Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Lizard Lounging

The News-Press is reporting that Florida's Sanibel Island is so fed up with the green iguanas (Iguana iguana) and Nile monitor lizards (Varanus niloticus) roaming the island that they've hired a trapper to round them up. Trapper Wildlife Services will get $20 for every iggie they catch and kill, and will get paid an hourly rate to track down the larger and nastier monitor lizards. This is the same Sanibel that said no to removing invasive Australian pines because it was too expensive. This time things are apparently more serious: a wildlife refuge on the island has contributed $20,000 towards the lizard eradication efforts.

Thanks to Jason at Cephalopodcast.com for sending in a link to this story.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The pines have been there for many decades, at least until the hurricane hit a couple of years ago. Not sure how many are standing now.
Too bad alligators don't eat more of those lizards. Sanibel has plenty of those.

Oh, and thanks a lot...now you've pointed it out I see Japanese knotweed all along Rt 1 near my home. What to do? Is there a state agency to report it too? It's along watershed but not yet in it.

-Vertalio (having trouble with Blogger)