Cold Snap and Iguanasicles

As you may have read from previous columns, we are currently enjoying some time off from the usual northeastern Montana early winter weather. That cold invasion from Canada extended even deep into sunny Florida. People joked about Canada declaring war on the U.S.

Of course, “cold” in Florida is much different from that found in our area, where it is expected to occur. We Montanans are usually much better equipped and prepared for the inconveniences associated with below zero weather. We know to have basic food provisions laid in. We have the proper clothing. We have our heat sources ready. Usually, if you’re out in the country, you have a generator in case of power outages.

But down here, watching the weather forecasts doesn’t seem to be a thing people do on the regular, unless it involves hurricanes. Having the temperature drop below 32° seemed to come as an unpleasant surprise to many. They had to dig out sweatshirts, long pants, and warm socks. They shivered and complained a lot. If you mention home having wind chills of -70°, they’ll stare at you in disbelief, or ask how do you survive? or “why do you live there?” They can’t even imagine going outside in that cold.

“What do people do with their cattle? How do the deer/coyotes/antelope survive? Where do they go?” You can’t really explain, either, because it’s simply cruelty (in their minds) that animals remain outside all year. Surely there are animal enclosures provided?

The big warnings here with this “cold” involves watching out for falling iguanas! Florida not only has problems with pythons and boa constrictors being set loose and adapting to thrive in the wild, they have invasive iguana populations. People seem to love having reptiles as pets. Unfortunately, these wild creatures are adept as escape artists, or they wear out their welcome as pets as they outgrow their cages and are set loose to continue their lives.

Being cold-blooded, they aren’t able to be as scribe when it dots down to 40°or less. The iguana are tree-dwelling, and as they go immobile from the cold, they lose their grip and fall out of the trees. Having a 40-pound iguana crash down on your head is a real threat. This happened last in 2010, so now they know to warn people.

I’m reading an article about how these multiple days of cold (it dropped to 28° here just south of Tampa) could have been a boon to the state. They expected to find and dispatch many of the iguanas in this area. But they think those that survived in 2010 passed along survival skills, such as contrasting near heat exhaust vents under homes or near the outside air conditioning units. They didn’t find as many comatose wild iguanas during this cold spell. I’ve never seen any in the wild when we’ve been here.

Iguanas have become real nuisances here. They crowd out local fauna. They’re pests, able to inflict serious bites. They frolic and defecate in people’s backyard pools. They cause power outages. They consume local tree snails which are a food source for the birds. They eat a plant called the nickerbean, which is a host for an endangered butterfly, the Miami Blue. They damage canals and levees by borrowing into them for dens.

The iguana “popsicles,” if not found and dispatched, will revive and continue being huge pests once warm weather returns. I’m pretty sure we’ll never have this problem at home. First off, there aren’t enough trees for them to fall from. But mainly, they wouldn’t revive from being -30° at all. Being frozen for months just isn’t survivable, no matter how much fat they may have stored.

Happy New Year!