Iguana...it’s what’s for dinner
Bottom Line: Alright, it doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it as beef does it? And for whatever reason I also can’t envision the same larger than life manly voice on the commercials either. Anyway, a national story, potentially only second to impeachment palooza yesterday played out right here in South Florida. Turns out the national news media loves a good falling iguana story and we had those courtesy of the biggest cold snap to hit us in over two years. Throughout the day it wasn’t just about the falling iguanas...stories started becoming mainstreamed about what to do with them. Like eating them. If this is new to you, it’s not a new thing. In fact, last July when the FWC first put out this recommendation...
- FWC encourages homeowners to kill green iguanas on their own property whenever possible.
I had an idea to constructively deal with the problem. Eat them. Moreover, hunt them and sell them for meat. At the time I mentioned this...Maybe part of the solution would be attempting to capitalize on the “meat” market for iguanas.Similar to what we’ve done with lionfish, another invasive species. If people can profit by hunting iguanas for consumption, professionals would have greater incentive to step in and step-up efforts to hunt them. The Exotic Meat Market currently sells boneless iguana meat for about $60 per pound. That’s quite literally food for thought.
I still haven’t consumed iguana myself and it doesn’t sound like the most appetizing thing to me, but if someone’s paying $60 per pound. It’s a thing. And with greater attention being paid to the concept – it could become a much bigger thing. The iguana problem in South Florida is a land-based version of our lionfish issues. Lionfish are cool to look at but invasive and with no known predators. So, what to do? Eat them. Lionfish became a delicacy selling for a premium in grocery stores and in recent years we’ve begun to make progress combating their numbers in our waters. If national news media wants to play up eating our falling iguanas, perhaps it’s a good idea for enterprising South Floridians to capitalize and solve a growing crisis that only a freeze like we had ten years ago can otherwise solve. Plus, I’d like to hear the auditions for the voice of the “Iguana” peddler.