THE STAR (Malaysia) 24 April 04 A love for lizards (Tan Lee Kuen)
Two teenage girls in uniform are looking at the light green baby iguanas tumbling over each other in the pet shop. One of the girls is making cute faces at the lizards while the other is just making a face.
They are at odds as to why the first girl would want an iguana for her birthday.
“It’s really cute,” says the bespectacled girl. “Like a toy.”
Her interest in the lizards was sparked by her cousin’s iguana, which she likes playing with every time she visits. In the last few years, iguanas have become quite the rage, thanks to movies like The Lost World, endorsements from celebrities who own them, and the perception that lizards – though cold and unresponsive – are cool pets.
These days, iguanas are a common sight in pet shops and are the top seller in the exotic animal category. Unlike your garden-variety cats and dogs, iguanas are still not yet domesticated but they are easy enough to look after. Or so everyone thinks.
The fact is that though they may be cute and quiet, iguanas are not really the fuss-free, low-maintenance pet we’ve been led to believe. Joanne Kong, a businesswoman in her 40s, knows all about that. Currently the owner of three iguanas, Kong has made many trips to the veterinarian, and once was bitten by one of her beloved lizards.
Her love affair with the iguana started when her son brought home a light green baby iguana. “I stared deeply into its eyes, and they looked so old and timeless. I immediately fell in love with it,” she recalls.
Kong provides her beloved pets with the best that money can buy – oversized cages, halogen heat lamps that are switched on during rainy days, hot-water bottles for cold nights, and the best organic vegetables and fruits. She handles and observes her iguanas every day, taking short holidays each time so she won’t be away from them for too long.
Still, all that tender loving care has not prevented problems from arising. Her troubles first began when the iguanas started to manifest health problems, breaking out into a plethora of symptoms worthy of an insurance policy. “Not eating, not [bleep]ting, very lethargic, tail breaking off, mouth rotting, tummy becoming bloated, nails breaking, mites, sneezing, skin turning orange and crankiness,” she says, listing out the problems.
Kong had difficulty finding a vet who knew reptiles. She once took a stricken pet to four different vets and spent close to RM600 on treatment and vet bills. “I sent him for X-rays, and he had all sorts of injections, and was given all sorts of medicine, all on trial-and-error basis,” relates Kong. After all that trouble, the iguana proceeded to die on her. A lung infection did the little fellow in.
“Iguanas have only been popular as pets in the last 10 years,” says Dr Vellayan Subramaniam, the chief veterinarian at Zoo Negara and a leading reptile expert in the country. “The only people who can treat them are those who specialise in reptiles, and reptile vets in Malaysia are very few. Most of them work in zoos. Even among us, we are working with these species by learning through the years.”
Having treated over 150 iguanas in the last 10 years, Dr Vellayan observes that most of the owners are young, female, and genuinely affectionate towards their pets. Most tote the iguanas in their handbags when they come to see him.
According to this vet with 23 years of experience, one of the main problems is that many owners don’t know how to look after their iguanas. The green iguanas of Central and South America are a misunderstood lot, he says, because information about them have until recently been sketchy at best – if not downright erroneous.
For example, it was only recently that iguanas were reclassified as true herbivores from the omnivores they had been believed to be.
Like with any pet, iguanas have their own special, and expensive, needs when it comes to living environment and eating habits. Being cold-blooded, they are sensitive to their surrounding temperature – a few degrees centigrade could mean the difference between being warm enough to look for food or freezing to death.
And when it comes to their diet, experts say, lettuce and tomatoes alone are not going to cut it.
“Iguanas need a variety of food like leafy greens, some flowers and fruits to get all the nutrients they need already. Most people try to get food from pet shops, which is not necessary since we have all the food that the iguanas need. They can be trained to eat hibiscus leaves and flowers, which are very rich in protein. And certain iguanas don’t like certain foods; they can be very fussy,” says Dr Vellayan.
A poor diet leads to malnourishment, and this could bring on diseases like metabolic bone disorder. This disease is a result of calcium deficiency and a leading cause of bone fractures in iguanas. The mortality rate of pet iguanas in the country is not encouraging.
“In most cases, iguanas are sick due to poor husbandry,” says Dr S. Sivan of the Animal Medical Centre. “Most of the owners just follow the pet shop’s advice without trying to find out more.”
Dr Sivan is one of the few vets specialising in the treatment of exotic animals in the country. He receives an average of two iguanas a month, usually when the animals are already in critical condition. He once treated a six-month-old iguana called Iggy (a popular name with these animals) who was suffering from metabolic bone disease.
Dr Sivan discovered that the reptile had been overfed fruits and had the owners force-feed Iggy a special diet every day for the next couple of months until he could eat on his own.
Two days later, the owners returned and said they couldn’t cope because of their jobs. So Dr Sivan kept Iggy at the hospital and gave the reptile daily injections of calcium supplements. The animal had to be put down however because it wasn’t getting better.
“Most people think that just because the iguana is eating well, there’s nothing wrong with it. But iguanas should have a general check-up twice every year for things like intestinal worms,” says Dr Sivan. He knows of a Brazilian couple with seven iguanas in their care who are all in perfect health. Yet, they still ask him to make house visits to ensure the lizards stay out of harm’s way.
“They’re the only ones. Most owners only bring their iguanas to me when they are sick,” he says. “Some people do take care of their pets well without advice, but not many do.”
While some iguanas are fortunate enough to have happy homes, others have suffered from their owners’ ignorance and, in some cases, from deliberate abuse.
College student Trish Lyra Leo, 21, adopted an iguana with a broken lower lip believed to be the result of deliberate cruelty.
“At first she wouldn’t eat and was very aggressive,” says Trish. “It took me quite a while to calm her down. I have to tickle the right spots when I want to handle her. But her moods are still volatile.”
At one foot long – not counting the tail – Trish’s iguana is considered small for a three-year-old. A fully-grown green iguana can grow up to six feet long and live 15 to 20 years. The oldest recorded iguana lived 29 years. As they mature, the males in particular, can become very aggressive, especially in the breeding season. Iguanas come into season four or five times a year, each period lasting two weeks.
“During mating season, the males can get very aggressive. They will attack anybody who tries to open the cage,” says Dr Vellayan.
Kong can attest to their aggressiveness.
“My previous one bit me so badly on the arm that I had to get over 20 stitches at the emergency ward at Pantai Hospital,” says Kong. As harrowing as the experience was, Kong’s fascination with the iguana remains. She hopes to set up a website for owners to get together and exchange information on them.
Her retirement dream, she says, is to set up a sanctuary for abused and abandoned iguanas. Kong is especially concerned about the growing popularity of these animals as pets because of the neglect that may ensue.
“According to some vets I’ve seen, they seldom come across fully grown adult iguanas like mine, which is about five feet long. This means that all those baby iguanas in private homes must have died or have never been brought to a vet for a check-up.”
In Miami and Los Angeles, iguanas have become pests because owners have taken to dumping the reptiles in parks and in the wild when they cease to be cute.
“We are afraid of the same thing happening here, where they (the iguanas) are given up and abandoned. They can be dangerous and they can attack humans,” says Dr Vellayan Subramaniam, chief veterinarian at Zoo Negara.
It’s probably too early to entertain apocalyptic visions of iguanas taking over Lake Gardens, but stories have surfaced about abandoned iguanas in backyards and semaks.
“Sometimes when chopping a tree, you will come across an iguana peeping out from its hiding place,” says Thomas Lee, 32, an iguana owner. “These iguanas are not native to Malaysia, so they must have belonged to someone.”
If the novelty wears off or owners are unable to take care of their reptilian friend, says Dr Vellayan, the best thing to do is to give the lizard away to a sympathetic friend or turn it over to the local zoo.
A love for lizards