Ricky Ebanks and Todd Byron Paidel. Photo: John Marotta

New BIRP Warden Ricky Ebanks and local volunteer Todd Byron Paidel building a nest mound for the 2009 breeding season, while Harvey Crooked Tail oversees their work.

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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.

Here we go again. Securing the facility for another tropical storm, Paloma, and she’s predicted to become a Cat 1-2 by the time it reaches the South shore of Grand Cayman by Friday rush hour. This is hitting us while we’re having a 10 day rain streak. Water is already everywhere! It’s late in the storm season but that’s life in the tropics. Not only has it been non-stop rain, but the temps in the facility have only been over 83 degrees F (23c) a few days during this span.

We will be ok, I hope, we have the help of international volunteers, Doug bell and Stacy Whitaker, both multiple return volunteers, and a vital help with the Salina population. Along with some local volunteer help we should have the place battened down by the time the heavy stuff starts.

The total count for ’08 hatchling that have made it to this point is 119, as stated before this is the largest group of babies we have taken on in one breeding season. The new iguanas are doing fine and many of them have had their first shed. All are eating regularly, including the twins we had from free-roamer BBB.

This weekend, storm permitting, the Wildlife Conservation Society Veterinarians will be arriving. Doctors Paul Calle and Kate McClave will perform the annual health checks and pre-release animal heath screenings. And the week following and into December we will be releasing these iguanas into the wild to join other re-introduced genetically diverse breeders

Hurricane Paloma, a category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 140 miles per hour, smashed into the Cayman Islands Saturday morning. Reports of flooding, power outages, fallen tree limbs and scattered debris were reported throughout Grand Cayman, although the Sister Islands, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman received the full force of Paloma leaving severe damage island-wide.

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