Hey, Curious305: My neighborhood is overrun by iguanas. How can I get rid of them?

Editor’s Note: This article was inspired by a question submitted from Miami Herald reader Susan Lopez through Curious305, our community-powered reporting series that solicits questions from readers about Miami-Dade, Broward, the Florida Keys and the rest of the Sunshine State. Submit your question here or scroll down to fill out our form.

Hey, Curious305: My neighborhood is flush with iguanas. What can I do to have the city or county get rid of them?

Sorry to have to break it to you: Iguanas are a fact of life in South Florida. These green, scaly reptiles are an ever-present reality once you choose trading in snow shovels for beach chairs.

You’ll see them sprint across highways, peer at you from trees, even show up in your toilet.

“They are literally out of control,” said Harold Rondan, a trapper with Iguana Lifestyles in North Miami Beach. “We can’t stop them because they reproduce like crazy. We just have to contain them.”

Once sexually mature, at around age 3, iguanas reproduce annually, laying an average of 50 eggs, for about 12 years until their death.

But don’t expect to call animal control and have anyone help you if a green thing is lounging on your lawn and looks as if it wants to stay awhile. There is no state or city or local program to remove these animals the way there is for, say, a random opossum or coyote.

So you have two options if an iguana is in your midst and you don’t want it to be:

1. Call in a professional trapper like Rondan, who will come to your house, remove the unwanted visitor and then humanely kill it.

2. Kill it yourself (more on that later).

Kill it? Yes, it must be put down.

“People think they belong here, but they don’t,” Rondan says. “Many don’t realize the law or aren’t educated.”

Iguanas, first introduced to South Florida in the 1960s pet trade, are considered an invasive species. That means they are nonnative animals and have no business being here. They can mess with our ecosystem, lead to the extinction of native plants and animals, and permanently alter habitats.

The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission clearly states that you could be fined if you see an iguana on your property and place it somewhere else. You also can’t own a pet iguana anymore unless you applied for a no-cost permit and microchipped it.

“Like all nonnative reptile species, green iguanas are not protected in Florida except by anti-cruelty law and can be humanely killed on private property with landowner permission,” says the FWC website.

That brings us back to getting rid of your problem. Yes, you can by law capture and kill an iguana that is bugging you in your vicinity without a permit or hunting license.

Rondan says due to the anti-cruelty laws, the animal can’t suffer. They can’t drown or be in prolonged pain. Rondan prefers an air rifle called a Gamo Swarm, currently sold on Amazon for around $340.

“It’s like an upgraded BB gun: quick and painless,” he says, adding that once the iguana is dead with a few shots to the head, you must double bag it before throwing it in the trash.

If this all sounds too brutal or upsetting to take on, Rondan charges around $50 for his removal services. Just recently, he yanked a Mexican spiny tail out of a Hollywood woman’s toilet bowl. The trapper charged her around $300, though, as he added mesh netting over the vent in her roof, which is how the big guy got in there in the first place.

Staff writer Michelle Marchante contributed to this report.

This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 7:00 AM.