Driver deliberately kills endangered blue iguana

[Catherine]

The Blue Iguana Conservation of the Cayman Islands was called to the scene of a tragic accident. A driver deliberately swerved so he could hit and kill a blue iguana. 
This Blue Iguana was raised by the Blue Iguana Conservation and released into a protected area in 2012. For the last eight years he has lived well and has become an important 7 kg breeding male. His loss to the breeding program is terrible. It sets them back by years.  Blue Iguanas were close to extinction and it has taken work to increase their numbers. Iguanas are raised safely and released where they can mature and breed. 
In 2004 there were only a dozen in the wild, now there are 750. It is a successful program, but it needs to continue if the Blue Iguanas are going to survive.



https://www.loopcayman.com/content/drive...lue-iguana

Losing an important breeding animal of an endangered species is heartbreaking. Having it deliberately killed just makes me so angry. It is an act of a cruel and ignorant person who has no grasp of how important  biodiversity is. The loss of even one species diminishes us all. Blue Iguanas are a gentle reptile that eats vegetation. What possible reason could anyone have for killing one. 

[LPC]

Do they know who did this?

[Catherine]

Right now they have no idea. Maybe someone will have seen something or at least know someone who travels that road at that time.
If not, they know what they did. No good can come from an action like that.

It is just so sad to see that beautiful Iguana dead. They are intelligent creatures and they eat vegetables. He was just grazing along the roadside, minding his own business, harming no one. We can't say that about the driver of the car. He didn't just kill one Iguana, he also, in effect killed all the generations of Iguanas that would have come from this Iguana.

[Libby]

ugh why are people so mean?

[Catherine]

Why do people hate reptiles. This was a beautiful male. It must have been amazing to watch him out there grazing. Why would a person seeing that choose to kill rather than admire. There is something wrong with that person.