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Iguana

Fort Lauderdale Iguana Control

We are experts at South Florida Iguana removal.  We understand that these exotic lizards have no place in Florida, and are often a nuisance to homeowners. They breed in high numbers, and swarm all over the Fort Lauderdale area.  They can be seen in yards, in vegetation, basking on docks, and in canals, amongst other places.  They eat vegetation such as include hibiscus (flowers and leaves) including rosellia, nasturtium (flowers and leaves), orchids, Impatiens, rose petals, violets (flowers and leaves), pansy flowers, and geranium petals. Many people simply don't want to deal with them any more, so we remove them!  

We employ a variety of iguana catching techniques.  Sometimes we hand capture, such as seen in the above photo.  This is an effective means of capture in situations with confined iguanas in unwanted areas.  Sometimes we use a snare pole, when we want to get iguanas that are difficult to reach and out of our grasp.  Snaring is a good way to catch them.  We also trap and remove iguanas with cage traps, such as seen in the photo on the right.  We use a variety of fruits and can catch several iguanas at once, to make sure that we reduce the population on your property significantly.  We can never eradicate them 100%, but we come close.  

Fort Lauderdale Wildlife    Email: david@247wildlife.com      Residential & Commercial      Licensed & Insured

I wrote to an expert herpatologist about the iguana issue, and she had this to say about south Florida's iguana problem:

Due to natural disasters destroying pet stores, importers' warehouses, and homes, and idjit people releasing unwanted pets, many exotic species thrive in Florida where too many of them have become pests that too many people don't want around their homes and yards.

There really is nothing that can effectively be done. Where there is one feralized iguana (either a released/escaped pet gone feral, or the descendents of ferilized iguanas), there will be many. Removing one or two from someone's backyard makes the homeowner feel better, but chances are likely that more iguanas will move into the territory within a couple of months or so.

Male igs especially are highly territorial, so releasing captured ones will cause some displacement in the social heirarchy that exists in the population residing in the release area, which will ultimately result in some other homeowner finding his ornamental flowers being eaten and swimming pool or pond being pooped in.

If your friend is willing to relocate them and can find an area safe to release them in, that's the best that can be done, especially if he is getting paid for it. Relocation does stress the iguanas, which may increase their risk of getting ill, injured or eaten by something else (probably another ferilized exotic), but it beats a homeowner trying to club one to death or ineffectively shooting it with a weapon. Between the problems caused by the feral green iguana and the habitat-destroying and wildlife-consuming spinytailed (black) iguanas, central and southern Florida is really experiencing the worst of what the pet trade has to offer...

Iguanas don't get or spread rabies. The males can become extremely aggressive towards all animals (and any creature perceived as being competition for females and terrirtory, including humans) during iguana breeding season, but breeding season aggression and its triggers are far different from the behavior and triggers of a rabid mammal.

Iguanas of both sexes are superbly equipped to fend of 'attacks' by predators and others: the rough scales and rigid dorsal crest of the tail, their claws, their teeth, and the marvelous way they thrash and roll trying to break out of the grasp of whatever has grabbed them is just instinctive behavior that evolved as a way to not get eaten. People who aren't prepared to have their skin rasped off or flayed into bloody ribbons, be they the general public with unwanted iguanas in their yards, or pet owners who haven't a clue about how to properly tame or even handle them, are going to suffer the brunt of these injuries from feral iguanas doing just what comes naturally.