I just read an article discussing the use of nuisance iguanas as food. While it's not really my thing, it seems as if the annoying lizards may be heading for some dinner tables near you, and it's nothing new.
In places where iguanas have historically thrived, people eat them. Now that the Jurassic pains have settled in Florida, it's time to make hay while there's light, which means either establishing a market for hunters and trappers or getting people to serve the miniature dinosaurs for dinner.
Apparently, some guy in California leads in processing and reselling iguana meat, and he gets an outrageous amount of money ($60 per pound). But he has to import the pests from either Florida or Puerto Rico. How crazy is that? A local trapper said he's stuck with all kinds of lizards, so he ends up feeding them to his gators or turning them wallets. What am I missing? One guy from Cali is charging exotic food prices for something we've got way too much of in Florida.
It might have something to do with state laws, but I'd say it's time to change those laws. If it really does taste even a little like chicken, would it not be a healthy, protein-packed prison menu item? I'd be all for iguana Monday and goose Tuesday for those in the pen. Maybe python Wednesday, or maybe that's too much. Let's just stick to iguanas. They're called chicken of the trees, so serve it as that. Or let's set up our own iguana ranches and meat packing plants so that entrepreneurs in our state can gouge consumers in New Jersey looking for some new meat to serve at the annual board of directors cookout.
While I love taking advantage of the wealthy, I also think it's a pretty sweet idea to make prison inmates eat invasive animals. It's not cruel and unusual unless it's served with grits. But I'm from the North, so that's just me. Don't we have invasive fish here like we did back in Wisconsin, like Asian carp? Yeah, I found some, like lionfish, giant African snails, feral pigs, and coypu. All good eatin, at least somewhere in the world.
Would it not be awesome to have the first invasive species-fed prison system? And maybe that would even be a deterrent to crime. Don't want to eat giant African snails the rest of your life, then don't shoot your mom when she refused to sign over her Social Security check to you.