Microlivestock Little-Known Small Animals with a Promising Economic Future (1991) / Chapter Skim
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33 Green Iguana
33 Green Iguana
Pages 347-354
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From page 347... ...
By growing lizards, farmers don't have to fell the forests to create space for growing food crops or cattle. Iguana farming thus gives an economic incentive to preserve the beleaguered tracts of remaining trees.
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From page 348... ...
STATUS Green iguanas were formerly abundant throughout Central America, but no longer. In the mangrove forests along Mexico's Pacific coast, for instance, only 5 percent of the former population remains.
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From page 349... ...
Small and leathery shelled, they are considered special delicacies and are said to cure various ailments. There is a sizable demand for live iguanas in the international pet trade.
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350 MICROLIVESTOCK it' ~> _ A: _: ~: :: ~ : I: ~_
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From page 351... ...
[Iere, for five years, assisted by a steady stream of enthusiastic Panamanian biology students, Werner experimented with cages, feeds, facilities, breeding genetic selection, and the myriad aspects of management. These dedicated researchers eventually devised what might be considered a production line, and they hatched and raised tens of thousands of green iguanas, reduced the animals' infant mortality rate, and created the basic underpinnings for economic production.
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From page 352... ...
prefer this to digging their own tunnels, and it is an important advance in iguana breeding because it produces a hatching success of close to 100 percent. Recent versions require no human intervention: the eggs incubate and hatch by themselves and the hatchlings climb out of the nest through a hollow bamboo "pipe" and fall into plastic bags, which can be easily emptied twice a day.
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From page 353... ...
Unless grossly overstocked, they are unlikely to affect the productivity of the trees. LIMITATIONS These lizards may take three years to reach marketable sized and the cost of raising them to usable size entirely in captivity is currently greater than their market value as food.
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