I was watching a show on Animal Planet about invasive exotic species the other day. One of the animals featured was the Nile Monitor Lizard.
The lizards' weapons include: sharp, snake-like teeth, long, muscular tails they use as whips, and claws that look like the sinister pendants of voodoo necklaces. They can climb, run up to 18 miles per hour on land, and swim under water for an hour at a time. They grow up to 9 feet and are carnivorous. They’re no
t picky eaters. Bugs, frogs, smaller lizards, turtles, birds, rodents, baby alligators, endangered gopher tortoises, endangered burrowing owls, the eggs and offspring of any of these animals, feral cats, domestic cats, possibly even the family dog, road kill, whatever. They sometimes hunt in packs. It is clear to see why they wreck so much havoc in Southwest Florida. “They have the potential to devastate native fish and wildlife populations."
Local legend has it that a pet store went bankrupt sometime in the '80s and the proprietor let loose a gaggle of monitors in an area where, back then, almost nobody lived. Another theory is that wholesale distributors of exotic pets dumped monitors on purpose in the hope that they would procreate and provide a steady inventory to later be caught and sold. A third idea is that a series of owners over the years bought monitors when they were still small and then couldn't or didn't want them anymore when they began to grow into small dinosaurs.
Sightings in Cape Coral have become less because people are moving out of the city and therefore there are less people to make the calls.
They're down there, in the man-made canals, and you might not see them, but you sure see their burrows, deep holes dug into the dirt on the banks, and if you traipse around all that Brazilian pepper and cabbage palm they'll smell you before you see them. They're moving, eating, looking for mates. They're making more babies.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/wildlife/article1011745.ece
No comments:
Post a Comment