UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Supports Blue Iguana Project

The Trust is to receive a £29,000 grant from the FCO's Environment Fund for the Overseas Territories, to continue work towards conservation of the Grand Cayman Blue Iguana. With encouragement and assistance from the Governor's Staff Officer, Kevin Mowbray, the grant application was submitted last October and met with support and approval by H.E. the Governor. News from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office that the grant had been finally approved in London, came last November.

The money will be used during 2001 for four major components of the Blue Iguana Conservation Programme:

• A study of the nutritional content of the diet of released iguanas, compared with the food they are given in captivity, will be used to improve the diet of our captive breeding stock. We hope this will improve breeding success, which has been declining over the last few years.

• Field studies in the QE II Botanic Park will assess the population we have established by releasing captive bred youngsters over the last 4 years. We hope to learn how soon breeding among the animals we have released will sustain the population in the Park without the need for further releases.

• Several alternatives will be investigated for the next release site, so we are ready for the time the QE II Botanic Park's population becomes self-sustaining. This work will include an experimental conversion of abandoned grazing land in the Mastic Reserve, into iguana nesting habitat.

• In November 2001, the IUCN/SSC's Iguana Specialist Group* will meet in Grand Cayman, hosted by the Trust. As part of the agenda, the assembled experts from around the region will help the Trust plan the next five year's work, eventually hoping to take the Blue Iguana off the endangered species list.

* IUCN is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The SSC is its Species Survival Commission, which oversees a large network of Specialist Groups, each focusing on a different group of endangered animals or plants. The Iguana Specialist Group currently includes scientists involved in iguana conservation from all around the wider Caribbean.

More information on:

Grand Cayman Blue Iguana
Blue Iguana Conservation
Little Cayman Rock Iguana

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