Taiwan Bounty Hunters killed Iguana as a number

Armed, Taiwanese bounty Hunter Wu Cheng-Hua, armed with a slingshot, bends sideways and targets its deadly weapon into a green iguana, one of the thousands in the crosshair of a government country.

Taiwan has exploded in the Iguana population as spaci -backed huge lizards were introduced as foreign pets from Central and South America over 20 years ago.

Many people survived, or dumped, and rapidly raised in the warm climate of the south of the island, attacking the neighborhood and destroying the crops of farmers.

After Wu completed his shift at a breakfast restaurant, he joined a group of predators employed by the Pingtung County Government, which pays up to $ 500 per NT $ 500 per iguana.

“Sometimes we have been lucky and 300 iguana caught in a day,” 25 -year -old Wu told AFP.

“Sometimes we were not so lucky and caught two, three or a dozen.”

Harpoon is used to carry slingshots and to wear rubber shoes, hunters crane their necks because they scan the thick forest for iguana, which live in the canopy.

Miss more than the hit as men are highly in trees in prehistoric -looking organisms and preserved their stainless steel darts and preserved by leaves and branches.

AFP journalists see as an iguana, cover several meters on the ground and walk for their lives. One and one are shot several times before it is taken out of the tree, he is still alive.

Men tie the legs of the caught iguana to stop them from escape and leave them on the ground as they take them to hunting.

‘An ideal storm’

Taiwan started closing Iguana about 10 years ago and the target of this year has been set over over 100,000.

Experts and government officials say this effort is unlikely to erase reptiles, which have become pests in other countries including the United States.

Some estimates put Taiwan’s green Iguana population in 200,000. A female iguana breed once a year, laying dozens of eggs at a time.

“Climate anomalies” have promoted the Iguana numbers in recent years, said Chen-HSI, a wildlife expert at the National Pingatung University of Science and Technology.

Seasonal rains and abnormally warm winter deficiency has increased the hatching and survival rate of the youth, which the chain made “an ideal storm for explosive population growth”.

Director General of Agriculture Department Cheng Yung-U said that Pingtung County has reduced its Iguana clan to 48,000 at the beginning of the previous year at the beginning of a few hundred years.

But Cheng said that more effective “removal strategies” were required.

“Important manpower and resources are spent on their removal annually, their population increases almost rapidly,” he said.

‘They move forward very fast’

Local farmer Cheng Hi-Jung has destroyed Iguana’s red bean crop of her family, even when they install fishing nets to protect their fields from herbs.

Iguana lives in dense bamboo growing between their land and a river, and during the day the red bean comes down to feast on the shoot.

“They proceed very fast and we could not catch them,” Cheng told AFP, who worries that some farmers would resort to cutting trees or leave the crops completely.

Regular people are being encouraged to join the Iguana clan.

Haseen Tseng-Kuan said that for the first time she was scared that she faced an iguana on her farm and resolved to know how to catch them.

“They are also not afraid of people,” 58 -year -old Hasin said, one of the over 80 people in a government training session, where they are shown how to use a soft toy Iguana to use a Saneer Poll for Lasso .

“When we first saw one, we were the ones who were scared,” Haseen told AFP.

“It looked really like a small dinosaur.”

‘Later the victim’

Animal Rights Group PETA has urged Taiwan to find “non-fatal strategies” to control their iguana population or, if the kuling was considered necessary, to reduce the “grief of the creatures” .

Many hunters told AFP that they would be able to kill more efficiently and humanly if they were allowed to use air guns, which are used tightly in Taiwan.

Wu and his colleagues finished their prey in the evening after catching 14 Iguana in three hours.

Reptiles – Some of them are alive and soaked in blood – are placed on the ground before throwing into a plastic box.

Eystines require euthanasia for euthanasia and are placed in a freezer until they can be done by the government.

While hunting was physically difficult from his cooking job, Wu said that he likes to help farmers protect their crops.

“Otherwise, whatever they grow will be eaten,” Wu said.

“It is very sad to see them like this.”

© 2025 AFP