TAMPA TRIBUNE (Florida) 28 June 04 UT Professor Aims To Lift Lizard Plague (Gary Haber)
Tampa: Todd Campbell has an easier goal than St. Patrick.
He doesn't want to drive the snakes from Ireland. The University of Tampa assistant professor of ecology just wants to eradicate the Nile monitor lizard from Cape Coral.
This southwest Florida city of 102,000 people is overrun with the nasty, tail-whipping creatures from sub-Saharan Africa.
Campbell has $50,000 in grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program to capture, study and destroy the lizards, which can grow as long as 7 feet and feast on a variety of prey including birds and gopher tortoise eggs.
The lizards were first spotted in Cape Coral in 1990. Campbell estimates there may be as many as 1,000 of them around.
``These things are running around in people's yards,'' he says.
No one knows for sure how the lizards, which are not native to the United States, wound up in southwest Florida. Campbell speculates the first lizards may have been abandoned pets, or they could have been introduced by pet traders who dumped them in the area, hoping to start a colony that could be harvested later and sold.
One thing is for sure, the lizards took to Cape Coral, a waterfront city with a 400- mile-long network of canals.
Good swimmers that can travel several miles in a day, the lizards spend a lot of time in the water and thrive in the mangroves that ring the city. On land, they can run as fast as 18 miles per hour.
Since starting his work last summer, Campbell has captured and eradicated about 60 of the lizards; the largest weighed 26.5 pounds.
Campbell's lizard hunting has drawn national publicity.
Jay Leno joked about him in a monologue on ``The Tonight Show.'' Campbell was featured on NBC's ``Today'' show.
``It's been fun,'' the 42-year- old Campbell says. ``Scientists don't usually get this kind of publicity.''
The Nile monitors have been the talk of Cape Coral for years, says Kraig Hankins, an environmental biologist with the city. Hankins has fielded reports of about 300 lizard sightings over the years, including one from a homeowner who found one scooping the goldfish out of a backyard pond.
Reaction among Cape Coral residents ranges from amusement to alarm, Hankins says.
``Some people are indifferent,'' he says ``They think it's kind of cool. Others are terrified. They don't want them around anymore.''
Campbell came across the lizards in 2002, when he was a post-graduate student at the University of Tennessee. He was on a trip to Florida when a biologist friend suggested he stop in Cape Coral to check out the lizards.
He saw several and spoke with local residents.
``One guy said he'd seen one shred a bunny in his back yard two weeks before,'' Campbell says.
Campbell's message to pet owners is simple - these lizards are not the kind of animal most people can handle.
``They're big, robust, mean animals that require a lot of care,'' says Campbell, who has the scratches on his arms and legs to prove it.
Introducing species like the Nile monitor lizard - which is not indigenous to Florida - into the state's ecosystem is a huge problem. Left unchecked, Campbell says, the Nile monitors could threaten native species, including other lizards and birds such as burrowing owls.
He's worried the creatures could threaten bird sanctuaries at J.W. ``Ding'' Darling National Wildlife Refuge and Sanibel Island, about five miles from Cape Coral.
``Nile monitors are just a bad idea,'' Campbell says. ``They're a disaster waiting to happen.''
UT Professor Aims To Lift Lizard Plague