SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Silence prevailed in the forest of a private Caribbean island until environmentalists transformed it into a love nest for the critically endangered Ancient Lesser iguana.
Now, the sounds of iguanas grunting on the ground and running as they multiply are making scientists smile.
“It’s something that’s ours,” said Devon Carter, a research officer with the nonprofit Anguilla National Trust. “We don’t have lions, we don’t have elephants, but what we have, we have to appreciate.”
The population of the Lesser Antillean Iguana, also known as Iguana delicatissima, was zero on Prickly Pear East Cay almost ten years ago.
But scientists in nearby Anguilla determined to save the species from extinction put 10 iguanas in small breathable cotton bags and boated them to a predator-free beach in the hope they would breed.
And they breed. The population has increased to 300 and counting, converting the bay into one of five sites worldwide where the iguana is trying to make a comeback. It is estimated that fewer than 20,000 species remain, according to conservation groups.
“Prickly Pear East has become a beacon of hope for these beautiful lizards and shows that when we give native wildlife a chance, they know what to do,” said Jenny Daltry, Caribbean alliance director for conservation groups Fauna & Flora and Re:wild.
Lover and enemy
The indigenous people are estimated to have arrived in the eastern Caribbean about 7,000 years ago.
The iguanas of the Lower Antilles were already there, probably having reached the islands by floating on the debris thrown by the rivers that had caught their shores in South America, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
At that time, iguanas lived around 10 islands, but now they are extinct in Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis and St. Martin, and largely disappeared from Guadeloupe, St. Barts and Martinique, according to the conservation group Re:child.
Her biggest threat? The green, or striped-tailed iguana. Originally from Central and South America, it was introduced to Guadeloupe in the 1800s and then spread to other islands thanks to Hurricane Luis, which hit the northeastern Caribbean in 1995.
Green iguanas have more offspring, are more territorial and eat more food than Lesser Antilles iguanas.
But the biggest issue is that the two species merge with each other.
“It really jeopardizes genetic viability,” said Isabel Curtis, conservation officer with Anguilla National Trust. “If your genetics are diluted, your species as a whole cannot continue.”
So in 2015, scientists in Anguilla armed themselves with long noose-tipped poles to lasso Lesser Antillean iguanas and transport them to Prickly Pear East, where there are no dogs, cats, traffic, green iguanas or other deadly threats.
Residents would call in sightings or take photos to help with the search.
“We spent a good year looking for iguanas,” recalled Farah Mukhida, executive director of Anguilla National Trust. “Everything is done by hand.”
Life on a new island
After a year, scientists captured 23 Lesser Antillean iguanas in Anguilla, a number believed to be almost the entire island population of that species.
The iguanas were genetically tested to make sure they were purebred and then the first 10 were tagged and released in nearby Prickly Pear East, Mukhida said.
Once that population seemed to adapt well to its new home, the scientists released the remaining 13 iguanas.
“We would see babies, we would see their burrows where they were nesting,” Mukhida recalled. “It was really encouraging that they were breeding.”
Lesser Antillean iguanas are bright green when young but turn slate gray or dusty black as adults, with a lifespan of over 20 years in the wild.
But concerns remained despite the successful breeding.
Scientists have reached out to officials on the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica to get more female iguanas in an effort to boost the genetic diversity of the eastern spiny lizards. Dominica has the region’s largest population of Lesser Antilles iguanas, but they too are now threatened by green iguanas that arrived after Hurricane Maria hit the region in 2017.
The petition was sent during the pandemic, so Carter and other scientists had to quarantine first before traveling to Dominica. Once there, they built houses for the captured iguanas, monitored their health and did DNA tests to make sure they weren’t hybrid iguanas.
They fed the iguana flowers, pumpkins and carrots, although some had to be hand-fed with a syringe, Carter recalled with a laugh.
“Those are the ones you remember the most,” he said, adding that he nicknamed one of them “Green.”
The captured iguanas were then flown out of Dominica in a special type of pillowcase and boxes with many breathing holes and landed in Anguilla, where they were then ferried by boat to Prickly Pear East.
Curtis said that saving the iguanas of the Lesser Antilles is important to maintain biodiversity: “Each species has a specific function.”
They are now being bred across the eastern Prickly Pear. It remains uninhabited but welcomes boaters to the cay’s only two restaurants, which sell barbecue chicken, ribs and lobster. Iguanas are not on the menu.
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