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NEWS-PRESS (Fort Myers, Florida) 28 November 06 Lee hunt for iguana ensnared by protest - Animal-rights activists want humane removal (Jamie Page)
Animal rights activists aren't happy with the plan for ridding Boca Grande of pesky iguana.
It's not because the invasive lizards will be killed, but more about the way they could be killed.
When the island hired Trapper Wildlife Services of Sarasota at $20 a lizard, putting them in a freezer to die was one of the methods the Iguana Control Advisory Committee found acceptable.
The exotic lizards are considered pests by many residents who find them inside their homes, shredding insulation, scratching holes in screens and eating flower buds.
So residents set up a taxing unit in the spring to pay for eradicating them, and a trapper was hired Nov. 16 to catch and kill the more than 10,000 black spiny-tailed iguana thought to live on the Lee side of Gasparilla Island. Meanwhile, Charlotte County officials are considering a similar eradication program.
The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF) feels freezing them is inhumane and has asked Boca Grande officials to work with them to develop "a humane plan for euthanizing captured animals," said Heather Veleanu, managing director for the foundation.
The largest animal rights organization in the world — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) — also will push the island to use the most humane euthanization methods.
"We are going to challenge them on that (freezing)," said Stephanie Boyles, a PETA wildlife biologist. "That is completely unjustified and unacceptable."
The island's contract with its recently hired trapper says the iguanas must be killed by one of the methods approved by the Iguana Control Advisory Committee, including: barbiturates, inhalants, pellet gun shot, stunning and decapitation, freezing, and bolt and cap — where a large bolt smashes the reptile's skull.
All of these methods, except freezing, are accepted by the not-for-profit American Veterinary Medical Association. The AVMA is widely used by governments and industry as a reputable benchmark for veterinary and animal issues.
The AVMA is also the benchmark for many animal rights groups.
George Cera, owner of the trapping service, believes freezing is humane because a reptile's body temperature drops slowly when the climate cools, just as it adapts in its own environment.
Whether the trapper will freeze them is unclear, but it's likely because that's a method listed in his bid proposal.
Cera wouldn't reveal how he would kill them, and would only say he planned to use "the most ethical and humane methods."
However, at the bid opening he had argued freezing was a proper method. That was because the committee initially ruled it was not acceptable. The committee later got a ruling from Lee Animal Services that it was acceptable.
PETA and ARFF disagree, because it's not one of the methods accepted by the veterinary medical association.
"They don't get to determine what the state animal cruelty statement says; it requires the animals be killed in the quickest and most convenient way possible, and freezing them isn't one of them," Boyles said.
PETA prefers lethal injection as the "quickest, kindest" way, Boyles said. "If they are taxing the people for this service, there is no reason why every animal captured can't be given a kind and painless death. The iguanas are completely blameless in all this."
Boca's trapper will begin work after completing some county paperwork.
Trappers watching the situation from a distance say there's a larger issue at stake — now that a trapper is in place, the iguana population cannot truly be controlled without the Charlotte County portion of Gasparilla Island on board with its own iguana control program.
Libby Walker, director of Lee Public Resources, said Charlotte County is looking into a possible eradication program.
"They'll have to be able to get access to every part of the island; otherwise, everything the committee is doing is in vain," said George Ward. Ward is a partner with Magnum Reptiles, a removal service in Palm Bay.
Lee hunt for iguana ensnared by protest

NEWS-PRESS (Fort Myers, Florida) 30 November 06 Frozen lizards hot topic
How do you kill an iguana?
Let us count the ways: One, two, three.....Oh, come on, there must be a million ways to dispatch a lizard!
How then, we wonder, did a group of professional iguana killers come up with the one way that has the animal rights people all in a tizzy?
The professionals, Trapper Wildlife Service of Sarasota, want to catch the iguanas that are running amuck on the Lee side of Gasparilla Island, making themselves a royal nuisance to local residents and wildlife, and pop them into a freezer. At least that's a method listed in the proposal that won them the contract.
That's right, iguanacicles.
The trappers get $20 for each iguana they kill — under the contract, not a single iguana can leave the island alive — and they hope to do in more than 10,000 of them.
Now comes the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to say that freezing an iguana is inhumane.
The trappers say freezing them is humane because their body temperature just sort of goes down slowly, like during, say, a cold snap.
"If anybody thinks freezing them is humane, let me put you in a freezer and freeze you," offers George Ward, who runs a rival trapping service.
We are not volunteering to be frozen. But, then again, we wouldn't volunteer to be fed a lethal dose of barbiturates, poisoned with inhalants, shot with a pellet gun, decapitated or smashed in the skull with a large bolt, the so-called approved methods of killing iguanas.
You know what needs to be done here? Take the animal rights people's word for it, declare iguanacicles off limits and knock off the hapless, coldblooded critters by other, acceptable means.
And be on the job of sending them to that Great Big Island In The Sky.
Frozen lizards hot topic