Retraining A Dying Breed

If you've got a gator in your yard and need someone to wrestle it, you may be out of luck in a few years. Alligator wrestlers are becoming in short supply.

But if alligator procreation has slowed down, which we doubt, the population of iguanas seems to be growing. There are now lots of these suckers on Stock Island, and they're moving west. These things grow to six feet and appear to have no predators. Moreover they can stand upright on their hind legs. That's quite a sight and, for the uninitiated can be quite scary. While we've never seen it, folks say there is a very large orange iguana that hangs out near the Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island.

In some places residents have complained iguanas have eaten every plant in sight and have devastated gardens and landscaping. Soon there may be a need for -- you've got it -- iguana wrestlers.

Perhaps the Florida Legislature as part of its Pork Projects can initiate a retraining program for alligator wrestlers so that the Iguanas may bring a new life's blood to the soon to be extinct gator wrestling business.