Invasive and Unwanted, Iguana Euthanasia

This semester I am taking a Vertebrate Zoology class and the professor introduced us to a Facebook page, "Wildlife Issues" that has been a useful resource for keeping up with current events in conservation. For this week's blog post I was browsing the page and was surprised by a header on the timeline: "Florida's Solution to its Invasive Iguana Problem: Smash their Skulls in". Despite it's gory implications, the disposal of these iguanas is definitely a necessity, as explained in the article by the Washington Post. The Iguanas were originally native to a broad area ranging from Mexico to South America to the Caribbean and were brought to Florida as pets around 1966. Since then they have spread from Miami to the Keys and as far as Palm Beach.

To address the “smash their skulls in” portion, many biologists are going out with bolt guns to kill the iguanas, while the in-the-head portion is to reduce the suffering of the animals. The reason there is funding for the iguanas to be killed is that they are causing significant damage to waterways and are reducing the fruit and vegetation to levels where soil erosion is becoming an issue. Additionally, the iguanas have been known to carry salmonella and pose a significant health risk if their feces get into drinking waters or pools.

Despite the incentive to get rid of the creatures, laws preventing animal cruelty pose a risk, if you only injure the creatures you can receive up to $5000 fines. Furthermore residents are taking it upon themselves to get rid of the iguanas with pellet guns, as local legislature allows. Last thing of note is that, when possible, the scientists will capture the iguanas and euthanize them. All of the Iguanas are then studied and disposed of in a landfill. I swear I set out to write this in a positive light but it still sounds bad, invasive species are also bad, shrug.

Iguana pictured from the article. No custom illustration this week, apologies.