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20 avril 2013, 09:20

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lexpress.mu | Toute l'actualité de l'île Maurice en temps réel.

 

What was Xavier Duval thinking last Friday when he visited the «Salon de la Famille»? (In case you’re wondering what I’m about; a picture of him holding an iguana appeared in the paper on Saturday). So did Duval suddenly decide that iguanas were good for cementing family bonds? Doesn’t he know better? Shouldn’t he know that iguanas are an invasive alien species?

 

For, make no mistake about it, those of you who for some absolutely weird reason “like” that ugly thing; they are a pest and they need to go.

 

Why couldn’t he hold a bat? Or a kestrel? And explain to parents that they must teach their kids the importance of protecting endemic creatures and not encourage the importation of invasive alien species. All these do is decimate our indigenous species because creatures like the iguana have no natural predators; instead they will turn into predators because hey, they need to eat and then they will reproduce and before you know it, bang! – Mauritius will have turned into another Guam island.

 

Brown tree snakes, an invasive species alien to Guam Island, were accidentally introduced in the snake free island in the Pacific after World War II. In the absence of natural predators, the snakes colonized the island and now 60 years later, the nuisance is such that the US government, at a loss to rid the island of those snakes, dropped poisoned mice by helicopter on the island two months ago!

 

Ok so you think I’m not comparing likes with likes? How’s this one - more than a dozen years ago, people in Florida started acquiring Burmese pythons to keep as household pets. After a while, the pythons either escaped - as wild animals are wont to do – or were set free because people got bored of them - as people do - and now tens of thousands of those pythons are in the wild, feasting on rare and endangered species.

 

I don’t know how many iguanas there are currently in Mauritius - how would I know when the ministry of Agro-Industry itself doesn’t know? They don’t know because you don’t need a permit to import them or to sell them. In fact they can even be bought in «Espace maison»! How’s that for irresponsibility?

 

A source at the ministry of Agro-Industry confirmed to l’«express» last week that there are too many iguanas roaming free in Mauritius already and that those reptiles are out of control. We have already lost the battle against the Madagascar giant day gecko; people imported them liberally and irresponsibly because they thought those lizards were “cute”; today they are so numerous we will never be able to be rid of them.

 

So here’s a question to Satish Faugoo who will be introducing his Native Terrestrial Biodiversity and National Parks Bill; will he take this seriously and outlaw the importation of iguanas? Will he order that those currently here be killed, will he ban the sale of this invasive (and ugly!) alien species?