Anegada Iguana Project

The Anegada iguana is endemic to the small island of Anegada in the British Virgin Islands. With fewer than 300 individuals remaining, this iguana is one of the rarest lizards in the world. Increasing pressures from people and their domestic animals are the primary threats to the Anegada iguana. Land clearing destroys habitat, feral livestock (including cattle, donkeys, and goats) trample nest sites and severely over-browse native vegetation that iguanas depend on for food, and feral cats kill nearly all yearly hatchlings. As a result, the iguana population on Anegada has been declining for decades and now occupies only a small fraction of the island and consists almost entirely of aging adults.

Previous CRES work on the island of Anegada focused on establishing an iguana headstarting program to increase population recruitment and prevent extinction in the short term. This program has been very successful. Over the past few years, 72 headstarted iguanas were returned to the wild with an impressive 85 percent survival rate, providing the population with a substantial increase in young adults and significantly reducing the immediate threat of extinction.

In the future, CRES will continue to headstart animals on Anegada, but will also increase studies of the resident wild population to better document its distribution, size, demography, and ecology. Because full recovery of the Anegada iguana will require habitat protection and eradication of feral mammals, CRES is partnering with other conservation organizations, such as The Nature Conservancy and Island Conservation, to work toward establishing a national park and controlling mammals, as outlined in the Anegada Iguana Species Recovery Plan.

More

Caribbean Iguana Recovery Program
Turks and Caicos Iguana Recovery Program
Lesser Antilles Iguana Project
Bahamas Iguana Project
Animal Bytes: Iguana