As the summer heat builds, our incubators are filling once more with abundant Blue Iguana eggs from the captive facility and from the free-roamers which are nesting again in the Botanic Park. Over a hundred youngsters from the 2008 hatch, meanwhile, are reaching the size when they are due for release.

This year, we plan to release most into the new Blue Iguana Reserve, and in preparation our Team Blue 2010 volunteers, led by Doug Bell, are roaming the new Reserve collecting habitat data from a series of pre-designated points. We don’t have a permanent access yet, so the team are walking in along property boundary lines and camping out there for two nights at a time. This saves time lost to getting in and out, which is a slow and difficult process!

The camp is a very temporary affair – just some tarpaulins to keep off the rain, some hammocks with mosquito net covers, a small gas burner to cook with, and a little hand pump to suck water up from fissures, which yield drinkable East End groundwater.

In the photo – volunteers Peter Pagoda (from Germany) and Matthew Perez (from USA) eat and rest after a long, hard and very hot day.

The data the survey team is collecting will hopefully allow us to identify the first area where we will release the iguanas.  That places a deadline on the operation – and though the terrain is savage, and going is hard, our Team Blue 2010 volunteers are up to the challenge!