Watching the news on Channel 9 this morning.

They had a ABC news report on the Iguana infestation on the islands in Florida keys, and how the town folks were told by the state that the towns have to pay for their own pest removal problem.



ABCNEWS.com didn't have any updated report online to view.

Anybody here from Florida have any links to current report?

Also...With 14 restaurants in Florida.  When is The Outback Steakhouse going to serve Barbecue iguana?


Haven't these people ever heard of hunting or trapping.

I saw a story on the news about this when I was down there visiting my mom last year.  All I could think was that the problem cried out for judicious application of .17HMR.  

Fixed it...

BBQ?

yum goanna, roasted on a spit, open fire..tastes like chicken..

Its really getting hard to find good funny pics on the subject.

The central and south Americans love to eat them!

All the articles that I am finding are all Mid 2005.

The Brits have this strange thing about overweight(sized) animals.




www.petsnakes.co.uk/Under_The_Spotlight/Diet___Setup/diet___setup.html

Kill'em & Grill'em!

Export them to Mexico, help even up that trade deficit.

ala Wall of Voodoo's song Mexican Radio

I wish I was in Tiajuana   Eating barbequed iguana

Here's a couple of recipes for your reference.

Green Iguana The Green Iguana is a large South American vegetarian lizard. It is fast becoming a common site in the Florida Keys. Since they are exotics they are not protected. Just be careful since hunting with firearms in the Keys is not legal. And you would not want to be accused of animal cruelty. Anyway if you happen to have an Iguana ready to become a feast try one of these recipes. Sopi Di Yuwana (Iguana Soup) 1 Iguana 1 1/2 quarts of iguana broth (or chicken broth) 2 Chicken bouillon cubes 1 Clove of garlic 1 Leek 1 Tomato, coarsely chopped 1 Onion, studded with 3 cloves 1 Green Pepper, quartered 1/4 small Cabbage 1 tsp Cumin 1 dash Nutmeg Salt and Pepper 2 oz Vermicelli Kill, clean, skin and cut the Iguana into serving pieces. Prepare chicken broth in heavy kettle, add garlic, leek, tomato, onion, green pepper and cabbage. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for thirty minutes. Add the iguana, and simmer an additional half hour, or until the meat is tender. Remove from the fire. Strain broth, discarding vegetables. Bone the iguana and set the meat aside. Return the broth to the fire and add cumin, nutmeg, vermicelli and salt and pepper. Simmer for about five minutes until the vermicelli is tender. Add the iguana and heat thoroughly. Serve piping hot with Funchi (Corn meal mush). Yield: 6 servings Iguana Stew Yield: 4 Servings Ingredients 1 iguana 1 lg onion 2 cloves garlic 3 tomatoes 2 green peppers 4 ts achiote oil 1 pn pepper 1 salt -- to taste Instructions Make the achiote oil by frying the achiote slowly until the oil is red. Cook Iguana in salted water until the meat is tender (take care not to let it get too soft). 4. cut in portions. 5. Season with all the above ingredients and cook with about 1 cup water, until almost dry. Recipe By : Diana D. de peralta

Tacos!

Here's one recent article...


Lizards On The Loose

Tampa Bay Online
Apr 9, 2006

BOCA GRANDE - Barbara Thompson froze as a 3-foot iguana wiggled from under an island burger joint onto the warm sand, lifting its head in apparent appreciation of the toasty afternoon sun.

"Now!" yelled a member of Lee County Animal Services.

Thompson surged forward, boots thumping through the sand, reaching out in a desperate, gasping lunge with a net used to capture iguanas.

"Thwap!"

Everyone held their breath. A puff of sand hovered.

Nothing.

The dragonlike iguana vanished under the restaurant, joining perhaps 50 others.

"They are fast," said Thompson, panting from the chase. "They are a lot faster than you think."

Lee County's animal control workers, more accustomed to corralling loose dogs and cats than fleet-footed lizards, weren't out for fun. They were playing out the latest chapter in Boca Grande's 30-year saga with the spiny-tailed black iguana.

Scientists say there are about 10,000 iguanas loose on the barrier island of Gasparilla, or about 10 for every year-round resident of Boca Grande, an upscale town on the south edge of the island.

Some locals complain the ill-tempered, garden-eating, home-invading reptiles have overrun their normally placid community. Some have called for an islandwide iguana hunt, complete with a bounty paid for each tail.

The county hired Jerry Jackson, a Florida Gulf Coast University biologist, to study the best ways to rid the island of iguanas. He and animal service workers are experimenting with traps, tongs, nooses and nets.

He said the invasive lizards are more than just a nuisance. Like that of other wild species, iguana feces harbor salmonella. The lizards also are known to eat the eggs of endangered birds and gopher tortoises that live on the island. Over the years, the iguanas have dug vast networks of tunnels that jeopardize the island's sand dunes.

The prehistoric-looking lizards are routinely seen sunbathing by pools, nibbling on gardens and making their homes in attic insulation. In more than a few cases, iguanas have snaked through the sewer system and surprised residents when they lifted the toilet seat.

"They are rodents," resident Bonnie McGee said. "You set a trap, and you kill them."

Millionaire Lynch Mob?

Don't confuse Boca Grande's feisty, meat-eating reptiles with their mild-mannered cousin, the green iguana. This iguana has a dangerous spiky tail, strong jaws and sharp teeth that can easily tear through leather gloves. "They can be nasty," Jackson said.

Yet, some islanders relish their exotic neighbors and say the issue is trumped up by a few angry millionaires who don't like the iguanas going to the bathroom on their decks. Some joke that the iguana imbroglio was cooked up mainly as a way to pass time between hurricane seasons.

"Give me a break," said Delores Savas, an iguana supporter and environmental columnist for the local weekly newspaper, the Boca Beacon. "These people are supposed to be so refined, but when it comes to iguanas, they are like a lynch mob."

It wasn't always this way.

Boca Grande residents once revered their iguanas, highlighting them in tourist guides, on clothing and even in artwork. To fuel island lore, locals dubbed them the Dragons of Gasparilla Island.

In fact, county residents at one time tried to get Lee County leaders to formally designate the iguana as protected. Many restaurants encouraged patrons to feed the iguanas and provided areas for customers to watch them eat. In the iguana heyday, homeowners grew hibiscus and other plants to ensure their neighborhood lizards had plenty to eat.

The iguana population flourished as a result, up from about 2,000 a few years ago. Soon the deft swimmers were reported on neighboring islands, likely refugees of recent hurricanes. Then the creatures turned up across the bridge on the mainland, and fears grew they could soon overrun other towns. "They could survive as far north as Tampa," Jackson said.

So residents took up arms and called upon local political leaders to take action.

In March, Lee County commissioners unanimously agreed to create a special taxing district to eradicate the lizards from the island. County leaders don't know how much it would cost to wipe out the iguanas, but estimates from a few years ago pegged the price around $200,000. The cost is expected to be much higher now that so many more iguanas live on the island.

The infestation has at least momentarily turned some otherwise serene residents into savvy iguana hunters, armed with pellet guns, live traps and snares. It's become common to hear residents discuss hunting technique, death counts, and even recipes such as iguana stew (yes, they do taste like chicken).

"I used to think they were cute," said Ann Ingram, who lives in Hyde Park and has a home in Boca Grande. "Now, I've found that a pellet gun works wonders."

Ingram took a photo of a small iguana found frolicking in her toilet in February. Unsure of what to do, she grabbed a jug of bleach and poured it in.

"It just ate him up," Ingram said, with a hint of a smile.

The issue caught fire around town and in the pages of the Boca Beacon.

"Iguanas are not human. They do not deserve humane treatment," Boca Grande resident Richard Zellner wrote in a letter to the editor. "As far as I am concerned, they can be burned, shot and mutilated."

Repelling The Invasion

The spiny-tailed iguana is not native to Florida, and its origins on Boca Grande remain a mysterious local legend.

Jackson thinks someone from the island brought a couple of the iguanas back from Mexico as pets and released them later. Some locals think the pioneering iguanas were stowaways on cargo ships that came to the island years ago.

Iguanas have moved into neighborhoods from Key West to the upper reaches of Palm Beach, and experts agree they will eat their way north until the chilly climate becomes too forbidding. Iguanas like the heat and generally won't survive a good freeze. Experts say problems started in Florida when people got the lizards as pets and released them after they became too big and tempestuous.

Even Jackson has complex feelings about the iguanas in Boca Grande.

"These critters didn't ask to be here," he said, watching one poke its head out of a hole. "But when you see what they are doing to the ecosystem, what they are doing to the endangered species, they don't belong here."

A few enterprising locals have started iguana capture and removal businesses. But many residents prefer to do it on their own.

Alex Diaz owns the Barnichol, Boca Grande's only hardware store. In the past few weeks, he's sold 60 Havahart live traps, which start around $50 a piece. For iguanas, the best bait is generally rotten fruit or hibiscus leaves.

"People are really getting into it," said Diaz, who noted with some unease that iguanas have targeted fruit trees in his back yard. "It gives them something to do besides watch the iguanas eat their garden."

But Boca Grande's residents shouldn't be tricked into thinking that their flash of iguana blood-lust will eradicate the problem.

"The only good solution is for the community to put their heart into it, and put the money in up front," Jackson said. "Otherwise, they'll come right back, just as bad or worse."

CREATURE CHARACTERISTICS

The spiny-tailed black iguana is native to Mexico, large areas of Central America and the islands near Panama.

The iguanas tend to be nasty, unlike their bigger and mellower cousin, the green iguana. Spiny-tailed iguanas have strong jaws and sharp teeth that can easily draw blood. The tail has sharp, spiny scales that can cause injury. They often hiss and spit violently when threatened.

Young spiny-tailed iguanas eat insects, eggs and roadkill. As the lizards mature, they feed mostly on plants, although they won't pass up dead fish, rodents and the occasional bird.

A female iguana can lay 50 eggs in a season. They can easily grow to 3-feet long and live more than seven years.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12229220

$5.00 Bounty per head.  

I saw that on TV too and all I could think about was shooting them little suckers with the ole 10/22

No bounty for me!  

thats lee county where i live not monroe county which is where the keys are. we are 2 counties north and to the west of monroe.

Lee county , like most of florida, is populated and run by Idiots. if the lee county commision had any actual intelligence on it they would have allowed trapping and pest control to eliminate the lizards.

btw the speed inwhich exotic reptiles can breed is amazing. when I was in highschool back in 91 or 92 someone claimed to have spotted a "monster" lizard in the 4 mile cove section of Cape Coral. an extensive search was made and nothing was found. 10 years later cape coral has so many monitor lizards they are becoming a nusance. Also when these species have no natural enemys save for being road kill, they get alot bigger than they would in their own habitat. The monitors should only get up to about 4 feet or so in lenght. my former boss saw one in his neighborhood that was atleast 6 feet long. it took up 1 lane on a 2 lane road. they are everywhere in the southwest and north west quadrents of the city.

if they offer $5 a tail I'll hit the island with my remington 582 and a case of .22 shorts.

Man, I should go out there and contract my services with a 1000fps .177 air rifle.

Ruger 10/22 and you Folks hate Pit Bulls my brother had a Iggie,,,,,nasty creature I tell ya'

that is no lie!  IGUANAS ARE ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE!!!  they're not a big deal because they're not predatory, but they chew up people's gardens.  they're not just in the keys.  I'm in coral gables (about 5 miles south of downtown Miami) and you can walk across the fuckers and not touch the ground.

That ain't shit either.  If you head out to the everglades tehy have worse problems.  Monitor lizards and reticulated and burmese pythons are quickly out-competing the native species, even aligators.  It's not uncommon to find a 20ft python with an 8ft gator in its stomach.  Nothing eats them either.  They're an apex predator with no competition.

To top that off, there are TONS of exotic birds that fly around here.  Blue and gold macaws are everywhere, as are parakeets (not the little budgadiers, but the BIG ones) scarlet macaws, and cockatiels.  A large percentage of them got loose when hurricane andrew blew the zoo away 10 years ago, and a lot more are getting lose because people are releasing their pets.

We need to do an arfcom hunting expedition, but it's illegal to shoot in the city, so we're stuck with the fucking critters

Bow and arrow. Problem is fixed, no noise and lots of sport.

Omni

One of the characters in the "Fox Trot" comic has a pet iguana.....

Quoted: www.fieryfoodconnection.com/newSAL1.jpg Fixed it...

That jar has eyeballs in it!!

A 10/22 .22 long rifle with a 4x scope and see-thru rings, several bricks of high velocity/hyper velocity hollowpoint and fmj ammo and good, careful, patient aiming and....viola! Problem solved. Feed the dead bodies to the gators and sharks.

.22 cal Sheridan.  Hours of entertainment and I'll bet they make good chum too.

Kill em and Grill em. ":The Nuge:"

Food stamp "live food" program.

Quoted: Here's one recent article... Lizards On The Loose Tampa Bay Online Apr 9, 2006 BOCA GRANDE - SNIP ]

I go to Boca Grande fairly regularly and can attest to the iguana issue there

They are all over the place and get pretty big

The locals - which is either the very rich, or works for the very rich - complain about them. They cite the fact that they nest inside attics, in plumbing, and other areas of their homes

It is quite common to see them on sidewalks, roadsides, or just about anywhere.

They don't bother me though.

In the Miramar/Pines area they are everywhere...especially in my mom's garden.  She can't catch them because they are quick animals, she's tried different "humane" ways to keep them away but it doesnt work....

Good excuse for a suppressed .22

a brick of .22's is cheap

Quoted: Quoted: Here's one recent article... Lizards On The Loose Tampa Bay Online Apr 9, 2006 BOCA GRANDE - SNIP ] I go to Boca Grande fairly regularly and can attest to the iguana issue there They are all over the place and get pretty big The locals - which is either the very rich, or works for the very rich - complain about them. They cite the fact that they nest inside attics, in plumbing, and other areas of their homes It is quite common to see them on sidewalks, roadsides, or just about anywhere. They don't bother me though.

Last time I was in Boca Grande nearly ran one over with the golf cart we rented from Millers (I think that is the name) Marina.  They were everywhere.