Coronavirus has cut into Sanibel's iguana-eradication program, so residents will likely see more of the reptiles this summer

Sanibel residents should brace for a bright green baby boom if the island’s coronavirus-curtailed iguana trapping program stays suspended.

On Wednesday, city officials announced that its $40,000-a-year eradication program would be shuttered because of the virus’ impact on the budget.

Cape Coral trapper Chris Harlow, who had the iguana control contract, is realistic about the economic forces that led to the city’s decision. “Honestly, it’s going to be devastating to me, but what are you going to do? I can’t control it – it’s all about the budget.”

Last fiscal year, he removed 1,267 of the invasive exotic reptiles, said Holly Milbrandt, the city's deputy natural resources director.

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Now that he won’t be making his weekly hunting trips, residents will likely be seeing a lot more of the green critters come summer, Harlow says.

“It’s like pest control,” he says. “You can’t just stop it.”

Originally from warmer parts of the Americas, these 3- to 5-foot long reptiles began showing up in Southwest Florida in the middle of the 20th century. Some had stowed away in produce shipments, while others were freed from the pet trade. They've thrived in this region, where they can grow to be almost 20 pounds and live a decade or so.

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Females lay between 60 and 80 eggs per nest, he says, and of those, about 30 or 40 will hatch.

“The math is crazy. Say you’ve got one female per house around a lake, and they all lay eggs,” he says. “So if you have 10 females, and they all have 30 babies, you just went to 300 just like that — boom. From 10 iguanas to 300 just in one season … Everything we worked hard for is going to be right back where it was.”

Should the island get too crowded, he points out iguanas are decent swimmers. "St. James City, the mainland –  they're not too far away."

Plus, he says, "They hitchhike. If you park in an area where there are a lot of them, they can get up into your car frame and you can take 'em home with you."

At the Sanibel Island Golf Course, which Harlow calls ground zero for the island’s iguanas, he’d been making good progress.

“In the past, you could go out and see ones that were 5 feet long to ones that were a foot long and obviously newborns,” says golf pro Gene Taylor. “But you don’t see that as much now.”

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When they do appear, golfers generally don’t mind, he says. “The general public that comes from other areas think they’re really neat to see, and they don’t understand the problems with them."

Those problems include their tendency to burrow under foundations, seawalls and sidewalks and eat landscape plants and gardens, though they'll occasionally dine on bird eggs and tree snails. They also like to poop on docks, Harlow says.

Even with the trapping program in place, the city expected the iguana population to expand.

“Since the green iguana is an invasive species not native to Florida, it has very few predators. Couple that with a high reproductive rate (females lay between 14-76 eggs at a time) and it seems likely that the population will continue to grow.”

So what’s a homeowner to do? As far as the state of Florida is concerned, they’re welcome to take matters into their own hands, provided they can do it safely.

Milbrandt points out Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has online tips for discouraging or capturing them.

Failing that, “The city recommends that interested property owners hire a nuisance wildlife trapper for assistance with trapping and killing iguanas on their private property.”

Now that Harlow is out of the picture, the only significant anti-iguana forces will be homeowners who want to shell out to hire a trapper themselves and the seasonal cold snaps.

Chilly weather can stun or even kill the cold-blooded creatures; in January, a near-freeze sent them tumbling from Sanibel trees.

The cold-blooded reptiles can’t regulate their own body temperatures, so if the surrounding air gets too cold, they become torpid, which means they have trouble moving and appear stunned. Temperatures too low for too long can kill them.

But, Milbrandt points out, “We haven’t experienced a significant cold spell since January 2010.”