Escaping the cats' clutches gives the Anegada iguana a good
"headstart" 07 October 2005 | News story IUCN - The World
Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland, 7 October 2005 - A grant
from the Sir Peter Scott Fund for Conservation Action of IUCN’s
Species Survival Commission (SSC) is helping to continue the
early conservation successes in the fight to save the Anegada
iguana, listed as “Critically Endangered” on the IUCN Red List
of Threatened Species. This impressive one metre long vegetarian
has suffered an 80% population crash since the late 1960s
because of extensive habitat degradation from free-ranging
cattle and goats, coupled with feral cat predation. Now fewer
than 300 lizards remain. Formerly distributed throughout the
Puerto Rican island chain, the last remaining population is only
found on the tiny island of Anegada in the British Virgin
Islands, and the iguana may have disappeared completely if
positive action, instigated by the SSC’s Iguana Specialist
Group, had not been taken. Researchers discov