John Marotta: Saving Iguanas and Living in Paradise
(Download a copy of this story in Word)



John Marotta, the head warden at the Blue Iguana Recovery Program in the Cayman Islands, was leading a well-fed mid-west family through the iguana enclosures when I quietly slipped into the tour. Dressed like a safari guide from a 1960s TV show, he was clothed head to toe in khaki with a broad billed hat pinned up on the sides. A knife was secured just inside his pocket with a clip, and from his belt hung a digitized gauge with the temperature and humidity flashing on a tiny screen. He swaggered over to an iguana enclosure and proceeded to describe the personalities of the iguanas residing there. The moment Marotta opened his mouth and uttered the first New Jersey-tinged syllable, a large bluish/grey dinosaur look-a-like, identified for us as Forest, rocketed from a cinder block fort and ran toward Marotta, undoubtedly conditioned to attention and treats like Pavlov’s proverbial dog.

After the mid-west family ambled off to another part of the facility, I caught up with Marotta in the shade where he and his staff of volunteers were having a smoke break. Anyone dedicated to reptile conservation on a remote island had to be interesting. Unsurprisingly, Marotta was from Princeton, New Jersey but in the mid-1980s moved to Providence, Rhode Island where he was trained as a classic chef at Johnson & Wales University of Culinary Arts. After cooking professionally for seven years, he and his wife picked up and moved to the Cayman Islands so she could start a reinsurance business. “I hate living in the tropics.” He admitted, “I’m a cold weather person. I like winter sports!” But he wasted no time lamenting the move and quickly found himself exploring the island, looking for a place to apply his curiosity and energy.

Within a few short months, Marotta found himself walking through the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park in the heart of Grande Cayman Island’s largest stretch of undisturbed forest. The 68-acre flora and fauna preserve on the east side of the island is owned jointly by the government and the National Trust for the Cayman Islands, a non-profit dedicated to endemic species. “I volunteered and told myself, ‘I’m going to show up until they kick me out.’” Despite his almost complete lack of history in biology, Marotta dove head long into the Blue Iguana Program and overnight, John Marotta the cook became John Marotta the iguana expert. After two years as a volunteer, Marotta was promoted to a full-time, paid position. The large badge on his uniform over his breast emblazoned with the image of a regal blue iguana and the words HEAD WARDEN showed just how proud he was of his title.

Between drags on his cigarette and jokes about New Jersey, Marotta told me a little about the blue iguana as a species. “Their cheek scales are like a fingerprint,” he told me, leaning forward and looking me in the eyes for emphasis. “No two iguanas have the same pattern.” In addition to Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips implanted in the animals, this is how the staff differentiates between them. But these techniques are generally only used for unknown animals when found in the wild. The captive adults in their breeding program––some weighing as much as 25 pounds, measuring 5 feet long and living to be 69 years old––are as distinctive in appearance and personality as animals of the same species can be. As we strolled through the enclosures, some slinked away and hid while others approached cautiously but curiously. Still others charged the wall, bobbing their heads and blowing snot from their nostrils in a territorial display that certainly worked on me.

“These are fascinating, highly evolved creatures.” Marotta said, plucking a fruit from a nearby tree and showing it to me. “When this is in season, the iguanas will be able to hear it hit the ground a hundred yards away.” He dropped it for emphasis. Apparently their low range hearing is very acute and they can tell not only that a fruit has fallen, but what kind it is and if it’s ripe or not. Marotta went on to describe how Plumeria trees host the caterpillars of a species of sphinx moth for about one week a year. When one of the fat, four-inch caterpillars looses its grip and hits the ground, “gravid” female blue iguana, in dire need of extra protein during their own reproductive cycle, can identify the unique sound it makes and follow it like a dinner bell. Normally strict vegans, a blue iguana that’s found a producing Plumeria will camp out below the tree until all the caterpillars have hit the deck or grown wings and flown away.

Sensing that I was not even close to my iguana trivia quota for the day, Marotta leaned back against an enclosure wall and delved into the details of the iguana’s evolution with relish. Caribbean iguanas, of which the Grand Cayman blue iguana is just one of 17 species, probably share the same ancestor: the common green iguana of Latin America. After 12 million years of evolution, each of the Caribbean iguanas have become unique to their own small group of islands, or even just a single island. Despite their differences, they all belong to the same genus, Cyclura, which means “circular tail” in Latin, due to distinctive rings found on the tails of all Caribbean iguanas.

Back in the shade with a fresh cigarette, Marotta went on to describe the endangered status of the blue iguana and their captive breeding efforts. He and program director, Fred Burton, take iguana conservation very seriously and with the help of volunteers are single-handedly responsible for bringing a critically endangered species back from the brink of extinction. The program was based on their 17 adult “breeders,” the offspring of which were kept in cages until they were large enough to be released into the wild––usually at two years of age. Over the past three years, the program has turned out between 120 and 130 offspring per year––a successful captive breeding program by any standards.

Though he was not trained in biology, Marotta’s knowledge and passion astounded me. From where I sat, his lack of formal training in science didn’t hold him back at all. In fact, it seemed an asset. Unlike so many traditionally trained biologists whose passion for the natural world seems to have been educated out of them, Marotta was brimming with enthusiasm and treated the iguanas more like cherished pets, or even family members, than the cold blooded semi-wild animals they are. “They’re more than just lizards.” He told me matter-of-factly.

Like many of the Cayman Islands’ endemic species, the Grand Cayman blue iguana (Cyclura lewisi) is critically endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “If it’s endemic, it’s endangered,” goes the catchy and tragically poignant Caymanian conservationist saying. When the first surveys where done in 1938, iguana populations were already very low. Through the 1950s the available habitat continued to shrink and more areas turned out to be devoid of iguanas than ever before. In 2002, three years before Marotta arrived in the Cayman Islands, another island-wide survey was conducted and found that only 10-25 blue iguanas remained in the wild. Three years later, surveys revealed the species to be “functionally extinct” in the wild. Marotta had joined the fight the year the Grand Cayman blue iguana would earn the dubious honor of becoming the most endangered species of iguana on earth.

Realizing the immanent collapse of the blue iguana even before the results of the 2002 survey were in, Burton started a captive breeding program in 2001. When Marotta arrived in 2005, the program was up and running but in need of another dedicated, full-time employee. Marotta filled this position, and with assistant warden Alberto Estovanovich, jump-started the vegetarian lizard’s growth and reproduction rates with an innovative approach: daily salads of fresh greens consisting of almost 140 wild plants laboriously collected daily from the forest. To this day, Marotta, Estovanovich and an ever-changing group of volunteers, collect five, five-gallon buckets of these greens from the forest every day.

Since day one, the goal of the entire team has been 1,000 animals living in three distinct populations around the island. “Once we reach that goal,” said Marotta, “we will switch from a breeding program to a population management program.” Today, they are well on their way with 350 iguanas living and breeding in the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park and the nearby 650-acre Salina Reserve. “By rule I am a pessimist, but with this program I’m hopeful.” Said Marotta. After talking to other researchers working with endangered endemic animals around the island, it was nice to finally hear from someone who saw a bright future for at least one Cayman Island species.

But the blue iguana, as a species, is not out of the woods yet, and many conservation hurdles remain. The most significant is the increasingly fragmented natural habitat remaining on the island. Even Marotta’s optimism seemed occasionally shaken by the formidable development forces at work. While 50 percent of the island’s natural forests remain, “not all of that is iguana habitat,” he said. But habitat destruction is not the only problem. The island is also crawling with introduced cats, rats, dogs and other non-native species that have proven voracious predators of blue iguana young and eggs. While few juveniles reach adulthood outside the safety of the breeding facility, those that do are sometimes killed on roads or trapped or shot by farmers.

After becoming head warden, Marotta soon realized that his responsibilities would extend far beyond management of the breeding program. He was soon alternating with Burton in fielding calls from scared vacationers, wondering about the blue dinosaur munching the decorative plants outside their rental house. Marotta likes to tell a story about Burton fielding one such call, and desperate to save another blue iguana, quoted the movie Pulp Fiction: “I’m a half-hour away. I’ll be there in 15 minutes!”

Other calls come from farmers worried that the lizards are going to disturb their crops. While most cases involve simply retrieving the wayward animal and returning it to protected land, gun-toting farmers usually get a sit-down talk from Marotta. “Old-time farmers are generally receptive.” He said. “Unlike the newer generations, they remember seeing wild iguanas around the island. They realize we are trying to preserve the heritage of the island and they usually want to help.” Unlike many places where iguanas live, blue iguanas have never been eaten by residents, which probably saved them from going extinct long ago. Marotta recounted the story of one old-timer with whom he talked, “‘After the storm of 1932, we were starving so we ate an iguana and it tasted like kerosene.’ Iguanas eat lots of toxic plants.” Marotta laughed, “So it makes sense they would taste horrible.”

Marotta has reasonable success getting through to locals about the need for conservation, but often finds the government less than supportive, especially in regard to their antiquated iguana protection laws. While the Caymanian government concerns itself with encouraging their offshore banking cash-crop, the outdated iguana protection act of 1976 does not distinguish between the native blue iguana and newly introduced green iguana. Consequently, the invasive green iguana has flourished and now outnumbers the blue iguana throughout the island. A new piece of legislation written jointly by the government’s Department of the Environment and the National Trust would clarify this law and promises to set aside more protected land. “It’s all about protecting more land.” Marotta said.

The dramatic climax of Marotta’s career came in 2008 and could have been something straight out of an Animal Planet Crime Scene episode. During the night of May 3, assailants entered the Blue Iguana Rescue Program grounds and killed seven of the program’s 24 precious breeding adults. While official reports lack detail and police records indicate no suspects despite the CI$16,000 (almost US$20,000) reward, Marotta squinted his eyes and told me, “I know who it was. A disgruntled ex-employee sent some of his friends.” He said. “We found them stomped to death. These were valuable animals. They were unique bloodlines.” Building a genetically healthy and diverse population from just 24 animals is hard enough as it is. Now with Digger, Yellow, Sara, Eldemire, Matthais, Jessica, and Pedro gone, just 17 breeders remain and “genetic load” (the genetic starvation of a species) is increasingly on everyone’s mind. “The funny thing is,” Marotta said, “the police wouldn’t investigate the iguanas but in the same week they arrested two gay tourists kissing in public. That’s not even illegal in the Caymans!”

Having spent most of the morning telling me about iguanas, on top of four years spent telling other people about iguanas, Marotta seemed just as energetic as I imagine he was the day he started. But heat and hunger had got the better of us both and we decided to break for lunch. Heading out of the facility, Marotta stopped at an enclosure and pointed out Billy, the only blue iguana he can safely hold. “What can the others do to you?” I dumbly inquired. Without a word he rolled up his sleeves, raised both his hands and one foot and said, “Two broken thumbs, one broken foot and all these scars.” After he extracted Billy from his hole and I was able to see his claws, jaws, and bulging muscles up close, the injuries started to seem minor compared to what they could have been.

Thirty minutes later at a restaurant on the sea, Marotta, his posse of volunteers, and myself, eased into plastic chairs and gazed out at the turquoise water. Marotta lit a cigarette and casually ordered a vodka and cranberry like he had done it every day for the last four years. He sunk deeper into his chair with a cigarette in one hand, his drink in the other and a grin pasted on his face. Looking at him then, he suddenly seemed like a supremely satisfied man; one of the few I had ever meet. Maybe it has to do with allying oneself with a creature that’s been around for 2.5 million years and can break your foot with a single bite. Or maybe his grin comes from the knowledge that he, with Burton and his volunteers, have saved a species from certain extinction. It can’t be but a handful of people in the world that can say that. Or maybe he was simply pleased with his drink and the view. Either way, volunteering in paradise was starting to seem to me like a pretty good idea.