EFLDuring the last three decades, the resort community on Florida's Gulf Coast has been overrun by the black, spiny-tailed, nonnative lizards that demolish gardens, nest in attics and weaken beach dunes with burrows. Last month, Lee County
Note they are going to study them. There will be an additional tax if they decide to do anything about them.
| I'm available if they need to spend more research grant dollars. |
| Iguana: it's what's for lunch. |
| "Mo-o-m-m-m! It keeps staring at me when I tinkle!" |
Kevin Enge, an exotic species expert with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said he believes the iguana was introduced to Boca Grande in the 1970s by a boat captain who brought a few from Mexico for his kids but released them when they grew too large.
More problems caused by illegal immigrants. Though they just tunnel into the sand dunes that American lizards won't.
The county hired Florida Gulf Coast University biologist Jerry Jackson to study the problem. He is worried the lizards aren't just a nuisance, but are destroying native habitat, spreading other invasive species through their droppings and endangering the town in the event of a hurricane. "The majority of their burrows are in the dunes along the beaches," Jackson said. "We're threatening the human population on Gasparilla Island to the extent that the dunes are in danger of just disappearing with a storm surge."
| Which the storm surge might do anyways ... |
Even the local weekly paper, the Boca Beacon, gets flooded with letters about iguanas. "Iguanas are not human. They do not deserve humane treatment," resident Richard Zellner wrote. "As far as I am concerned, they can be burned, shot and mutilated."
Kind of like Al Queda.
Some have made catching iguanas into a family outing. Boston resident Michael Mavilia, 49, who owns a house on the island, spent a recent day with his family casting a fishing rod with a tiny green rubber worm toward the foundations of beach homes. "
Iguanas, why do they... Oh, forget it.