Once thought extinct, 21 endangered Jamaican iguanas released into wild
The Jamaican Iguana Recovery Programme released 21
critically endangered Jamaican iguanas in the Hellshire Hills in St Catherine
on Tuesday.
In a series of tweet
documenting the moment, the programme said that to date 489 individuals have
been released back into the wild.
The Hope Zoo programme said
the iguanas are all five years old.
The Jamaican Iguana was
thought to be extinct for nearly half a century until it was rediscovered in
the remote Hellshire Hills in 1990. It then became the subject of an intensive
effort to recover the species, employing a combination of nest protection,
predator control, and head start/release, the International Iguana Foundation
said.
Interested individuals can
help support the project by adopting a Jamaican iguana at iguanafoundation.org/adopt-an-iguana/.
