Blow-dart target practice and Iguana baths!

Today seemed relatively calm when compared to other days. There were most definitely exciting moments, but they were lengthy and few in number.

We started the morning washing iguanas. To keep optimum health for those living in the Iguana Sanctuary, they must be bathed every so often. Iguanas can get ticks and mites just like other animals. On an iguana, the tick appears as a tiny red dot and the mites are tiny white bugs. Sometimes these guys are hard to spot, so we had to be very thorough. We started by catching all the iguanas. In a giant, screened room with various rafters and boards for the iguana’s climbing pleasure, on which many were perched, we found this task to be somewhat difficult. It was even more difficult, because Umberto, the Iguana caretaker, had gone up to the hotel to retrieve hot water for the baths. After retrieving as many as we could via poking with broom handles, climbing (in what we though was a precarious manner), and coaxing, we got a large amount of the animals into a tiny crate, all piled on top of one another like something out of Fear Factor.

The males did not like being in close proximity with other males. Tails were whipping aggressively, hisses could be heard, and we still had a few more to catch. When Umberto got back, he laughed at our inability to get the other guys. I said, “Surely there must be a trick you are not telling us,” to which he replied with frankness and a gentle skepticism, “No, you just…get them.” He then proceeded to monkey climb his way up the rafters about twenty or thirty feet and start plucking down iguanas from precarious heights. We all felt a little sheepish after that. The washing then began! Sticking our hand in that little box full of angry iguanas was the first challenge. Once we retrieved one, we placed it in a tub of warm water mixed with iodine. (The iodine disinfects the skin and scales). One person held the angry reptiles, while the other partner used a toothbrush to scrub thoroughly and look especially for ticks and mites to remove. Medication was applied to any external wounds, and they were released back into their rafters. Gomez left with the brown meds all over his face in such a way that it looked like he'd eaten a big Boston cream pie. No serious tail-whipping injuries were incurred, though a few people left bleeding from claw-digging.

We took the injured Iggie back to the clinic with us to check his wound situation. He had begun to show neurologic symptoms of ataxia, inability to right himself when flipped over, and what is known as ‘star-gazing,’ or an unnatural tilting upwards of the head. Likely, these symptoms were due to infection spreading from the leg wounds to his central nervous system. He was given injections of long-term antibiotics and pain medication, the wounds were cleaned thoroughly, and as x-rays determined no breaks, he was sent back to the sanctuary with a check-up visit scheduled for one week later.

As part of our lecture section today, we learned about capture and restraint of wild animals. Part of that lecture dealt with chemical immobilization. As practice in using such techniques, we got to have blow-dart target practice. A makeshift cat was drawn on a cardboard box by our instructor, and we began to joke about the native Belizean cardboard cat—rare, elusive, deformed in appearance, and not good for eating, though high in fiber.

First, we practiced charging darts. The darts using in blow-pipes and guns are filled on one end with medication, the other end with air to pressurize the dart, and have the needle covered with a plastic sleeve to hold the pressure in. As the needle hits the animal, the plastic sleeve slides down and the pressure from the air will rapidly squirt the medication into the subject. We used the long thin pipe (essentially a rifle barrel) with a mouth piece on one end to shoot darts at our cardboard cat. I found that it took a few tries to get a good shot, but eventually made a pretty nice one from about 30 yards.

We all really enjoyed ourselves, playing in the sunshine, testing our strengths, competing, and thoroughly injuring our ‘patient.’

After blow-darting, we came back inside to learn about pharmacology for a while. After the lecture, our TA happened to look outside where we had placed Ziggy (our acupuncture iguana patient) in a tub to sun bathe. Though his movement seems to improve, he still does not seem to have mobility of the hind legs at all when it comes to walking. He had gotten out of his Tupperware crate twice or three times before, but could never make it far. Apparently while we were chatting inside today, he had gone on a little Ziggy adventure…and was nowhere to be found. Immediately concerned, we students and our professor set out on a search for our patient. After about thirty minutes of spread searching efforts, myself being in a field in high grass beside a small creek, prodding the tall vegetation with a stick, a student found him in high grass about 100 feet from his tub. The big boy had really given us quite a scare, so we went inside relieved, and finished up the day with his regular treatments.