The week of December 24, 2004
From the Boca Beacon newpaper.
GICIA-sponsored iguana roundup lands just six lizards
At times over this past weekend, there were more iguana "rescuers" visible on Gasparilla Island than the scaly lizards they were trying to trap.
Jamie Mitchell and her husband Mark, Pinellas County residents who operate a "reptile rescue" operation, made a much-publicized attempt to catch some of the island's estimated 10,000 black spiny iguanas. They were aided by a few volunteers, some who later criticized the event as "unorganized" and poorly planned.
"That thing was a joke," said T.J. Ramirez, a Hernando County resident and reptile keeper who drove for almost three hours in hopes of adopting a captured iguana.
"Extremely poor planning," was how Matthew Lyons, who came with Ramirez, politely characterized the capture attempt. "It was just a disaster."
The two men said they had been told by a friend that the iguanas on Gasparilla Island were "as thick as cockroaches" and that the locals were indiscriminately shooting and clubbing them.
Prior to coming to Boca Grande, Mitchell had fearlessly predicted that she could nab 100 iguanas a day. They would be humanely captured, domesticated as pets and given to trustworthy reptile collectors, she said.
"That's a preposterous idea, to think you can capture 100 per day," said Denis Bousquet, a Naples resident and reptile breeder who holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Marquette University. "In a 10-hour day, you'd have to catch one every six minutes. Even if you can capture 100 a day, each iguana female can lay 30 to 60 eggs two to three times a year."
Bousquet was extremely critical of the news media, which he said had raised false hopes that Mitchell could eradicate the pests from the island.
In newspaper reports, Mitchell claimed she had paid home visits to 300 people who had been certified to receive the reptiles, and that she had "guaranteed homes" for 2,000 more.
"You cannot domesticate a wild iguana to become a domestic pet," Bousquet said. "Iguanas are the most dumped reptile, because they can be so aggressive. All the iguanas in pet stores were either captive bred or dug up as eggs and hand-raised."
Mitchell did not respond to repeated requests from the Beacon for an interview.
No official number of iguanas captured was given by the Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association, which sponsored and promoted the event. In a press release issued Tuesday, Dec. 21, GICIA development director Sarah Watkins wrote, "Nevertheless, all the hard work of Saturday resulted in a few captures for removal."
Pressed for a figure, Watkins hesitantly said she thought the number was six.
Volunteers said only two iguanas were captured on Saturday, despite over five hours of intense effort by a crew of about 14 people.
Mitchell's operation was hampered by the weather. Being cold-blooded, iguanas are most active on hot, sunny days. The high on Saturday was 70, the low 53, with partly cloudy conditions.
"Right now is not a good time to be hunting them. Because of the cool weather, they will be hiding and less active," Bousquet said. "On Saturday, many of the iguanas were probably either hiding in gopher tortoise burrows or enjoying the warmth under heated houses."
The weather wasn't Mitchell's only problem. Her request for a permit to capture iguanas in Gasparilla Island State Park was denied. Spokesman Matt Mitchell (no relation) said the Park Service couldn't condone Mitchell's plan to give the captured iguanas to private reptile collectors.
"That's how we got in trouble in the first place," Matt Mitchell said, referring to the iguanas' local origins when a disenchanted collector released them on the island in the early 1970s. "We'd just as soon have the ones in the park remain there so we can eliminate them by other means."
Jamie Mitchell and her husband Mark spent Friday afternoon trying to find out where most of the iguanas were hiding out and giving interviews to television news crews.
Shortly after the group arrived at a local motel, where Jamie Mitchell had obtained four donated rooms, she took a dead iguana out of the trunk of her car and began dissecting it with her bare hands to give them an "anatomy lesson."
"You could smell it 10 feet away. It was making me queasy," Ramirez said.
"It seemed like it didn't bother her a bit," Lyons said. "She lit a cigarette and smoked it while telling us how they carry all these diseases."
The catchers didn't find any iguanas on the first private property they searched, so they moved into a condominium development by the beach where an iguana was caught.
Although it was only about nine to 12 inches long, and too small to be a sexually mature adult, Jamie Mitchell identified it as a pregnant female and said she was taking it back to her hotel room to inject it with a chemical that would force it to lay its eggs.
That chemical was most likely the labor-inducing drug oxytocin, said Dr. Cynthia Fiore with the Animal Clinic in Port Charlotte. "She can't get that drug without approval from the Food and Drug Administration. I don't know what her background is, but she shouldn't have that medication without a veterinary license."
Although news reports had said a veterinarian would accompany the rescuers, the volunteers said they didn't see one on Saturday.
Ramirez said he was discouraged by the disorganization and wandered across the street onto some state park property. "I immediately saw a 3 1/2-foot iguana dive into its burrow, and I instantly knew that every single iguana of any size was on state land," he said. "Every eight steps I was seeing a 3-foot lizard dive into its hole, and on the other side of the street the idiots were chasing 'ghost iguanas.'"
Ramirez said that when two reporters showed up, and he began talking to them, Jamie Mitchell yelled at him to stop, then told him he was "terminated."
"We had been instructed when we got there not to talk to the press because they were a liability," Ramirez explained, "because they might get bitten by the 'vicious' iguanas, and might write something bad about them."
The GICIA thanked the Mitchells and the volunteers for their efforts. "The over-population of iguanas is a problem that has been years in the making and one that will not be resolved in one weekend," Watkins stated.
Bousquet was critical of the media for taking Jamie Mitchell's claims at face value.
"The local TV media bought into it hook, line and sinker, and I don't think they did any research," he said. "They didn't contact any biologists or any environmental people."
The iguana population on Gasparilla Island is now so large it has become self-sustaining, Bousquet said, and cannot be removed. But that fact was politically unacceptable.
"People don't want to let others know the truth because it becomes a political hot button," Bousquet explained. "Other people don't tell the truth so they can get re-elected, and a perceived problem gets a perceived solution."
GICIA-sponsored iguana roundup lands just six lizards
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Scott Robert Ladd
1.0.0 Iguana (Rex)
1.0.0 African Giant Plated Lizard (Clyde)
1.0.0 Uro mali (Wizard)
0.1.0 Corn Snake (Amber)
1.1.0 Red-Eared Sliders (Jade and Emerald)
0.4.0 Homo sapiens (Maria, Elora, Becky, Tessa)
blog: http://chaoticcoyote.blogspot.com/
