How You Can Help Fast Facts Remember, these lizards are protected • Among the most endangered by Bahamian and international lizards in the world laws. Please do not bring your pets • Protected by Bahamian to iguana-inhabited islands. You & international laws should NOT feed iguanas because it changes behavioural norms and may • Can weigh up to 11 kg (24 lbs) be harmful to their health. However, • Can live to be 80 years old it is recognized that the Allen Cays • Eat mainly leaves, fl owers & fruits are a traditional iguana-feeding • Breed every one to three years destination. If you must indulge, restrict any feeding to Leaf Cay of the • Construct nests in sand during Allen Cays and use only fruits and June & July vegetables. To avoid collapsing nest • Deposit up to 10 eggs burrows, do not walk on sandy areas • Hatchlings emerge from nests after behind beaches. You can help protect 90 days iguanas by sharing this information with other people and reporting harmful behaviour to the Park Warden at the Cays Land and Sea Park on VHF 16. You can also become a member of National Trust and support ongoing iguana research programmes in the area. Visit our website at www.bnt.bs for additional information and to learn how you can help.

The Bahamas National Trust On your next visit to the Bahamas, you P.O. Box N-4105, Nassau, Bahamas might be lucky enough to see one of Email: [email protected] these massive yet harmless lizards in a www.bnt.bs Tel: 242-393-1317 natural setting. Please remember, these Fax: 242-393-4978 lizards are to be enjoyed from a distance Exumas Land and Sea Park and left undisturbed. Exuma iguanas are VIBE 242-225-1791 as integral to these islands as the soft Photo Credits: Sandra Buckner, sand beaches and lush palms. They also Kirsten Hines, Chuck Knapp, Lynne Pieper embody the unique and exotic character Published Spring 2009 by The Bahamas National Trust of the Exumas. VISITOR INFORMATION: VISITOR EXUMA INFORMATION: IGUANAS Exumas. The other species (Cyclura population of 15,000 individuals was rileyi cristata) is commonly called the driven almost to extinction in only White Cay Iguana and is found only three years after the introduction of on a cay east of George Town, Great a handful of dogs and cats onto that Exuma. island.

These iguanas have been peaceably The contemporary wave of human munching leaves and nibbling fruit settlers also signaled the beginning of for millennia. Their herbivorous habitat loss and a booming lifestyle is important because they industry. Protection traditionally help disperse seeds, which maintains offered in the form of isolation has local plant communities. As the largest begun to erode as more yachtsmen naturally occurring animals on the cruise the Exumas and tourists visit islands, adult iguanas have no natural the islands. Humans bring with them Iguanas of the Exuma predators, although young iguanas their dogs, cats, and unwittingly Islands, Bahamas may fall prey to birds and snakes. This harmful behaviour of feeding the comfortable existence was disrupted lizards. Please enjoy these unique Visitors to the Exuma Islands may be when Amerindians colonized the islands creatures, but be wary of your impacts. fortunate to observe some of the rarest between 500 to 1,000 years ago. These iguanas in the Caribbean. These lizards peoples hunted iguanas for food and are two of nine species of rock iguanas may have transported them between belonging to the genus Cyclura that islands. inhabit the rugged terrains of a few Caribbean Islands. The real threat to the iguanas’ survival, however, came with the arrival of The two species of iguanas inhabiting Europeans – and their cats, dogs, the Exuma Islands are considered to hogs, and goats. Allowed to roam, be among the world’s most endangered and sometimes becoming feral, these lizards and are found nowhere else. One introduced animals have competed species (Cyclura cychlura) is divided with or preyed on the native iguanas. A into two related subspecies – the Allen striking example of the damage infl icted Cays Iguana and the Exuma Island on an iguana population is underscored Iguana. These iguanas are found only on by a study on one island in the Turks a few cays in the northern and central and Caicos Islands where an iguana