Blue and Beautiful: Mother Nature's Iguanas

              Please feel free to add a comment by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
               
                I have some relatives in the Grand Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, right now, attending to dear friend’s nuptials, and I’ve been lucky enough to receive daily updates courtesy of modern-day technology.

                One such message came through with a beautiful picture of a bright green lizard resting among the tropical foliage.

                “Look at this lizard!” messaged my relative excitedly, “They’re everywhere here. There are blue ones, too, but they’re much rarer and you hardly ever see them.”

                First, the idea of a blue lizard was more than a little intriguing to me. Maybe I’m a little sheltered and naïve when it comes to the world of reptiles, but I kind of thought that lizards were, by and large, green!

                But something else captured my curiosity even more. Why would the green ones be “everywhere” while the blue ones are nearly impossible to find? What would cause that distinction? Why would it be so much more dangerous to be hatched with blue skin than green skin?

                I did some looking-up and found out that the it’s quite an amazing story.

                First, I should point out that those “lizards” are actually Iguana’s. The blue ones grow to about 5 feet in length, and the green ones are just short of that, if you can imagine finding such a creature in your garden. It must be quite a sight!
                Secondly, you should know the green ones were never supposed to be there!

                The Grand Cayman Islands is the indigenous home of the beautiful Blue Iguana. Sometimes it`s even known as the Grand Cayman Blue Iguana. These amazing creatures thrived there quite happily for a long time without any real issue.

                Then, along came peoplekind. And with them came pets. Dogs, kitties and – Green Iguanas!

                Somewhere along the line, some of these little green pets escaped their humans and made themselves quite comfy in the local ecosystem where they are now quite completely settled in as an invasive foreign species. They are the bane of the government`s existence as programs continue to develop to manage the issue, but they`re not really what`s causing the Blue Iguana`s headaches.

                It`s those dogs and kitties.

                You see, the Green Iguana comes from Central and South America where there are plenty of predators. This origin has left the Green Iguana with a natural instinct for recognizing and dodging threats. In other words, they have a gift for high-tailing it.

                The Blue Iguana, on the other hand, has spent many, many, MANY generations on the laid back, relaxed Grand Cayman Island where there wasn`t much to bother it. When people introduced new and unusual animals, such as dogs and cats, the Blue Iguana had no idea what they were or what to make of them. Reports are that the Iguanas will walk right up to a dog or cat and stare at it with no idea that it might pose a threat, until it`s too late. And, consequently, the Blue Iguana has become quite the food staple for the local pet population (with the cats generally taking the younger and smaller Iguanas).

                By 2002, there were only 10 – 25 Blue Iguanas left in the wild. They were, effectively, gone. I wonder how many times we`ll have to go through this before we figure out that there`s a REASON we`re not to bring foreign animals in to countries that are not equipped for them. Those rules are there for a very specific purpose.

                Isn`t it amazing how many of Mother Nature`s beautiful creatures are nearly gone before many of us even hear they exist?

                Thank goodness for the people who aren’t about to standby and let such a thing happen!

                Through the hard and generous work of a few dedicated people, and full-fledged recovery program has been established just for the Blue Iguanas. They’re incubated, fed and released in a conservation facility in the Queen Elizabeth II Botanical Park.

                Today there are about 750 Blue Iguanas. Another great recovery story from Mother Nature!

                There’s still much work to be done, and the Iguanas are not entirely out of the woods just yet. But it’s an amazing start, and it shows what we can do when our hearts our in it.

                So, if you’re ever lucky enough to visit the Cayman Islands, keep a sharp eye out for that flash of bright, vivid blue in the bushes.

Hopefully, there will be a lot more of those blue flashes in the coming years.
 File:Grand Cayman Blue Iguana.jpg            

Comments

Anonymous said…
Welcome to Mother Nature's Compass!