HERALD TRIBUNE (Sarasota, Florida) 04 March 08 When Critters Drive Us Crazy - Ridding the area of exotic iguanas (Kate Spinner)
Boca Grande: When wild boars eat sea turtles' eggs on Cayo Costa island, or Burmese pythons devour endangered wood rats in Key Largo, calls go out to a tall Colorado statistician for help.
And since Charlotte County got serious last year about stamping out Boca Grande's plague of spiny-tailed iguanas, which have the bad habits of taking over gopher tortoise burrows and digging up lawns, the statistician started making regular appearances here.
Rick Engeman flew from Colorado last Wednesday to take a close look at iguana hot spots on the exclusive island, a popular second home for wealthy executives and celebrities.
Surrounded by colleagues from the federal government, Engeman surveyed a shrubby dune in the beachfront yard of an Island Court home, where a trapper had recently caught 26 iguanas in just three days.
No iguanas were out on the chilly day, but Engeman saw the telltale long, narrow tail scrapes in the sand.
An idea popped in his head: He could get the trapper to count the tail tracks weekly in that area and another nearby without traps.
With that data, Engeman said, he could gauge the trapper's impact on the iguana population and refine the capture methods to make them more efficient.
Engeman works for the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, where scientists figure out how to resolve conflicts between people and wildlife. That is the mission of Wildlife Services, the federal agency that funds the research center.
Engeman's work takes him to California, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina, New England, Guam, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and, occasionally, Australia and New Zealand.
This summer he will speak at the Australasian Vertebrate Pest Conference about the challenges of managing Florida's invasive species.
With pythons in the Everglades, Gambian giant pouched rats in the Florida Keys, 4-foot-long Tegu lizards near Ruskin, feral hogs on Cayo Costa's nesting beaches and Nile monitors in Cape Coral, Engeman has spent a lot of time in Florida lately.
He started his career with the research center almost 30 years ago, after receiving his doctorate in biometrics from the University of Colorado Medical School.
He could have worked in the pharmaceutical industry making far more money, but at age 28, he could not resist the chance to stay in his hometown and spend time outdoors through the research center job.
Though he is now in his 50s, Engeman's exuberance for boyish outdoor endeavors has not changed much, and Florida provides plenty of opportunity.
"I like to catch lizards and snakes," he said, grinning and sipping dark beer at Zydeco Grill in Englewood after his foray to Boca Grande
Ridding the area of exotic iguanas

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