On August 18, 2025, in the Hellshire Hills of Jamaica, field ranger Oneil Wilson stepped over the three-foot-high protective nest site barrier to capture hatchling Jamaican rock iguanas. Because Jamaica was in a severe drought, fewer of the speckled, striped hatchlings had emerged from the nesting chambers, and the babies were smaller than normal. Wilson saw one, impossibly small, and scooped him up. Clinging with tiny, curved claws to Wilson’s fingers, the baby’s belly was the size of your pinkie fingertip. His umbilical scar—belly button—was not quite healed. His tail was oddly skinny, and his wide-open eye took in the giant creature who held him.

I know that wide-open iguana eye, looking back at me with curiosity and fear. When I was eight years old, I held a baby iguana in my hand. Uprooted from the rural Midwest, I was struggling to survive in the concrete and grit of New York City. But when the baby iguana looked at me, I felt grounded, safe, still connected to the Earth’s web of life. Ever since, I have dedicated myself to iguana conservation with fierce love.

Put two U.S. nickels in your hand and feel their weight. That’s a gram more than Wilson’s hatchling weighed: nine grams. This little survivor came to be known as Iggy Marley. Put three more nickels in your hand, and that’s how much a normal-sized hatchling Jamaican iguana should weigh. Marley and the other babies had survived the drought. But if left to fend for themselves in the wild, odds are that he and his nestmates would not survive, and so, they were packed up to make the journey to the Hope Zoo in Kingston to join the head start program. 

The Jamaican iguana is a survivor of near extinction. Once, his kind roamed the southern plains and hills of the island in such numbers that the region was called the Liguanea Plain, from the Arawak (Taino) word for lizard. Then colonizers came with predators the iguanas had not evolved to contend with: cats, dogs, pigs and the Indian mongoose. By 1940, the last iguana sighting recorded was on Great Goat Island, just off the south-central coast. But a few aging adult iguanas were hanging on, deep in the ancient dry forest of the Hellshire Hills. Every year, a few females gathered at a communal nest site to lay eggs, and every year feral cats and mongooses ate the hatchlings. Sometimes, feral pigs dug up the eggs. Sometimes, a stray dog killed another adult iguana. Meanwhile, developers had their eye on the beaches of the forest’s southern coast and charcoal makers were pushing deeper into the forest to cut down old-growth trees. 

Jamaican iguanas can live for 50 years, and it’s a good thing, because that’s how long the few aging lizards clung to survival before a pig hunter rescued one from his dogs.

That pig hunter was Mr. Edwin Duffus of Bushy Park, Jamaica, who, in June of 1990 rode his bicycle 14 miles to the Hellshire Hills forest to hunt. His dogs trotted alongside. Edwin’s father had been a pig hunter, and Edwin was carrying on the tradition, though hunting was not easy work in the dry heat of Hellshire forest. The leaf canopy was low and not thick enough to give much shade from the tropical sun, and the jagged limestone rock made the trail treacherous. Giant cacti and thorny, spiny trees and shrubs covered the landscape and sometimes the mosquitoes were unbearable, but on that June day, Edwin went deeper into the heart of the forest. The dogs gave chase, but it was not a pig they were after this time. Edwin glimpsed a large lizard fleeing from the dogs, and when he caught up, he saw the wounded creature trying to hide in a hollow log. He’d been taught in elementary school that the Jamaican iguana was extinct, but still, he put the lizard in a bag and carried it on his shoulders for the long trip home. Edwin’s lizard turned out to be the Jamaican iguana that ignited the local and international movement to save the species. 

Fast forward 36 years to August 2026. News breaks across social media that 30 head started Jamaican rock iguanas are coming home to the Hellshire Hills, escorted by an entourage of local and international conservationists and scientists, including IUCN Iguana Specialist Group co-chair Dr. Stesha Pasachnik. This homecoming coincides with the hatching and emergence of the next iguana generation. Meanwhile, I am at work on a construction site in upstate New York, monitoring for timber rattlesnakes. (Timber rattlers have threatened species status in New York state, and are endangered in New Jersey and Connecticut.) 

Rattlesnake dens are close enough that the Department of Environmental Conservation mandates my presence on this site, though I am unlikely to see a rattler. Habitat loss, persecution, poaching and now climate change continue to erode wild populations of these shy, gentle snakes. I steer a garter snake away from the path of an excavator. Moments later, I move a bright orange eft-stage newt, and then a pickerel frog who has settled in a tire rut puddle. These amphibians and the painted and snapping turtles I move from harm’s way are present. For now. 

I’m feeling down, to say the least, about our impacts on wildlife when PING! a text from Stesha, a dispatch from the Hellshire Hills: “The babies are coming out,” and there on my phone screen is an iguana hatchling, quite calm in her hand. My spirits lift. This baby and about 150 nest mates will be saved from likely predation by mongooses and feral cats to be head started at the Hope Zoo for future release. 

Sometimes, one of the guys on the construction crew asks why we should care about rattlesnakes. After a few words about their inherent right to thrive, I point out that each species lost breaks a strand that weakens the global web of life, of which we are also a strand. I make the same case when people here in my Catskills community ask what saving an iguana that lives in Jamaica means to us. I toss in the fact that iguanas are seed dispersers and the passage of seeds through their stomachs improves the chances of germination. They are the original farmers who keep the unique dry Caribbean forests healthy, and many of the beautiful birds we enjoy seeing in North America pass through those forests to replenish themselves on their migrations. 

Wildlife on Earth is suffering and dying, as are we. In “David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet,” there’s a mercifully short film clip of walruses falling off a cliff to their death while people in the audience weep. “Nobody wants this,” says Attenborough. I agree. I see our growing awareness of and support for species-saving projects like the Jamaican Iguana Recovery Program. In my Catskills neighborhood, more people are creating pollinator pathway gardens and observing No Mow May. I’m seeing more stories on social media about people helping turtles cross our roads. This year, I’ve received more calls from homeowners concerned about rattlesnakes in their yard—concerned for the snakes’ safety as well as their own. Can I dare hope that we are ready to move toward a culture of compassion that extends to all life? There’s no time to lose.                                                                                                                                  

The Jamaican iguana endures, a beacon of resilience and hope. Its recovery from near extinction is a world-renowned conservation success story, a perfect example of what we humans are capable of when we join forces with Nature. For our part, saving species takes research and science-based action, sweat equity, modest funding, and our fierce love. Before the end of 2026, we will reach a milestone set many years ago—one thousand head starts of Jamaican iguanas returned to the wild. 

Back in the ‘90s, as the story of Edwin Duffus and the lost-and-found Jamaican iguana evolved, talk of other iguana sightings surfaced. Hunters said their dogs occasionally killed an iguana. But it was Edwin who had called off his dogs to save one. Why? Imagine the moment when Edwin first held the injured iguana. No doubt their eyes met. Something passed between man and lizard. If you ask me, it was love. Edwin’s life was forever changed, and he dedicated the rest of his life to saving Jamaican iguanas.                                                          

It’s September 2026 and our little survivor, Iggy Marley, is one year old and thriving in the TLC of Hope Zoo staff. He and many of his group have also survived Hurricane Melissa, which struck Jamaica in 2025 on the heels of the drought. For his one-year birthday, Marley has just received his PIT tag (and some fruit treats). When he goes home, in about two more years, we’ll be able to see how he’s doing in the wild: which leaves and plants he’s eating, where he spends time in relation to other iguanas, and how he’s navigating a landscape that includes invasive predators. Marley will continue to teach us about resilience and adaptation in a changing world. He shows us what can be accomplished when powered by fierce love. 

When not rescuing iguanas, Wendy Townsend lives in Callicoon, NY.