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The West Indian rock iguanas were once ubiquitous on the Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean, however the arrival of humans, and the invasive predators that came with them, brought deadly threats to the species. Habitat loss, hunting and a wave of feral cats and dogs pushed the lizards, referred to as "blue dragons," to the brink of extinction. In the early 1990s, researchers estimated there were between 100 and 200 blue iguanas surviving in the wild. But within a decade, those numbers had plummeted, with fewer than 25 individuals remaining in 2002.
Thanks to ongoing conservation efforts, the blue iguana is back from the brink of extinction. Through captive breeding and a habitat protection program, over 1,200 have now been released into the wild, primarily in protected areas. This led to the species being reclassified from "critically endangered" to "endangered" in 2012, according to IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species.
Read more at the link in our bio.
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📸: Laura Butz/National Trust; David Rogers/Getty Images; Flavio Vallenari/E+/Getty Images; Laura Butz/National Trust; Frank Polich/Reuters; Scott Olson/Getty Images
