Posted on 05/22/2009 10:35:31 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami, Florida, is dealing with a different sort of small ground invasion: the Nile monitor lizard.
These invasive reptiles—possibly former family pets or escapees from nearby breeding facilities—occasionally lumber onto the base's tarmac to soak up the sun's rays.
"When you have an airplane coming in to land or take off, and you have a 6-foot [1.8-meter] reptile laying on the runway, it causes a substantial human health and safety problem," said Parker Hall, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services.
Agency employees patrol the runways on a regular basis to shoo away birds, capture lizards, and deal with any other pests that may show up.
But that's a tall order given the base's close proximity to both the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks, both home to diverse arrays of wildlife that regularly spill into the base's vast woodlands and wetlands.
Lizard Explosion
Invasive lizards in southern Florida—such as the monitor, native to Africa—now outnumber native species, experts say.
These hefty predators—weighing up to 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms)—have a voracious appetite, and have been observed eating protected species such as the burrowing owl.
In nearly two decades monitor lizards have been spotted in seven Floridian counties, with the biggest breeding population living in Cape Coral, a city on the state's west coast.
I thought they might have been lounge lizards staggering around after a hard night..
okay... "Tastes like rattlesnake."
"There are few lizards less suited to life in captivity than the Nile monitor. Buffrenil (1992) considered that, when fighting for its life, a Nile monitor was a more dangerous adversary than a crocodile of a similar size. Their care presents particular problems on account of the lizards' enormous size and lively dispositions. Very few of the people who buy brightly-coloured baby Nile monitors can be aware that, within a couple of years, their purchase will have turned into an enormous, ferocious carnivore, quite capable of breaking the family cat's neck with a single snap and swallowing it whole."
(Bennett, D. 1995. Little Book of Monitor Lizards, Viper Press, Aberdeen, UK)
that’s better, i like rattlesnake- which reminds me more of wild turkey than chicken.
—why does everything have to taste like “chicken”?—
Seems like EVERYTHING tastes like “chicken.” Except turkey, of course!
Man that could cause The Big One at the track.
Post a $5 bounty on monitor lizards and a $10 bounty on clutches of monitor eggs. (and a $200 fine per lizard for owning, breeding, etc., monitor lizards...).
Or wait for sunny, issue arms and ammo to the troops and have a contest. Winner drinks free that night at the O-club or NCO Club.
Bet there would be NO lizards a few weeks.
Idiots get them as pets when they are small. These things get big quick. Because they are idiots, they don’t learn how to handle them. So they let them go. Other idiots decide they want to breed them and sell the skins to shoe companies and make a quick buck. It takes work and effort to be successful. The quick buck doens’t come. They let them go. Therefore big problem. First ones were brought in by Gangsta’s, flamboyant tonsil hockey players, and the like. Given the right environment, Florida certainly provides it, they will flourish in the wild. They are flourishing.
LOL ...
Silenced air guns are better.
Just what South Florida freaking needs. We already have iguana’s all over the place and now this.
On the other hand, they eat aliigator and crocodile eggs.
Much ado about nothing.
Seems like FL should have laws banning the sale/ownership of such non-native animals.
Or maybe they already do but can’t enforce them?
Do they taste like chicken or more fishy?
I’m more fond of reptiles than the average person (we have five so far), but those Nile monitors are scary. They don’t have pleasant personalities like a constrictor snake or a dragon - just eating machines.
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