Learning about iguanas through games, children laughed and played in Anegada at the annual Iguana Fest on Monday.
“In my mind, it’s like an all-day outdoor birthday party for iguanas,” organiser Kelly Bradley said during the event on Monday morning.
The community festival, which began in 2012, was held at the Anegada Rock Iguana Headstart Facility, where attendees from Anegada and other islands were each given a free blue t-shirt that featured an image of the reptile.
Volunteers, many of whom were students at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College, facilitated the games, which all connected back to iguana education.
One game, for example, taught kids the differences between the native Anegada rock iguana and the invasive green iguana.
Educating residents on how to identify the two is vital to protecting the native species, according to Ms. Bradley, a consulting researcher for the Anegada facility who is based at the Forth Worth Zoo in Texas.
“The main thing is, our first line of defence is residents being able to see an iguana and be like, ‘Oh, that’s not the right one. That’s not the one that’s supposed to be here,’” she said.
Prizes, art and food
In the afternoon, participants won raffle prizes, and art contest winners were announced.
Attendees also enjoyed free hotdogs and hamburgers as well as food sold by the Anegada Lions Club.
Bernadette Faulkner, a National Parks Trust employee who cares for the iguanas at the head start facility, said children look forward to the event each year.
“I like it too,” she added. “It’s something where you can come, just chill out and relax.”
Between playing the various games, children checked out the iguanas at the facility. They are not the only ones: Ms. Faulkner said visitors are common.
Head start facility
The iguanas in the facility are collected as hatchlings and remain in captivity until they are large enough to fend against the feral cats on the island, according to Ms. Bradley.
The programme began in 1997, and it has helped build up the iguana population.
Through a collaboration between the NPT and the international Iguana Specialist Group and with the help of local partners, cages of different sizes were bought for the reptiles, according to Ms. Bradley.
“We started letting animals go in 2003, and I radio-tracked the first 72 animals, and we know that 80 percent of what we put back survives at least two years,” she said. “And that’s an amazing survivorship.”
More than 300 Anegada rock iguanas have been released back into the wild through the programme, according to Ms. Bradley.
That number will rise next week when she releases some of the larger captive iguanas. “When I do the release, I always have a group that I take out — sixth grade and up,” she said. “We’ll rent a little safari bus and we’ll go out, and I will have picked an easy place to get to. Then I let the kids let them go.”
Growing population
The programme, she said, has had a positive impact on the species’ population.
“When this programme started, it was probably 200 iguanas left, and now we’re probably at 550,” she said.
Though the programme continues to thrive, Ms. Bradley said it faced some “bumps in the road” in recent years.
Hatchling collections, for instance, were hindered by Hurricane Irma in 2017 and the Covid-19 restrictions three years later. Despite these disruptions, Ms. Bradley said the iguanas in the facility are thriving under the careful care of Ms. Faulkner.
“They’re her babies, and she is here Monday through Friday feeding them,” Ms. Bradley said, adding, “She makes extra care on their salad that she feeds them, and she is just stupendous.”
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