Posted on 01/03/2008 9:23:07 AM PST by Squidpup
Wednesday night's bitter cold came like a giant Sominex for the tree-dwelling iguanas of South Florida.
When the temperature falls below a certain level, the large green lizards drop out of the trees and litter the ground.
They aren't dead. At least a lot of them aren't. It is as if they are in suspended animation, said Robert Yero, park manager at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne.
It was raining iguanas at Bill Baggs Thursday morning. There were a couple underneath buttonwood trees and a third beneath a sea grape. All were about 30 yards from the beach, in the coastal hammock.
''We have found dozens on the bike path after a major cold snap,'' said Yero. ``When they warm up in the sun, they come back to life.''
Yero isn't too fond of the comatose critters. They are exotics from Central and South America, brought in as pets and then released to the wilds by their owners when they got too big for the house.
They munch on the foliage, literally nipping in the bud efforts to revive native vegetation.
''They really are taking over,'' Yero said.
Of course they taste like chicken!
IF they are that much of a nuisance, sounds like a perfect time to cull the herd.
“Off to see the lizard...”
—Jimmy Buffett
It would seem so. Just walk around and pick them up and knock them in the head.
He even liked to eat flowers off our bushes surrounding the lawn.
There came a time when we suddenly realized he was starting to get really big and getting 'sassy' by whipping his tail on anyone of us that might be inconveniencing him.
We searched, in vain, through the Yellow Pages, Google, and everything else we could think of to find an iguana re-location service.
Meanwhile the iguana keeps getting bigger and heavier and starts thinking he is a crocodile. He has even spooked my 38-year-old Amazon parrot who is not afraid of man nor beast, except big nasty looking iguanas.
The problem sorta' solved itself when he escaped into the "wetlands" here in the Florida Panhandle (they were "swamps" before they got their new PC label) and now he contributes to the corruption of our native critters.
I know I did the wrong thing(s), consistently, thru the whole episode, but I just didn't see it coming.
Moral of the story: Never buy (or let your kids buy) a cute little green lizard at the pet store. You will end up with something that looks like a mini-Godzilla.
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