Conservation is always a challenging exercise, balancing the needs of current communities with the desire to sustain the best of earlier environments. Often the need for such efforts only become apparent when the problems have reached a crisis point - as in the case of the Grand Cayman Blue Iguana.
This unique and magnificent creature is endemic to Grand Cayman - which means that it is found nowhere else in the world. Unfortunately it stands on the brink of extinction. In 1938,
C. Bernard Lewis, a zoologist in a scientific expedition from Oxford University in England, doubted that "more than a dozen individuals still exist on the island" and quoted East End people as saying that "guanas" had become so scarce that it was no longer worthwhile to hunt them. A two-week field study commissioned by the Cayman Islands Government in 1981, conducted by Dr. Roger Avery from Bristol University, England, was no more optimistic and, soon after its formation in 1987, the National Trust for the Cayman Islands began advocating Avery's recommendations.
No comments:
Post a Comment