Founders Archie and Vivian helping ensure the future of their species - Photo: Stu Petch

The 2009 breeding season has begun! Adult breeding pair Archie, a long time resident of the programme, and his “girlfriend” Vivian, a recently collected wild Blue Iguana from Queens highway, were seen copulating this past Sunday by our local volunteer Stu Petch. Since then we have been very busy preparing the open pens with suitable nest mounds and putting our breeding pairs together according to genetic compatibility and diversity. This year we are looking to break the record of 120 hatchlings that was set in 2008 by collecting all the eggs from of captive breeding facility and again trying to identify and collect as many wild nest eggs as possible. With the breeding season starting a few weeks early we will be excavating eggs a little sooner than expected, but that is not a bad thing. We are still waiting to hear news on the possible acquisition of a new property to use as our third territory. This new land is vital to establish a larger release area and someday reach over 1,000 wild animals in three self-sustaining populations.