Frozen Iguana…No This is Not a New Cocktail
Iguanas that toppled from trees in a torpor during this week’s cold snap could spring back to life, experts say. Just “don’t take them inside,” warned Dr. Doug Mader, owner of the Marathon Veterinary Clinic. “When they’re cold and in a torpor – the reptile version of hibernation – you can touch them or handle them up. But when they warm up, they go back to being a wild animal.”
Mader recounted a story from the last severe temperature plunge that littered the ground with stunned iguanas unable to move. “One sweet lady called because she was so worried after seeing an iguana fall out of her tree. She thought it was dead and frozen,” he said. “We told her not to take it into the house. It was a big one, maybe 5 feet. But you know how people are,” Mader said. “When it woke up, she couldn’t understand why it seemed to be coming after her. She couldn’t get it to leave.”
Kent Heeter of Tavernier helped collect and rehabilitate several iguanas from a prior winter as a Florida Keys Herpetological Society effort. “When they start dropping from trees because they can’t hang on, it can look like it’s raining iguanas,” Heeter said. “But when they wake up, they are not docile. They want to get away.”
Kim Gabel, an agent for the Monroe County Cooperative Extension Service, said the cold weather South Florida experienced Wednesday and Thursday was enough to immobilize the iguanas. Many were either just stunned by the cold in their tracks or stiffened up and fell out of trees. Temperatures during the two-day cold spell dropped as low as 30 degrees in some areas of the Keys. “They’re probably very much alive,” Gabel said.
If the animals are dead, Gabel said it is the responsibility of the property owner where the iguana is found to dispose of it, not the county, state or federal government.
Iguanas are non-native species in the Keys or anywhere else in South Florida. They come from South and Central America and became established here as a result of the exotic pet trade. They took to South and Central Florida’s subtropical climate, according to the University of Florida’s Web site. Because they are non-native, and they eat valuable landscape plants, shrubs, trees, orchids and many other flowers, as well as undermine seawalls, sidewalks and foundations by burrowing, many in South Florida, including most governments, consider the iguanas non-native pests.
Gabel said for those tired of iguanas, cold snaps like this latest one provide perfect opportunities to get rid of them once and for all. “Now’s the time to catch them and throw them in a cooler with dry ice,” Gabel said. The dry ice in an enclosed space like a cooler creates a carbon dioxide chamber, Gabel said, providing a humane way to kill the iguanas.
Here are some Iguana Recipes!
For those concerned about the fate of their local iguanas, Mader said to leave them alone unless the lizards fall prey to domestic animals or cars. “Just move them someplace outside where they’ll be safe,” he said. “You can touch them; you’re not going to get sick by touching an iguana.”
For more information about iguanas in Florida, visit http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IN528.
Tags: iguana, weather