PUTTING A HIT ON IGUANAS
Fla. city eyes bounty
Miami Beach’s iguanas may wanna run for the hills.
Officials in the Florida resort city are discussing putting a “dead or alive” bounty on the large lizards in an effort to spark some coldblooded killing of the coldblooded invasive species that has been wreaking havoc on the area.
“People are going to go out and hunt them for money,” Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, one of the city’s six governing commissioners, said at a Wednesday commission meeting.
“I think that’s the better use of our money than hiring some guy with a raccoon cap, five guys with raccoon caps, that are gonna go around to the public properties — they’re not going to go on private properties.”
Rosen Gonzalez’s comments came during a discussion to begin a search for a vendor who would help keep the booming population under control.
“If we don’t do something and take action seriously, every single day these iguanas are multiplying,” she added.
The creatures are an environmental concern and have been leaving mounds of poop wherever they go.
Gonzalez said the iguanas have also been digging up home structures and seawalls.
“I actually find a huge, dead iguana in my pool the other day. It was massive,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it..”
$200K budget
The city has quadrupled its iguana-removal budget from $50,000 to $200,000, Mayor Dan Gelber told WPLG-TV.
Some residents liked the idea of going to war with the animals.
“Something more needs to be done,” resident Barbara Benis told the station. “There is only one way to get into them, and it’s not trapping.”