During this cold snap in South Florida, you might be waking up to the all too common sight of iguanas frozen, but alive on the ground, usually after they fell out of a tree.
Something has been missing during the last two days of walks near Belia Ipina’s Boynton Beach apartment off of Renaissance Commons Boulevard.
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“Usually if it’s hot, doesn’t really matter, like 70s, 80s, 90s (iguanas are) out here, and I can see anywhere from 30 to 40,” she said. “(But) I haven’t seen any out here.”
Small ones, big ones, old, young, doesn’t matter, she added.
“They just chill and hang out with the ducks,” she said.
Admittedly, she has a soft spot for them, but they are invasive. It’s one of the nuisance animals that David Finely from DS Trapping traps.
“When they get cold, their body temperature drops,” Finely said.
There’s two options, he says, for the iguanas:
1) Get under cover somewhere.
“When it gets cold they try to find warm spots to go to stay warm,” he said.
2) Or they enter an alive, but frozen state in a tree, eventually falling out. He says in his experience it usually has to get into the 30s or colder.
He woke up to 10 locked in place in his backyard Wednesday morning. Trapping them was easy as they made no attempt to get away.
“I’m just trying to get rid of them all,” he said
If you do see them, call FWC or a trapper. Do not touch them or try to wake them up.