Chiayi offers incentives to encourage killing of invasive lizards

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/07
By: By: Huang Kuo-fang and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Sept. 7 (CNA) The southern county of Chiayi has launched a program that offers a government bounty to people willing to capture or kill exotic lizards, aimed at wiping out the invasive species in order to protect the natural ecosystem, the county government said Wednesday.

In light of the serious threat posed by invasive alien species to biodiversity and ecosystems in recent years, the county government launched the program to encourage the capture or killing of the brown anole and the green iguana, two invasive species in Taiwan, it said.

The county government will begin purchase of the captured reptiles, dead or alive, on Sept. 14 and then every Friday between Sept. 23 and Oct. 21.

The local government said it will offer NT$3 (US$0.096) for the purchase of each brown anole captured, NT$500 for each green iguana with a body length of 50cm or longer, and NT$150 for green iguanas with a body length shorter than 50cm.     [FULL  STORY]