Southwest Florida residents join effort to collect cold-stunned iguanas

FORT MYERS, Fla. —

Florida Fish and Wildlife officers are collecting frozen, cold-stunned green iguanas Sunday and Monday, following a temporary executive order that allows residents to remove the invasive species from the wild without a permit and take them to designated FWC offices.

Marlin Smith from Bonita Springs said, "I've kind of learned in a lot of my classes that they're, they're really bad for the environment here. So I figured it would be best to kind of collect him and properly dispose of them to kind of overall help the environment here."

Smith expressed enthusiasm about the opportunity to assist wildlife officers and contribute to the ecosystem. "It's nice to engage the public in this too, because, I mean, there's only so many FWC officers and so many environmental scientists. So to allow the public to do this and help them out is a really large collective effort. And I think it's ultimately going to do a lot of good for the ecosystem," he said.

Smith traveled from Bonita Springs to drop off an iguana he found in a pool. "I was doing my rounds this morning at our field station. Just putting all the coolers and furniture that blew blue around last night with that cold front. And I saw this iguana basically frozen in time, right? Right by the side of the pool. So I scooped him up, put him in this box. And then I saw on the news that FWC was taking live iguanas," Smith said.

John Magyar from Fort Myers also found two frozen iguanas this morning. "So woke up this morning and sister-in-law went to go out, go studying, and turns out these were on of her car, so we think one of them fell out of a tree. The one was right next to the car, so we ended up having to push it off the car. Then we try to figure out how to get rid of them humanely," Magyar said.

FWC emphasizes safety when capturing these reptiles, advising anyone collecting iguanas to wear protective gloves, long sleeves, and pants to avoid scratches.

The iguanas must be placed in a secure, escape-proof cloth bag, then put inside a second locked container labeled "prohibited reptiles."

The bags must remain sealed until handed off to FWC staff, as iguanas can thaw out and act defensively with sharp teeth, claws, and powerful tails.

Magyar added, "Honestly, we're just trying to figure out if when we were moving them off the car, if they were going to like, spring to life So we were really hoping they would stay frozen."

Outside of this executive order, people who need help removing iguanas should contact a professional wildlife control operator.

FWC will be collecting cold-stunned iguanas Monday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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