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Blue Iguana Key Tip

Blue Iguana tour tickets must be purchased from the botanic park’s visitor centre before 11am. The tour costs $24 for adults but is free for children 12 and younger.

The wardens at the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme lead a group tour of the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park’s Blue Iguana habitat at 11am every day apart from Sundays.

The National Trust for the Cayman Islands operates a captive breeding programme for the Blue Iguanas at the park, which is also filled with free-roaming Blues.

Staffers and volunteers raise the Blue Iguanas until they are about two-years-old, then release them into protected East End sites in the Salina Reserve and Colliers Wilderness Reserve.

In 2002, a survey showed there were only between 10 and 25 blue iguanas left in the wild in Grand Cayman.

Thanks to the recovery programme, that number is now around 600 to 700. The programme has a goal of 1,000 iguanas before the captive breeding programme is discontinued.

Formerly the largest and dominate land animal in Grand Cayman, the Blue Iguana is threatened by humans, dogs and cats. Contrary to popular local belief, the endemic Blue Iguanas have not been crowded out by the introduced Green Iguanas.

The Blue Iguana population was in a state of near annihilation long before the smaller and less aggressive Green Iguanas appeared on Island.

The Blue Iguanas are thought to have a maximum lifespan of about 70 years. A dominant male can occupy and control an area of about 10 acres.