Florida has many issues with invasive animals. The green iguana is one of the latest ones to emerge on the scene. These big lizards have established breeding populations in several locations in the state. Once established, the iguanas compete with native wildlife for food and cause tons of property damage to lawns and home foundations due to their burrowing activities.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission encourages the public to harvest as many iguanas as possible. They are often harvested using high-powered air rifles, but some people like to capture them and then dispatch them later. Today's video is an example of the catch method.
This YouTuber heads out into a neighborhood that's overrun with the reptiles. Using a homemade catch pole, he manages to capture four of them over the course of an afternoon. Two of them are females that are full of eggs. As a rather brave experiment, he decides to harvest these eggs and make some omelettes No, we're not kidding. After they are ready to go, he does an on-camera taste test with some surprising results.
Well, that was rather unexpected! Once properly prepared, he determined the iguana eggs tasted much like normal chicken eggs. Who would have thought? Perhaps it's not too surprising since most people seem to think iguana meat also tastes like chicken. We're just happy to see someone taking out this pesky invasive species and finding a good use for more parts of the animal at the same time. Invasive or not, we hate to see the meat go to waste.
Florida officials have been doing some extra work in recent years to try and get more hunters interested in taking and eating iguanas. We're not sure cooking iguana eggs will take off, but it's at least an interesting idea. Every egg harvested from these lizards is one less animal that can negatively affect the sensitive ecosystems in Florida.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Instagram For original videos, check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
