Posted on 04/06/2014 5:29:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Iguanas invade Cape Coral, Florida neighborhood: Reptiles dig seawalls causing safety concern
Some residents in Southwest Florida are worried about an iguana invasion in their neighborhood. They say the creatures are digging up holes behind their seawalls -- a major safety concern for some homeowners.
Now, some residents are going to great lengths to try and get them out of the neighborhood.
"We're really scared," said resident Judy Ross.
The reason for Ross' fear?
"I'm getting a little bit afraid of the large ones like this one that must five, they're measured from head to tail, he must be five feet long," Ross said.
But it's not just the size of these iguanas that has her worried. Ross is also concerned about the damage they might cause her home.
"They dig the dirt next to the seawall and therefore it erodes it. I mean, then there is nothing left behind it, there is no dirt behind it," she said.
Ross says the iguanas have become a growing problem in her southeast Cape Coral neighborhood over the last year. She says she's tried a number of tactics to scare them off for good.
"The garbage can doesn't work anymore. I now have a frond. I had a rake that I would scrape along the bottom, you feel like a fool," says Ross.
But that doesn't stop her from trying some other more unconventional methods.
The city says, because they're not considered a nuisance, they won't bother trapping them. Fortunately, seawall experts say homeowners have little to worry about.
"Unless these iguanas are the size of Godzilla, I don't think there's going to be those small lizards can dig behind the wall to cause damage to a six-inch thick structurally reinforced concrete," says David Mulicka, Honc Marine Contracting.
But they still advise any holes be filled more for general safety than anything else.
"There's no part of this I see being a safety issue or structural issue unless somebody falls in the hole," says Mulicka.
Florida Fish and Wildlife says they've only received a handful of reports of iguanas in Cape Coral. They say if you see them to report them. Officials also say you are allowed to trap and kill them, but there are certain restrictions -- one being you are not allowed to poison them.
Alligator is good. Iguana is not the same.
In Central America they call them Tree Chickens
I’m from the NE so lizards aren’t really a part of my life.
20 yrs ago I was was visiting a friend in Florida and all I can remember is the crunching noise at night if I walked on the grass.
I was thinking the same thing. Hell, we would make pets of them here in Georgia.
I had baked iguana in Saigon 10 years ago. The meat from the back is delectable and tender, better than gator tail meat, lots better.
“A 12ga is overkill. I’d just get a .25 caliber, high-power air rifle and snipe them for free. I’m sure someone out there would love to roast them up!”
A Wrist Rocket sling shot and 5/8 inch hex nuts (14mm) will do a pretty good job as well. And the ammunition is probably easier to get.
I'm a snap shot wiz with a wrist rocket. Two out of three tossed beer cans. No aiming just muscle memory. Many years of archery as a youth trained the muscles.
I’m surprised the Burmese Pythons haven’t eaten them yet.
caption: The New Sport: Freerun Iguana Chicken - Who Balks First?
Back in college, a friend built a dredge he used to fill what is not the Walmart on Cape Coral. The iguanas were five feet long years ago, and not at all uncommon.
The “Endangered Florida Panther” team uses a plane with obsolete tracking gear (mo’ bureaucraps at the Feeding Trough that way), to track those pampered panthers. I have watched that place make the usual higher altitude passes and the final low pass over the “eco-reserve” just on the other side of one of the canals in his development.
Cats, ‘crats, huge reptiles and . . . Snakes Alive, it a python place, too!
“Gotta watch that irregularly shaped ammo. They tend to assume strange curves down range.”
I find the hex nuts fly pretty straight.
We even have some Spanish speaking Anoles all the way up here.
“...it’s getting so you’ve got to strap a board across your butt to keep from being swallowed by some damned critter that can’t understand English”.
What kind of board can we strap across our butts to keep from being swallowed up by some collectivist beast?
Ans: One from an ammo box.
;-)
The hand waving is part of their breeding behavior, they get up high and wave at the lady lizards.
They are forcing the little Carolina Anoles out.
![Brown Anole [CUBAN ANOLE] Anolis sagrei sagrei photo 0807p740.jpg](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/tsiya/media/BUGS%20AND%20BEASTS/LIZARDS/0807p740.jpg.html)
An enterprising resident should open a barbecued iguana stand!
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