SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Silence reigned in the jungle of a private Caribbean island until environmentalists turned it into a love nest for the critically endangered Lesser Antillean iguana.
Now, the sounds of iguanas falling to the ground and scurrying around as they multiply are making scientists smile.
“It’s ours,” said Devon Carter, research officer for the nonprofit Anguilla National Trust. “We don’t have lions, we don’t have elephants, but what we have, we should appreciate.”
The population of the Lesser Antillean iguana, also known as Iguana delicatissima, was nearly zero on Prickly Pear East Cay a decade ago.
But scientists in nearby Anguilla, determined to save the species from extinction, strapped 10 iguanas into small, breathable cotton bags and brought them from boat to boat in the hope that they would breed without predators.
And they bred. The population has grown to 300 and counting, making Caye one of five sites worldwide where the iguana is trying to make a comeback. Fewer than 20,000 species are estimated to remain, according to conservation groups.
“Prickly Pear East is a beacon of hope for these magnificent lizards and they know what to do when we give local wildlife a chance,” said Jenny Daltry, director of the Caribbean Alliance for conservation groups Fauna & Flora and Re:Wild.
A lover and an enemy
Aborigines are estimated to have arrived in the Eastern Caribbean around 7,000 years ago.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, less likely Antillean iguanas were already there, floating on debris from rivers that burst their banks in South America to reach the islands.
At the time, iguanas inhabited about 10 islands, but they are now extinct in Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis and St. Martin, and largely gone from Guadeloupe, St. Barts and Martinique, according to the conservation group Re:Wild.
Its biggest threat? The green, or strip-tailed, iguana. Originally from Central and South America, it was introduced to Guadeloupe in the 1800s and then spread to other islands in 1995 due to Hurricane Lewis, which devastated the northeastern Caribbean.
Green iguanas have more offspring, are more territorial and eat more food than Lesser Antillean iguanas.
But the biggest problem is that both species get along with each other.
“It really threatens genetic viability,” said Isabelle Curtis, conservation officer at the Anguilla National Trust. “If your genetics are diluted, your species cannot continue as a whole.”
So in 2015, scientists in Anguilla armed themselves with long poles with lassos attached to the ends of Lesser Antillean iguanas and transported them to Prickly Pier East, where there are no dogs, cats, traffic, green iguanas or other deadly threats.
Residents will call in sightings or take pictures to help with the search.
“We had a great year looking for iguanas,” recalls Farah Mukhida, executive director of the Anguilla National Trust. “It’s all done by hand.”
Life on a new island
A year later, scientists captured 23 Lesser Antillean iguanas in Anguilla, a number believed to be nearly the entire island population of that species.
The iguanas were genetically tested to ensure they were full-bred, and then the first 10 were tagged and released at nearby Prickly Pier East, Mukhida said.
Once that population appeared to be adapting well to their new home, the scientists released the remaining 13 iguanas.
“We were seeing babies, we were seeing where their nest was,” Mukhida recalls. “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 lifespans exceeding 20 years.
But despite the successful breeding, concerns remained.
The scientists reached out to authorities in the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica to obtain more female iguanas to boost the genetic diversity of the lizards produced at Prickly Pier East. Dominica has the region’s largest population of Lesser Antillean iguanas, but they too are now under threat from green iguanas that arrived after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
The petition was sent during the pandemic, so Carter and the other scientists had to quarantine before traveling to Dominica. Once there, they built homes for the captured iguanas, monitored their health and ran DNA tests to make sure they weren’t hybrid iguanas.
They fed the iguanas flowers, pumpkins and carrots, although some had to be hand-fed with syringes, Carter recalled with a laugh.
“They’re the ones you remember the most,” he said, adding that he nicknamed one of them “Green.”
The captured iguanas were then flown from Dominica in boxes with a special type of pillow and many breathing holes and landed in Anguilla, where they were taken by boat to Prickly Pier East.
Curtis said saving the Lesser Antillean iguanas is important to maintaining biodiversity: “Each species has a specific function.”
They are now breeding in the Prickly Pear East. It remains uninhabited but welcomes boaters to the Cay’s only two restaurants, which sell barbecued chicken, ribs and lobster. Iguanas are not on the menu.
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