Free Republic

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...

LOS ANGELES — A man accused of stealing three endangered iguanas from a nature preserve in Fiji and smuggling them into the United States in his prosthetic leg has been indicted. Jereme James, 33, of Long Beach, faces a single count of smuggling, according to a federal indictment returned Friday in Los Angeles. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Prosecutors say James stole the Fiji Island banded iguanas while visiting the South Pacific island in September 2002. He then brought the reptiles to the U.S. by hiding them in a special compartment he had constructed...

BOCA GRANDE, Fla. -- Death and taxes may be life's only certainties, but for folks in this upscale island town, add iguanas. And another tax. During the last three decades, the resort community on Florida's Gulf Coast has been overrun by the spiny-tailed, nonnative lizards that demolish gardens, nest in attics and weaken beach dunes with burrows. Last month, Lee County commissioners agreed to create a special tax for Boca Grande to cover costs of studying the infestation on the barrier island of Gasparilla, where scientists estimate there are up to 12,000 iguanas on the loose, more than 10 for...