Catching green iguanas

Cane toads are starting to naturalize here. Chinese medicine industry’s doing, sourcing from pet trade. Not great, but taiwans frog princess is on top of killing them :slight_smile: still early enough to take care of them but they do have a LOT of eggs! Probably one female couple with lucky river srges would make it a seriously hard problem to solve. Luckily, unlike australia, many animals are adapted to eating toads. Including the han-chinese haha. They even go to aus to supply their medicine industry.

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Over 33,000 caught this year in Pingtung alone

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Here’s a cute video on one of the problems with intentional exotics release. Although taiwan also suffers from religious cult type activity (releasing animals into the wild), poor husbandry and irresponsible safety measures to avoid escapees etc, his is also a bi problem in Taiwan. Intentionally releasing to make them naturalized in a spot for future wild collection. This has been going on with reptiles for 20 years that I know of, probably much longer. Aquarium trade far longer :frowning:

Another note. Like this video in Florida, and the same issue with TNR programs in Taiwan, it is ok to collect invasive/foreign species. But it is illegal to release them.

American bull toads too have gone native here.

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Yeppers, you aint wrong! that’s on AG…uxking farmers :see_no_evil: decent enough export market for bullfrog meat from here. Same as snail meat and the African giants. Strangely, for the life of me I cannot figure out how nor why the american bullfrog aren’t nearly as invasive here as other countries and regions, like western North America. In those regions they actually threaten loads of wild species. when i lived there we would go on “campaigns” to cull as many as possible lol…as pointless as cane toads in australia…which interestingly are establishing in taiwan right now as we speak. This outbreak is directly corrrelated to the TCM industry for both poison and shed skins. A side hustle with low tier drug morons have also released some for populations without consulting as to how this will never be a viable industry in Taiwan. Fucking Bonkers.

The american bullfrogs tend not to spread fast at least. Deapite their very real ability to do so. Probably due to taiwans relative lack of ponds and still water that is free from predators, they don’t seem as big a threat. Thats just my opinion. Meanwhile a self proclaimed “frog princess” is dancing around the island promoting killing foreign tree frogs (amingst others) and teaching kids to kill them too.

Taiwans issues run pretty deep and get real weird real quick. A lot of the researchers I go on field surveys with wait for me to take pics then stomp out the poor bastards with their boots. Harsh relaity. Doeant change a thing, but likits thousands of further foreigners from bein born. It’s a tipsy turny world in Taiwan still haha.

Edit. Taiwan has started controlling pots of animals in trade now due to this issue. Plants are another worry.

There is a lot of caralogueing in Taiwan, less so in depth research into the how and why. Plus the species published are really just the tip of the iceberg. Once something has hit a journal, there are probably a good 5 to 10 more today that are taking hold.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242144324_Catalogue_of_the_Naturalized_Flora_of_Taiwan

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242144324_Catalogue_of_the_Naturalized_Flora_of_Taiwan

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-list-of-invasive-amphibians-and-reptiles-in-Taiwan_tbl1_331667561

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265202627_The_Pet_Trade_as_a_Source_of_Invasive_Fish_in_Taiwan

https://taiwania.ntu.edu.tw/pdf/tai.2006.51.81.pdf

And, why not… hahaha

https://en.rti.org.tw/news/view/id/2004027

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/5973653

/\ that’s how rampant this problem is. Turns into a game publicly.

Not all a direct reply to you, Brian :hugs: more just a starting referrence for anyone interested or for those that want to share their info :slight_smile:

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“The iguanas are ruining my life”

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I heard Florida and Puerto Rico has problems with iguana too. I saw a Washington post article about eating them, but I won’t link it because it’s paywalled.

https://news.ebc.net.tw/news/living/455959

This article recommends against it because of parasites.

For the life of me I don’t get why they don’t just kill the poor things humanely and swiftly instead of tieing them up and torturing them :frowning:

@Taiwan_Luthiers ya, Florida has loads. In Taiwan we have a bunch of naturalized lizards. Tokay geckos, vieled chameleons, water dragons, various skinks etc.

Green iguanas get attention cause they eat crops

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