As a rare Arctic blast pushed deep into the Sunshine State, Florida officials and residents found themselves scrambling to gather more than 2,000 immobilized iguanas from yards, sidewalks and even playgrounds. The reptiles were not dead, but “cold stunned,” their bodies temporarily shut down by temperatures that plunged into the 30s and left wind chills in the 20s across parts of South Florida. The sudden rescue-and-removal drive turned an already historic cold snap into a vivid lesson in how climate extremes collide with an invasive species problem that has been building for years.
Instead of the usual winter tourism images, social feeds filled with photos of rigid green iguanas scattered under trees and on canal banks, while state wildlife offices reported lines of people arriving with boxes and bins of reptiles. The scale of the response, with more than 2,000 animals collected in a matter of days, underscored both the severity of the freeze and the sheer number of iguanas that have made Florida’s warm suburbs their home.
The science behind “falling iguanas” and a rare Florida freeze
Cold stunning is not a mystery illness, it is basic reptile physiology colliding with a weather pattern that Florida rarely sees. Green iguanas rely on external heat to regulate their body temperature, so when overnight readings in South Florida dropped into the low 30s, with Temperatures feeling like the 20s in some neighborhoods, the lizards’ muscles simply stopped working. That is why residents woke up to iguanas that looked frozen and fell from trees, a phenomenon that has happened before but rarely at this scale. Wildlife experts stress that many of these animals can recover once the sun returns, which is why the timing of any intervention during the coldest overnight hours matters.
The same cold front that stunned iguanas also reshuffled the behavior of native wildlife, from manatees crowding into warm springs to birds seeking shelter. At Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, staff counted more than 900 m manatees huddled in the relatively balmy water, a reminder that Florida’s ecosystems are finely tuned to narrow temperature bands. While the iguana spectacle grabbed headlines, the broader pattern was clear to me: a state built on subtropical predictability is being jolted by more frequent swings between heat and cold, and every species, native or not, is forced to adapt.
Inside Florida’s emergency iguana order
Faced with reptiles dropping from trees and piling up in public spaces, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission moved quickly to treat the cold snap as both a safety issue and an invasive species opportunity. The agency issued an executive order that temporarily relaxed normal rules and allowed people to collect live, cold-stunned green iguanas without the usual permits, as long as they followed specific handling and transport conditions. The order, detailed on the agency’s site at myfwc.com, framed the reptiles as a nonnative threat that could be removed more efficiently while they were immobilized.
In a companion notice, the FWC issues executive language spelled out that the reptiles could be held only temporarily, such as during transport, and highlighted contact details for the FWC Press Office, including the numbers 850 and 488 and a Media email, to field questions. I read that as a sign of how sensitive this move was: the state wanted residents to help, but it also wanted to avoid vigilante cruelty or unsafe handling. By defining a narrow window and clear rules, officials tried to turn a chaotic weather event into a controlled removal effort.
From backyards to drop-off lines: how residents helped move 2,000 iguanas
Once the order was in place, the response on the ground was swift. In South Florida, people began scooping up rigid iguanas from lawns and sidewalks and driving them to designated collection points. At one facility, more than 1,000 green iguanas were turned in to FWC staff in a single day, a number that hints at how dense local populations have become in parts of South Florida. State officials later tallied more than 2,000 cold-stunned iguanas removed statewide during the freeze, a figure that includes both direct public drop-offs and animals collected by contractors.
In TEQUESTA, Fla, staff at one FWC office described cars lining up as residents arrived with coolers and cardboard boxes full of reptiles, a scene captured in local coverage of TEQUESTA, Fla drop-offs. Elsewhere, a pilot program tested how quickly cold-stunned iguanas could be gathered during a front, with reports of animals piling up as Cold air lingered over South Florida. Watching that play out, I was struck by how quickly ordinary homeowners became ad hoc wildlife wranglers, motivated by a mix of curiosity, concern and a desire to reduce a species that has chewed through gardens and infrastructure for years.
Why Florida targeted an invasive species instead of a mass rescue
For anyone used to seeing animal rescues framed around rehabilitation and release, the iguana operation can feel jarring. Florida classifies green iguanas as an invasive species that damages seawalls, burrows into canal banks and competes with native wildlife, so the emergency order was designed as a removal tool, not a rescue mission. State guidance made clear that the reptiles would either be humanely euthanized or transferred to licensed permit holders for legal sale outside the state, a point spelled out in coverage of how The FW described the fate of collected animals. In other words, the cold snap created a rare moment when a hard-to-catch species became easy to grab, and the state chose to lean into that.
The temporary order also opened the door for residents to act without navigating the usual permitting maze. Reports noted that Florida is temporarily allowing residents to capture and transport green iguanas without permits during the cold snap, explicitly to reduce the invasive population. That framing matters, because it shifts the narrative from saving individual animals to protecting infrastructure and native species. I see in that choice a broader trend in wildlife policy: as climate extremes expose vulnerabilities, states are more willing to use emergency tools to manage nonnative species aggressively, even when the optics are uncomfortable.
Short-lived order, long-term questions about climate and wildlife
The emergency flexibility did not last long. As temperatures rebounded, Florida wildlife officials announced that the special iguana removal order had ended, signaling that the window for no-permit captures was closed. Coverage from SARASOTA, Fla noted that Florida wildlife officials ended the special iguana removal order once the immediate weather threat passed, returning the state to its baseline rules. That quick pivot reflects a legal reality: extraordinary powers are easier to defend when they are clearly tied to a specific, short-lived hazard.
Even within that narrow window, the state tried to keep a tight grip on logistics. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, identified in one account as The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservatio, directed people to drop animals at a limited number of offices and reminded the public that the Executive order applied for the specified dates only. Another report highlighted how Zachary Bynum, a Digital Producer with CBS News Atlanta, described the order’s focus on five designated FWC offices, underscoring that this was not a free-for-all. As I weigh those details, I keep coming back to the bigger picture: a single cold snap produced falling iguanas, snow flurries in parts of Florida and record-breaking lows, and it forced the state to improvise policy on the fly. The next time the mercury plunges, the blueprint will be there, but so will the unresolved tension between managing invasive species and the public’s instinct to rescue any animal that looks like it is in trouble.
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