There were some fat looking Blue Iguanas waddling around in the QE II Botanic Park in June, and taking a close interest in them is volunteer Bridget Donaldson. Bridget recently finished her Master's thesis at the University of Tennessee, and is taking a month off in Cayman before returning to start work in the USA. For her month in Cayman, the Blumenthal family has generously offered Bridget accommodation in their guest cottage.

The iguanas are about to lay their eggs, and Bridget's task is to track them and spot the places where they burrow to make their underground nests. She's also working with the Trust's Fred Burton to measure the success of the captive breeding and release programme for Blue Iguanas in the Botanic Park. Over the past 4 years some 35 captive-bred iguanas have been released into the Park, many sponsored by individuals and staff of local companies. We are working to find out how many have survived and remained in the Park, how well are they growing, and to what extent are they now breeding in the wild.

This month of intensive fieldwork is part of a larger project to move the Trust's Blue Iguana conservation programme forward, funded by the British Government's FCO Environment Fund for the Overseas Territories. It also marks the beginning of an ongoing collaboration with the University of Tennessee.

So far results are extremely encouraging. Healthy survivors have been recaptured, measured, tagged and released, from all of the groups that have been released over the last 4 years.Two youngsters have been identified as wild hatched, confirmation that our released iguanas began breeding in the wild last year! This year by mid June we were watching the first female digging a tunnel to lay her eggs. By the time this study is complete, we should be able to judge whether we have reached a major landmark: have we reached the point where the released population in the Botanic Park can maintain itself or increase without more releases? When we reach that point, it will be time to move our release programme to a different protected area, perhaps within the Mastic Reserve.

Healthy survivors have been recaptured, measured, tagged and released, from all of the groups that have been released over the last 4 years.

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