptile
(CNS): The discovery of a Knight anole (Anolis equestris) at Vigoro Nursery in Lower Valley last week is ringing alarm bells for the Department of Environment as this green lizard is an invasive species that could threaten local ecosystems. Like the green iguana, this smaller reptile is a prolific breeder. It has been spotted locally on […]
