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The National Meeting on Iguanas in México has been con-
ducted annually since 1998 as the primary forum for the

Technical Consulting Subcommittee for the Conservation,
Management, and Sustained Use of Iguanas in México (SCT-
Iguanas). SCT-Iguanas is part of a broader national initiative for
the recovery of priority species within the country. In addition
to iguanas, priorities include crocodiles and sea turtles. Last year,
the meeting was held in the city of Lázaro Cardenas in the state
of Michoacán, west-central México, and, for the first time, our
group was able to attract both authoritative speakers and private
companies as sponsors. Pre-event activities included a press con-

ference with Juan José Reyes, Director of the Forest Commission
of the State of Michoacán, Víctor Ricardo Aguilera, Director of
the Morelia Zoo in Michoacán, and Víctor Hugo Reynoso, then
president of SCT-Iguanas. Reports from the press conference
were published in national and local newspapers.

Of major concern is the continued increase in the irrational
exploitation of the Pacific Spiny-tailed (Black) Iguana,
Ctenosaura pectinata, which is used as a traditional food source
by Mexicans. This species lacks any formal means of protection,
and the need to establish a viable conservation program at the
local level is quite urgent. The Balsas depression situated along
the border of the Mexican states of Michoacán and Guerrero is
one of the larger areas used for illegal hunting and trading of
Black Iguanas. This area also is one of the sites with less-devel-
oped programs to protect Black Iguanas, in contrast to places
like the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the southern state of Oaxaca,
México, where serious conservation efforts were initiated almost
10 years ago. Hunting and trading Black Iguanas is illegal
throughout the country. However, without local enforcement,
current conservation legislation is largely ignored in many
regions.

Local conservation authorities, business people, and aca-
demics in Michoacán considered the meeting a good opportu-
nity to raise local interest in iguana conservation. As the event
progressed, we found that more people were interested in the
captive management of iguanas for profit than in the conserva-
tion of the species per se. We also became aware that many more
people were interested in farming Green Iguanas for sale as pets
than in solving the problem of possible local extirpation of Black
Iguanas due to overexploitation. This dichotomy of interests led
to some very complicated interactions between presenters and
public. In spite of this, the conference was successful. This meet-
ing was also the first time we were able to attract the attention
of Central American environmental groups, speaking about sim-
ilar conservation problems facing their endemic iguanas, as well
as people doing iguana research internationally.

The Meeting
The meeting included four main sections: (a) the plenary meet-
ing; (b) the iguana captive management workshop; (c) the Green
Iguana commercialization workshop; and (d) technical talks.

The VIII National Meeting on Iguanas 
in México, An Overview

Víctor Hugo Reynoso1, Laura Briseño2, Gerardo Olmos3, and Victor Hernández4

1Instituto de Biología, UNAM <vreynoso@ibiologia.unam.mx>
2Zoológico de Morelia <laurabriseno@yahoo.com.mx>

3Comisión Forestal del Estado de Michoacán <golmos_69@yahoo.com>
4UMA “Los Amatones” <serbiotac@hotmail.com>

130 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 13, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2006 REYNOSO, BRISEÑO, OLMOS, AND HERNÁNDEZ

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Poster promoting the VIII National Meeting on Iguanas in México.

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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 13, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2006 131MEXICAN IGUANA MEETING

During the plenary talks, the recent transfer of the Priority
Species National Committee from SEMARNAT (the Mexican
Natural Resources Management Secretary, analogous to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service) to the CONANP (National
Commission for Protected Areas) was discussed extensively. The
iguana group led by Victor Hugo Reynoso and Georgina
González-Monfil (Instituto de Biología, UNAM and SCT-
Iguanas) clearly argued that this transfer was inappropriate
because priority species are already protected within natural
reserves, and special programs urgently need to be implemented
in non-protected areas, outside the mandate of CONANP. Most
of the distributions of listed species of iguanas (including seven
species of Ctenosaura as well as Green Iguanas) lie in areas vul-
nerable to exploitation and away from natural reserves, suggest-
ing that a planned strategy carefully implementing sustained-use
programs will preserve the species in a wider range of their dis-
tributions than a focus on conservation programs in the very
limited areas of Natural Reserves. To our surprise, Manelik
Olivera and co-workers (CONANP) emphasized that jaguars,
Golden Eagles, prairie dogs, and sea turtles deserve urgent atten-
tion; whereas the conservation needs of iguanas and 15 other
priority species groups are of lesser priority. Needless to say, this
led to considerable discussion.

Plenary talks ended with the presentation of Paul House
and Vanessa Rodezano (CREA, Honduras) about the conserva-
tion status of the Jamo Negro (Ctenosaura melanosterna) in
Honduras, a problem new to many of us and not previously
covered at any of our meetings. This species of Spiny-tailed
Iguana has been intensively hunted, almost to the point of
extinction. The species, which is endemic to Honduras, has a
restricted distribution and has been practically extirpated from
the Aguan Valley, where the last remaining very dry tropical
rainforest is found. Although this species is considered critically
endangered by the IUCN, local conservation efforts are only
beginning. Conservation plans include the implementation of a
farm for the captive management and release of hatchlings
within the 200-ha area of the Centro Regional de Educación
Ambiental in Arenal, Honduras.

The second and third meeting sections took place in tan-
dem. During the management workshop, experts in different
areas of iguana management and conservation from locations
throughout México gave talks on the introduction of captive

farming. These talks have been improved through seven years of
Iguana National Meetings, and we now include a broad range
of experiences from different farms, pointing out the benefits
and shortcomings of the various techniques currently in use.
This workshop has become the heart of the Iguana National
Meetings. The workshop included talks on the biology and gen-
eral issues on iguanas, enclosures and facilities, nests and incu-
bation, feeding and growth, diseases and their treatment, and
legal issues.

The iguana commercialization workshop leaded by Víctor
Hernández (UMA Los Amatones) attempted to introduce farm-
ers to the Green Iguana pet market. An important issue was the
lack of sales due to the increasingly competitive nature of reptil-
ian imports from Central America. The group intended to pro-
vide knowledge, techniques for production, administration, use
of optimum harvesting ratios for commercialization, quality of
specimens, and packing. The workshop also identified national
and international markets, and discussed the standardization of
the national market to equally benefit farms throughout the
country. Four major problems faced by farmers trying to sell
their products were identified: Lack of market strategies, paper-
work and legal issues, finances, and lack of production volumes.
Another issue discussed at the meeting was the importance of
lobbying governmental environmental agencies to forbid the sale
and importation of iguanas captured in the wild, even if consid-
ered legal in their country of origin. Finally, the necessity of
forming a National Association of Iguana Farms was mentioned.

The technical talks section included a broad spectrum of
iguana-related themes. Silvia Abdala-Romero (Instituto de
Investigaciones Antropológicas, UNAM) talked about the
importance of iguanas in Mexican culture, showing how igua-
nas figured in ancient civilizations ranging from Mayans to
Aztecs. From post-colonial México to modern times, iguanas are
featured in music, dance, paintings, literature, movies, fashion,
handicrafts, cooking, festivals, and humor. Abdala-Romero
pointed out how indelibly iguanas are imprinted upon our cul-
ture, yet sometimes this is less than readily apparent due the
influence of the cultural elite on mainstream culture in México.

Presentations of a more technical nature followed. At this
year’s meeting, for the first time Spiny-tailed Iguanas were the
subject of major concern. Jose Luis Arcos and co-workers
(UMAR, Puerto Escondido) correlated changes in the reproduc-
tive apparatus with behavior during the reproductive period.
Several important reproductive parameters in captive Black
Iguanas were compared with values reported in the literature for
their wild conspecifics and led him to conclude that normal
reproductive behavior is not altered for animals that are man-
aged in captivity. Jose Luis Contreras (UAM-Iztapalapa) and
Cesar Casiano (UMA Iguanas, Acapulco) discussed the impor-
tance of spontaneous seminal emissions in Green Iguanas to
implement artificial insemination techniques for the enhance-
ment of reproductive management in farms. Ruben Castro and
Guadalupe Bustos (UAEM, Morelos) presented research show-
ing a lack of clear evidence of rainfall (which influences food
availability) affecting reproductive characters such as numbers of
eggs, mean volumes of eggs, nest weight, nest total weight, and
relative nest mass. Martha Pastrana and co-workers (UMA Los
Amatones) presented a new, low-cost rustic facility as a model

The Jamo Negro (Ctenosaura melanosterna) has been intensively
hunted in Honduras, almost to the point of extinction.

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for incubating Green Iguana eggs. The four-level wooden incu-
bator is covered with transparent polyethylene and houses foam
receptacles with a sand and vermiculite mixture. With no power
source, incubation temperatures can reach 35–40 °C and the
hatching success rate is 78%. Pilar Rueda and co-workers
(Instituto de Biología, UNAM and Colegio de Posgraduados,
Texcoco) presented digestibility and growth rates in Black
Iguana hatchlings fed commercial chicken and rabbit food. Her
research shows that higher food consumption rates, better food
conversion, better growth and weight gain were achieved in
iguanas raised on rabbit food. Victor Aguirre and co-workers
(Plymouth University, UK and Instituto de Biología, UNAM)
presented a method to evaluate mortality rates caused by preda-
tion in hatchling Black Iguanas using wax models. Wendoli
Medina and Víctor Reynoso (Instituto de Biología, UNAM)
presented models evaluating population growth in a severely
hunted population that could be applied to sustainable harvest-
ing of Black Iguanas in tropical deciduous forest. Eugenia Zarza
and co-workers (East Anglia University, UK and Instituto de
Biología, UNAM) showed the presence of genetically distinct
clades within the distribution of Ctenosaura pectinata, indicat-
ing that harvesting and releasing iguanas from site to site is not
recommended. Gabriela García Besné and co-workers (Instituto
de Biología, UNAM and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust,
UK) discussed the nesting behavior of the threatened Santa
Lucia Green Iguana at the only two beaches where this species

is known to nest. Jorge Morales-Mávil and co-workers
(Universidad Veracruzana) presented the role of Green Iguanas
in the regeneration of rainforest by comparing the germination
success of seeds passing through iguana, toucan, and Spider
Monkey guts. Green Iguanas were shown to be the best promot-
ers of seedling growth.

In another set of talks, Juan Antonio Hernández (Mundo
Iguana iguana, Tabasco) indicated that illegal trade of juvenile
Green Iguanas has decreased significantly in southeastern
México; however, most iguanas sold in local pet stores are intro-
duced by traders from México City, Honduras, El Salvador, or
Guatemala. He concluded that importation of Green Iguanas
into Tabasco is shameful, considering that this species naturally
inhabits the area. The last two talks emphasized the importance
of the use of new technologies to support conservation efforts.
Ubaldo Guzmán (Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM) presented a
data base designed to record all known iguana diseases caused by
viruses, parasites, or bad management, and their treatments.
Silvia Abdalá (Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas,
UNAM), on the other hand, showed the importance of internet
technologies to communicate new findings, share data, provide
support, and communicate among iguana groups. She empha-
sized the need to have a more active web page for SCT-Iguanas.

Technical talks were published in a 108-page volume (plus
program and index). The abstracts, available only in Spanish, can
be downloaded from www.subcomitedeiguanas.org/publica-
ciones.htm, where abstracts of previous meetings can also be found.

The meeting concluded with a field trip to CICARSA, an
iron-manufacturing company that dedicates part of its land for
species conservation. This company has been very interested in
promoting safe areas for the conservation of Green Iguanas. The
field trip was lead by experts who attempted to estimate the sizes
of iguana populations at some sites.

In 2006, the IX National Meeting on Iguanas will be held
in the city of Zihuatanejo in the state of Guerrero from 18–20
May. More information is available on our web page (www.sub-
comitedeiguanas.org) or you may contact José Luis Arcos-García
(jarcos@colpos.colpos.mx).

132 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 13, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2006 REYNOSO, BRISEÑO, OLMOS, AND HERNÁNDEZ

A workshop on Green Iguana (Iguana iguana) farming included talks
on the biology of iguanas, but also addressed enclosures and facilities,
nests and incubation, feeding and growth, diseases and their treatment,
and legal issues related to farming.

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Genetically distinct clades within the distribution of the Mexican
Spiny-tailed Iguana (Ctenosaura pectinata) have been identified, indi-
cating that harvesting and releasing iguanas at different sites is not rec-
ommended.

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