Thursday, December 21, 2023

How do you capture an iguana? This FAU student thinks he's devised the perfect trap
FREEZE IT  WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER, 
JUST SAYING

Jasmine Fernández, Palm Beach Post
Updated Tue, December 19, 2023 at 5:48 AM MST·4 min read

BOCA RATON — Pierce Kennamer grew up in Cincinnati. A future in trapping iguanas isn’t quite what he’d imagined for himself.

But throw in South Florida and its bustling wildlife scene, and there you have it: Kennamer’s launch into the world of environmental solutions, as he likes to call it.

Kennamer, a junior at Florida Atlantic University at the time, started noticing large green iguanas everywhere. He’d remembered seeing them growing up, on his visits to his grandparents in Fort Lauderdale, but never to this degree.


“Growing up, you'd see an iguana kind of here or there,” he said. “And it was kind of a cool thing. You could take a picture of it, and you saw them once in a blue moon.”
How do you trap an iguana? Advice was lacking for FAU student

He started to research the species, though, and learned that these green creatures were not native to the state. Not only that, but remediation efforts also were lacking.

Catch them by hand, it said online, or shoot them with an air rifle.

“Or, you can try to trap them with these little Tomahawk traps that you can buy at Home Depot or Harbor Freight,” Kennamer recalled reading.

Kennamer, now 22, taught himself most everything he knows through his own research. He learned that aside from being an economic problem, it’s an environmental one.

“The solutions that are, or were, available, I thought were just not conducive to making the difference that was going to be needed in order to get it under control,” Kennamer said.

A consequence of global warming? 

Traps use fruit as bait to catch iguanas, an invasive species to Florida


An iguana climbs on a transport cage after being captured in an IggyTrap at a condo community in Delray Beach, Florida on November 21, 2023.

So he started brainstorming. He’d have to figure out a way to remove more than one iguana at a time through a trap. It took three or four prototypes to get to the final product Kennamer sells today through his company, IggyTrap.

And those three or four prototypes have proved themselves worthy. IggyTraps have captured thousands of iguanas since the company’s launch in January.

Here’s how it works.

The traps are assembled either commercially — on golf courses, parks, lakes and canals — or residentially. If assembled commercially, the traps span 48 by 84 inches. Residential traps are 48 by 48 inches in size.

Each trap has fresh fruit hanging inside. The smell attracts the iguanas, prompting them to walk through a one-way door. The door shuts behind them using just its weight, mimicking what iguanas feel as they push through a bush, or pass through the branches of a tree. They slide in on their bellies and, once in, they’re trapped.

Ethan Cotto is IggyTrap’s trapping manager and also one of the company’s service technicians, who stop by each of the traps every 24 hours to remove the iguanas.

“Going around South Florida and helping fix our community and remove invasive species really took my interest,” said Cotto, 21.

Cotto said that each day, he is retrieving 25 to 30 iguanas.

Move over, alligators: Iguanas making themselves at home across South Florida
Florida law allows humane killing of green iguanas year-round


Bananas are used in an IggyTrap to lure iguanas into an IggyTrap used by the iguana removal service setting traps in Boca Raton, Florida on November 21, 2023.

The next step is euthanizing them humanely.

Green iguanas are not protected by Florida, except by anti-cruelty law. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, green iguanas can be humanely killed on private property with landowner permission year-round.

Something Kennamer tries to educate people about is the dangers of bacteria that iguanas can spread. When they pass salmonella through fecal matter, they get it on their skin, allowing them to spread the bacteria to people and their pets.

“They're not clean animals,” Kennamer said. “They carry disease.”

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Kennamer’s traps are the only ones on the market that allow “non-target” animals to escape them, while still trapping the iguanas already inside. This includes smaller rodents and small native snakes and lizards. The door design, which took more than 1,000 hours to complete, allows animals with more arm mobility, like raccoons, to escape IggyTraps.

The cost per trap depends on several factors, such as the kind of area it's being placed in and the location of the establishment or residence. Though all traps are custom quoted, IggyTrap also offers a line of commercial traps to the general public. These can be found online and range from $599 to $1,499.

Kennamer graduated from Florida Atlantic in May with a bachelor's degree in finance and a minor in cybersecurity. His hope is for IggyTrap to become a leading environmental solutions company.

“We’re focused on being a solution-oriented company,” Kennamer said, “that is going to take the lead and take the charge on solving all the invasive species and non-native species problems here in the state.”

Jasmine Fernández is a journalist covering Delray Beach and Boca Raton for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at jfernandez@pbpost.com and follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @jasminefernandz. Help support our work. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Iguana traps become Florida business venture for FAU student

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