The Salina Blues team are now into the third and final week of this year’s Blue Iguana population survey. If the weather holds, we will complete the formal line survey work on Sunday, and then will use some of the remaining days before the team members start heading home to resolve a few remaining mysteries, and to weigh and measure as many of the iguanas we’ve been watching as we can.

The team is holding up well despite six days per week stealthing across the Salina’s rockscape, which is a little like doing six hours of continuous squats and lunges a day.

Salina rocks are death to boots

We’ve had several boot disintegration problems,  plus plenty sore feet and some protesting knees, but our success in spotting iguanas seems to be better than ever, despite all that.

We’re amassing an impressive data set of sightings of 45 individual iguanas, ranging from a new 2009 wild hatchling to the elusive big boy “Blue-Yellow-Blue” who has taken a large territory in the core of the main release area, but has become so wild we rarely see him at all.