Record number of Jamaican Iguanas Released as Part of Ongoing Recovery Program

One of the most endangered lizards in the world at one point has made a big comeback. Thought to be extinct for nearly half a century, the Jamaican Iguana was rediscovered in 1990 when a pig hunter's dog caught an adult male, the first specimen seen alive since the 1940s. Even though they used to be hunted a lot a long time ago, the introduced Indian Mongoose poses the greatest threat to their continued survival by taking a high percentage of eggs and young iguanas, resulting in an aging adult population. However this trend has been reversed through a head-start and release program that has increased the number of nesting females by five fold from eight to 40. What they basically do is take in the eggs and care for the iguanas then them more and more over time. This has more than doubled the population of the iguanas and has been one of the leading conservation success stories today. I think this is really cool that they saved an endangered species that was pretty much extinct. This justs goes to show that if you take initiative a species will not go extinct. http://www.enn.com/press_releases/4157