The adverse affects of introduced species on the everglades
While guiding tourists through the everglades, I see them pointing at all the different birds, animals and fish. While gliding slowly through a hardwood hammock on the tour boat, everyone is enchanted with the beauty of the jungle like surroundings.
I always ask the tourists to play tour guide with me by pointing at anything they see and telling everyone where it is. The way I see it, if we are all looking we will see so much more. Now the tourists are all tour guides and they start pointing at fish, turtles, birds, flowers, trees, and, of course, alligators.
As we float down the channel a tourist will usually stand up, pointing and hollering, "LOOK AT THAT GIANT IGUANA." Everyone looks for that cute little iguana they may have seen in a pet store. Folks, we don’t have those cute little iguanas. We have big iguanas about 3 to 6 feet long. I tell the tourists that people collect reptiles in south Florida and when they leave and can’t take their reptiles with them, they just drop them off in the everglades on their way out of town. I tell the tourists that South Florida is part of the tropics and any reptile released in the everglades has a great chance to survive.
An adult female iguana can lay up to 50 eggs per season, usually in a small burrow at the base of a tree or stump. Mother iguanas will not stay to take care of the eggs or the babies when they hatch. Out of those 50 eggs, only 4 to 10 will go on to reach adulthood.
That is a lot of iguanas for a small hardwood hammock in the everglades. The iguanas live in the trees and seem to hide from predators better than the young alligators.
The undisputed king of reptiles in the everglades is the alligator, and the female alligator will lay up to 60 eggs but only 1 or 2 of her babies will go on to reach adulthood. Wading birds, fish, animals and other alligators kill and eat baby alligators. They would, of course, eat the baby iguanas too if they could find them.
My tourist / tour guides, thirsting for knowledge, always ask, " Hey Glenn, are there any adverse affects to the everglades because of the introduced species?" Simple answer, yes. Six years ago I would tell everyone that I hadn’t seen any problem with the iguanas being here. I would tell them that most of the lizards in the Everglades are small and eat insects and small fish. At the time I saw no problems. Boy, was I wrong. Here’s one example.
Traveling through a hardwood hammock you’ll see a large number of custard apple trees or pond apples as we locals call them. When the pond apple trees are in bloom, the blossoms are everywhere. At the end of the blossoming cycle the pond apple petals fall into the water and float around the trees. Five years ago, I noticed there weren’t as many pond apples hanging in the trees. I didn’t think much of it until the next year when I saw fewer pond apples again. A good friend, Keith Price works for another airboat tour company (Coopertown Airboat Rides) just a few miles from my home base at Gator Park. While talking with Keith one day I said. "Wow Keith, what’s up with the pond apple trees, I hardly see any pond apples anymore." Keith looked at me, kind of puzzled, and said, "I don’t know what you’re talking about." Keith said the trees in the hammock that they travel through were full of pond apples. For the next 2 years, I kept looking for a reason why the pond apples trees that I saw were not producing as many apples as they had in previous years. Last year I finally figured out what was happening. I was driving tourists through the hammock and telling them to look for iguanas. The pond apples were blooming and I noticed an iguana eating the new blossoms. Iguanas are omnivorous and will eat meat and plants but they are more partial to plants and fruits. Iguanas have an enormous appetite and prefer certain flowers. The hibiscus flower is their favorite food. The iguanas that live in our suburbs can devastate someone’s hibiscus garden in just a matter of days. People also feed their dogs and cats outside. It doesn’t take long for an iguana to figure out where the easy meal is. Some big iguanas have been known to defend the food dish and challenge the dog or cat for the food in the dish. Pond apple blooms apparently suffice when there aren’t any hibiscus around. As I watched the iguana it went from one flower to the other eating all he could. I didn’t have the time to wait and see how many he would eat and continued my tour. The pond apple flower is small, so the iguana would have to eat a lot of them for a good meal. Kind of like when Gatorman goes to into town for the "all you can eat" shrimp dinner.
The pond apple trees don’t bloom all at the same time. This year as the pond apples were blooming I watched the iguanas eat flower after flower every day. I’m not sure what the effect of the iguanas eating the pond apple blossoms will be. I am sure the outcome will not be good for the pond apple trees in the future.
When people let their reptiles loose in the everglades, I’m sure they have no idea what the adverse consequences can be. This is why people should always learn more about the reptile they want, before they buy it.
I mentioned this in another story, but in places like Key Biscayne and Key Largo, Florida, the iguanas have become a threat to people driving. Big iguanas run out into the road and people swerve off the road to avoid them. This is dangerous for the driver of the car and pedestrians on the sidewalks. This is also disastrous for the car or what the car may hit when it runs off the road. Every one of the iguanas in south Florida was introduced here, either by accident or on purpose and the affects are now dangerously apparent
Thanks for stopping in to read my story this month.
NATURE RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GATORMAN (Glenn W. Wilsey Sr.)
,,,((__>….. zoooooooooommmmmmmm
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