What do you do when you have a nonnative animal inside your home or work and FWC doesn’t respond to you? You do research and figure it out with quality resources and background information what the most ethical and reasonable thing to do is!
Nonnative vs Invasive Animals
Before we dive into the dilemma here, what is the difference between a native, nonnative, and invasive animal?
- Native: originate in a specific region
- Nonnative: introduced from elsewhere, may or may not be causing harm
- Invasive: subset nonnative animals that spread aggressively and cause ecological and/or economical harm to an area
The distinction between nonnative and invasive is important in this story because that distinction determines the path one should take when dealing with animals that are not originally part of the region you are in.
The Weather Outside is Frightful…
December 30th, 2025. It’s southwest Florida and we get a few day cold snap. The high was 60 degrees and that was in direst sunlight! Down even more south in Miami and you might even hear about it being so cold iguanas are falling out of trees! This is true, and in the case of Sarasota, Fl not as dramatic but lizards here weasel their ways into warmer areas and homes.
The Lizard in the Bookshop
I got a text from a friend of mine that works at Barnes and Noble that they caught a MASSIVE lizard and wondered if I could help get it out of the store. Naturally I was curious but was expecting something like a large brown anole. Now my friend warned me the lizard was bearded dragon size but I couldn’t really fathom it until I got to the store and saw it with my own eyes! This lizard was indeed bearded dragon sized and she was MAD. After peeking through the lid of the paper box I was able to snap a picture on my species identification app, Seek, and determined that this lizard was a Peter’s Rock Agama (Agama picticauda). Not only did we find out her species, but we also found out her species origins, which was NOT Florida. This lizard is native to West Africa, which meant it was nonnative.
Usually, when out walking or checking out plants and lizards with my app I see nonnative and leave it be, this typically means that they aren’t particularly harming anything native and are established in the region. This was a bit of a different experience for me as I was helping remove it from the store so I wasn’t sure exactly what I should do with her. So when in doubt, call FWC.
Florida Fish and Wildlife
FWC has a call line for nonnative and invasive species, think things like pythons, lion fish, etc. I called and was transferred to this line and left a message hoping for a quick response, but as usual, I had a backup plan. I went onto FWC’s website and searched for the Peter’s Rock Agama and found more specifics about this reptile in the region and that they are no longer asking for people to report when they see one as it has been deemed nonnative but not invasive. You are allowed to kill the lizard humanely, or release it.
Visit the FWC Site here to learn more about the Rock Agama and how to handle them!
Bringing the Lizard Home
I brought home the lizard and naturally named her Novella (book store, get it?) and then left her on my back lanai until I either got a call back from FWC or sunset, whichever came first. FWC didn’t call back so we went outside to let her go but she was very sluggish and when left alone did not seem to be able to move. This is where we reached another dilemma:
Do you let the lizard deal with nature even if you’re placing it into nature without it’s typical defenses, or do you help it out?
In this case, it was a hard choice, but we decided that it wasn’t fair to her to leave her to be eaten because we had her getting cold stunned outside in the afternoon. We recaptured her, which was very simple and she let us take her very easily this was very telling of her capabilities at that moment and survival likelihood was slim, and then we placed her in out guest bathroom with a small dumbbell on the lid to keep her from getting out. She became much more active as she warmed up throughout the night and into the next day. Around noon the next day we took her out to a nearby retention pond and let her go, where she scurried off into the pond to feed and keep warm to live another day.
What would you do?
The whole dilemma here centers around the idea that animals have a right to live, but invasive and nonnative animals were brought in by humans and are impacting the animals that do live here. Invasive animals are an easy decision, follow FWC protocols but in most cases you eradicate the animal. Take the lion fish, it is wreaking havoc on local fish species and laying insane amounts of eggs so taking out each individual actually does a significant amount of good for the local ecosystem.
Nonnative animals are a different story, they may have come in and established themselves into a new ecosystem, but they are not overpopulating and causing severe impacts to the local ecology. This lizard is likely eating some of the smaller, also nonnative, lizards like brown anoles or other bugs that are in the area. But they are still nonnative, so what should you do? Does one animal make a difference when the impact is so small?
It’s always easier to feel for the animal that you can see, even if intellectually you know that removing the animal would be better for all the animals in the ecosystem you cannot see.
In my case, I let Novella live to see another day, and find her own path in nature however that happens to be. But I also am taking this experience as an opportunity to ask my students what they would do and what they think the impact is either way. These little moments are solid learning lessons for teaching how organizations like FWC have to make decisions and why we need to follow those scientifically backed decisions.
So… What would you do???
