june-2011

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“When I showed up, I was like, ‘Man, you got a bigger
problem than lizard poop,’” says Cera as we careen along
golf cart tracks that run alongside the road. “There were
hardly any fl owers, no birds were singing, a total lack of
young gopher tortoises, fewer anoles than you’d expect,
and almost every snake I came across was all tore up.”
Here’s why: Ctenosaurs are the jocks of the iguana
world. Not only do they hold the Guinness World Record
for being the planet’s fastest lizard—having been
clocked at 21.7 mph—they’re also more physically robust,
omnivorous, cold resistant and aggressive than your green
pet store iguana. While last year’s uncharacteristically
frigid Floridian winter depleted many invasive reptiles,
the burrowing black spiny-tail rode out the cold snap and
seems intent on staying.
A er quickly assessing the extent of the problem, Cera
“ THEY CAN
RECOGNIZE ME,”
HE SAYS OF THE
IGUANAS. SO HE
CHANGES CLOTHES
THREE TIMES A DAY.
JUNE 2011 • HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
CONTROL FREAK • GEORGE CERA LEADS THE WAY THROUGH DUNES AND FINDS DOZENS OF LIZARD LAIRS
put in a bid of $20 per head, beating out around nine other
trappers. An initially unpopular and protested “iguana
tax” was set at between $40 and $70 per every $1 million in
home value. With at least a quarter million dollars hiding
out in the brush, Cera soon found a place to stay on the
island and went to work.
“If this was two or three years ago, we’d have seen
around 50 large adults by now,” says Cera as he scans
some of the iguanas’ favorite haunts. “There are still a lot
of lizards out there, but I think that individuals who have
reproduced are the ones who have that gene for being
leery, and they’ve passed that gene on to their young.”
In addition to being a trapper, Cera is also an amateur
scientist, brimming with theories about evolution, the
Earth’s age and, most colorfully, the cognitive abilities of
his cold-blooded nemeses.
“They can recognize me,” he says, collecting another
kill from beneath some palm fronds. Lunch is becoming
more substantial.
Cera is so confi dent that these iguanas have the
capacity to recognize individual humans that he has
changed clothing during hunts to lull them into a false
sense of security. Another, more easily verifi able trick
he plays on the ctenosaurs is casting a fi shing line into
the undergrowth, using a rubber frog as a lure.
“I reel in that frog along the ground and a few of ’em will
chase it,” he says. “You can count on them being hungry and
aggressive pre y much all of the time.”
At the peak of his operations, Cera was culling up to
500 iguanas per day. The work was starting to take its toll.
“At the beginning it was diffi cult to deal with what I was
doing,” he says. “See, I’m really just a big animal nerd.”
Cera does not look like a nerd of any kind. He looks,
well, like a tough-guy biker—bullish, with a wiry goatee
and shaved head. At his core, he’s always been an animal
lover—who loves to eat wild game.