We often get asked about whether it is possible to have a pet ferret if you also have a pet bunny, parrot, or other small mammal in the home.  There are many stories about pet ferrets causing injury or even death to other pets, but these accidents are preventable.  In this series, we are going to discuss different elements that you should be aware of before you mix a pet ferret with other prey type pets.  

This is the fourth part of this series.  You can find links to the parts down below. In the first part we already discussed the biology and domestication process of ferrets.  In the second part we discussed how to make your other animal friend safe and comfortable.  In the third part, we started our focus on ferrets.  In this section, we will cover more advanced training techniques that can be used to desensitize the ferret and delay the predatory response.

This is not a training process that we recommend for the average pet owner.  For most pet owners, it should be sufficient to desentize the animals as we discussed in previous posts and to prevent direct interaction between them.  We are sharing our training techniques for other professionals who work in animal ambassador programs or provide educational services using live animals.  In this type of work, these animals are often transported in travel carriers to unfamiliar places and there are more variables that can be difficult to control.  This training is an unnecessary risk for casual pet owners who have more control over their home environment and reducing risks of accidental interaction.  The goal of this training is to create more time for intervention in case of an accidental interaction or exposure.  In the case of educational programs, this could be as simple as a well-intentioned program participant moving an animal carrier closer to another carrier without realizing that the space between the ferret carrier and rabbit carrier were intentional.  Or it could be an unsupervised child opening the parrot travel carrier while the animal handler is presenting the ferret.  Mistakes happen and accidents happen.  Hopefully this training can help prevent them from becoming an emergency.

This training process assumes that both animals are already highly socialized and desensitized to new environments.  Target training is recommended and flight recall should already be trained for birds.  The prey type animal should already have enough exposure to ferrets that there is no fear response or agitation caused by the ferret’s presence.  

The first step in this process is to gauge the ferret’s predatory drive.  How does the ferret respond when you wave a feather in their face?  Will the ferret chase a toy mouse on a string?  How is the ferret’s impulse control while playing?  Does the ferret easily get carried away or does the ferret show inhibition with biting by being gentle or avoiding nipping?  Some ferrets are going to require a longer training process than others.  This helps determine where to start.  

If you’ve already target trained the ferret, that is good, but I also recommend training this auditory cue.  If you remember from the first part, ferrets are very near-sighted, but they have an excellent ability to locate a sound.  For our ferrets, we provide a consistent tapping sound on the floor.  We want to train the ferret to locate the source of the sound instead of using a target because the ferret will be capable of doing this over a greater distance and they will notice a sound more quickly than a nonmoving visual object.  We want the sound to capture their attention in a way that would be more difficult to do with a target stick.  The reason we train this behavior is for a common behavioral training trick.  If you want to stop an animal from doing an unwanted behavior, you can give the animal a task to perform that competes with the unwanted behavior.  In this case, the unwanted behavior is the ferret investigating a new animal.  The ferret cannot investigate a new animal if it is locating the source of a sound that is in a different direction than the new animal.  Those two behaviors are in competition.  We want the ferret to decide between locating the source of this sound which has a reward or investigating this new animal which is rewarding by satisfying their curiosity.  But we are going to manipulate the situation so that coming to where we are tapping will be more rewarding than following their instinct to investigate the new animal.  From there, we can work on training them to ignore the new animal.

In the video clip below, you can see part of this training process with Jack that was done in 2017.

Depending on the level of predatory instinct, you may have to start training using substitutes.  This can be a stuffed animal that has the other animal’s scent.  For parrots, it is easiest to use their molted feathers.  What you will do is to make these objects move in ways that are stimulating for the ferret and then you want to reward for “calm”.  This may involve some shaping.  You may place the feather on the floor and then call the ferret away before you progress to instigating the unwanted behavior.  If a ferret reaches for the object with an open mouth, you may want to work on training for calmly sniffing the object before asking the ferret to move away.  This training is tricky because you are instigating the unwanted behavior.  It is important not to scold or scruff your ferret for failing as this will cause the ferret to become frustrated.  Simply ignore any failures, and reward behaviors that bring the ferret closer to being calm and disinterested.

After this, you can start introducing the other animal in training sessions.  You should have more than one trainer working together especially if the prey type animal has not been exposed to this situation and it is uncertain exactly how they will respond.  You can use a harness on the ferret for additional control, but this may also cause distraction or confusion for the ferret.  

First you present the animal out of the ferret’s immediate range, but close enough that the ferret recognizes the new stimulus.  If the ferret comes towards the other animal, you can lift the animal further out of reach.  Also be aware that if the ferret is coming towards the animal, this can cause the other animal to react in fear or cause them to flee which is the opposite of what you want to happen.  By lifting the other animal further out of reach, you want to maintain that animal’s comfort and trust in this process.  At the same time that the new animal is presented, the tapping sound should also start.  This can be done by you or the other trainer.  This behavior should also have been generalized to the other trainer before starting any sessions with the new animal.

At first, the ferret may choose to investigate the new animal instead of performing the desired behavior.  As before, failure is ignored.  If the ferret is not staying calm and is persistent in its efforts to access the new animal, then you should return to earlier steps in the training process.  If the ferret loses interest once the new animal is out of reach and is staying calm, then continue with the process.  The ferret should start choosing to locate the sound and receive its reward.

From here, you continue to present the new animal so that it is more within the ferret’s reach.  If the ferret reverts to trying to investigate the new animal, then increase the distance again.  Once the ferret can constantly perform this behavior as desired, then you can start desensitizing triggering behaviors.  ​

In July of 2020, we filmed Jack modeling his trained behaviors for the purposes of this series. Jack was so uninterested in the presence of the parrots that he decided to go take a nap instead.  We had to encourage him to even acknowledge the birds so that we could show what the training would look like. 

For this training, we have mostly worked with parrots.  Parrots are at higher risk of flying and landing on a person who might be holding a ferret, becoming startled and flying off, or potentially having a crash landing.  The flight behavior is also very stimulating to predatory animals.  For this training, we have the parrots do flight recall out of reach of the ferret.  The ferret should be exposed to the movements, sounds, and breeze that is caused by the bird flying overhead.  Then we want to reward for calm or give the ferret another task to complete while this is occurring.  We do not want the bird to be in reach of the ferret or to land near the ferret during this training.  This is additional desensitization.  

Again, the goal of this training is to increase the length of time that you have to make an intervention in case of an accident in which the ferret and the other animal have access to each other.  If the ferret suddenly realizes that a bunny, chinchilla, or parrot happens to be within reach, you want the ferret’s first response to look for a behavioral cue that means an opportunity for a reward rather than the excitement of seeing a new animal.  You are trying to encourage the inhibition of a predatory response and creating a new meaning for this stimulus other than what is being provided by the ferret’s instincts.  This training does not eliminate the predatory response or mean that the ferret is now safe to have around prey type animals.  Again, we do not recommend this training for regular pet owners.  

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of the dynamics between ferrets and other household pets.  

​

We often get asked about whether it is possible to have a pet ferret if you also have a pet bunny, rodent, or parrot in the home.  There are many stories about pet ferrets causing injury or even death to other pets, but these accidents are preventable.  In this series, we are going to discuss different elements that you should be aware of before you mix a pet ferret with other prey type pets.  

This is the second part of this series.  You can find links to the other parts in this series down below. In the first part we already discussed the biology and domestication process of ferrets.  Now, we are going to discuss methods of safety for other pets in your home.

Here at Ferrets and Friends, we have ferrets as well as parrots, bunnies, chinchillas, and a hedgehog.  Our rule of thumb for safety is that there should always be at least two to three barriers between the ferrets and the other animals with one of those barriers being a door which is ferret proof.  You would think that doors are usually ferret proof, but ferrets can fit wherever their skull fits.  In the case of smaller ferrets (usually girls), some are actually able to squeeze under the door.  If a door does not latch, it is not uncommon for ferrets to figure out how to push or pull the door open. 

We never assume that a cage meant for another animal is ferret proof.  At one point we kept one of our parrot cages out in the living area which the ferrets were allowed to roam for the exercise.  The parrot cage was purchased because it had a tall stand and no bars for ferrets to climb to reach the main portion of the cage.  One day, a cat scratching post was moved about a foot away from the parrot cage and one of the ferrets was able to climb to the top of the post, jump the distance to the portion of the parrot cage that had bars, and climb to the top.  Fortunately, neither the parrot or ferret was hurt in this scenario.  But this caused us to change our safety procedures to require a door in addition to barriers provided by cages.  Even if your ferret has never shown interest in climbing onto a table or the top of a bookcase, it is usually because they simply have not tried it yet and does not mean that they are incapable.  You do not want them to discover their new climbing or jumping abilities when you are not supervising them and your other pets are left vulnerable in their cage.  Accidents happen and sometimes a door to a ferret cage isn’t latched correctly or your creative parrot has invented a new escape through their food door.  Having separate rooms significantly reduces the risk of each animal encountering the other during their unauthorized adventure.  ​

We have had many conversations with people about what type of pet they would like to add to their family.  There are many things to consider such as how social the animal is, how much mess there might be to clean, life expectancy, and lifestyle compatibility.  Pets are also a financial commitment and it can be difficult to get an idea of exactly what a new pet will cost.  Since we care for a variety of animals, we decided to put together some charts based on our experience of caring for these different animals.  We decided to factor our veterinary costs differently than other resources.  Instead of factoring the average cost of a wellness exam and standard annual care for a healthy animal, we also looked at our experience of how often the specific type of animal may become sick and the typical costs of end of life illnesses.  We added these costs to the annual wellness costs for the animal's lifespan and then divided these costs by the average lifespan.  For example, a single ferret might cost $300 to care for in a year in which they are healthy, but ferrets are prone to many end of life illness that can be expensive to treat.  When you factor this in, it raises the average annual cost to $600 per year.  That's a big difference!  So ferret owners should expect to spend $300 per year caring for their pet during a healthy year and set aside an additional $300 per year for potential illnesses.  We hope that this information is useful for pet parents as they factor in a budget for their new family member.

To give you an idea of how we came to our numbers, we are providing an example with our eleven pound tabby cat, Peach.  Her annual wellness exam with vaccinations is about $80.  However, we have budgeted $200 for veterinary expenses to cover potential illnesses she may have over her lifetime.  Since cats are a more common household pet, you may be able to compare your budget for feline expenses against ours.  These numbers should also give you some frame of reference as you compare other types of animals on our list.

We are only putting together numbers for small mammals in our care.  While there are many other small mammals in the pet trade, we do not have numbers that we can use for guinea pigs, rats, mice, hamsters, or gerbils.  We would expect that the numbers for a Guinea Pig might be similar to the Chinchilla, while number for hamsters, gerbils, and mice should be less than our numbers for our Hedgehog.  Rats would probably fall between the Hedgehog and Chinchilla range. 

For start up costs, we are including items that are typically bought only once or infrequently  in the animal's lifespan.  This includes a cage, food bowls, hay bins, hides or shelter, and water bottle or water dish.  We are not including the cost of the animal in start up costs or the cost of the first bag of food or initial wellness exam.  Your expected first year budget can be found by adding the annual cost and the start up cost.  

With small mammals, the combination of veterinary costs and shorter lifespans play a huge role in their annual budget.  The annual veterinary budget for each animal is as follows: ferret ($400), rabbit ($250), chinchilla ($100), and hedgehog ($200).  Chinchillas typically have a longer lifespan and fewer illnesses so this more evenly spreads their veterinary costs over time, while hedgehogs have short lifespans and a variety of common illnesses so you can expect to spend more money in a shorter amount of time.  Rabbits and ferrets are both prone to emergency veterinary visits and are susceptible to different illnesses.  As mentioned previously, ferrets have very high end of life health care needs and require annual vaccinations like dogs and cats, so they have the highest annual budget.

You may notice that our rabbits surprisingly have the lowest start up cost of our other animals.  This is because we do not have a cage for our rabbits.  We use a small bedroom as their enclosure instead of using a cage or a pen.  While the ferrets are also given a small room as their enclosure, we do have a cage for them that we use to contain them during cleaning time or when we travel to longer events.  Since the ferrets have a room as their enclosure, they have a cheaper cage that would not be adequate as their main housing.  For a sturdier cage, the cost would be about $100 higher.  For a rabbit, if you choose to use a cage or pen, you would need to add in this additional cost.

It was difficult for us to estimate our food budget for the different types of parrots in our care.  One of the advantages of having a multiple parrots is that we can often split the food between the parrots.  They also receive a variety of fresh foods as part of their diet.  These fresh foods are also consumed by other animals (and people!).  Again, the start up costs only include the cage and an initial purchase of toys, perches, and food dishes if they were not adequately supplied with the cage.  The start up costs do not include the cost of the animal.  For parrots, this is often the highest initial expense with many small parrots costing $200-$300 and larger parrots costing $1,500-$2,500.  

Veterinary costs for sick parrots do not have as much of an impact on the annual budget due to their long lifespans.  In addition to typical wellness exams, parrots should also have their blood work checked.  You can expect to spend a bit more on their annual wellness exam than you would for your dog or cat. They also require a larger budget for toys and enrichment.  Parrots are social and emotional animals.  Boredom can cause frustration, behavioral problems, and psychological or physical illness.  Over 60% of our annual budget for our macaw parrot is the cost of toys and enrichment for her.  She's a young parrot so this may change as her energy levels change over time, but for now, this is what our numbers are showing.

We have a variety of lizards that we work with here at Ferrets and Friends so for this selection we tried to pick some of the most popular pets as well as our largest lizard, our Argentine Tegu.  Since we keep a large collection, we use stacking enclosures, radiant heat panels, and a thermostat to maintain heat levels.  For high humidity animals, we also use a humidifier.  For start up costs, we included the enclosure, heating system, hides, water dishes, and humidifier (where applicable).  For annual costs, we included food, substrate, UVB strips, basking bulbs, and veterinary care.  We actually reduced the cost of our veterinary care budget as we realize that most people do not take their reptiles to the veterinarian each year for wellness exams.  Instead, we tried to reflect the costs for illness, fecal exams, and typical end of life care.  Out of the animals listed, chameleons have the highest veterinary cost average due to their shorter lifespan (the same thing happened with hedgehogs as we discussed earlier).  For Bearded Dragons, you should get their fecals checked once a year and they sometimes need to be treated minor illnesses.  Leopard geckos are very easy to care for and the longer lifespan makes their average veterinary costs the lowest of the group.  With reptiles, proper husbandry is really important.  Many expensive veterinary costs are avoidable by making sure that your reptile has the proper diet and environment. 
As we were putting together this information, we were surprised to find that we actually spend more money annually feeding our Tegu than feeding our cat.  She costs an average of $440 per year to feed, just barely surpassing the food budget for our favorite feline.

Snakes are probably one of the most budget friendly pets.  Young snakes might only eat once a week.  Older and larger snakes might only eat once per month.  Most of our snakes use either a radiant heat panel or a heating pad which do not need to be replaced as often as bulbs.  Feeding a frozen/thawed diet of mice or rats makes it easy to buy feeders in bulk.  Corn snakes, milk snakes, and king snakes are all very easy for beginners.  While Ball Pythons are docile, they have several common problems that are better for keepers with more experience.  The largest snake in our collection is a red-tail boa.  

For this last group, we made some liberal estimates.  Our tortoises receive their pellet supplement once per week and they receive fresh food throughout the rest of the week.  We estimate that we spend about $174 per year to feed our two tortoises.  We did not cut this number in half as we did with our bunny food budget estimate because we did not think it would be accurate reflection of the spending for a single tortoise.  The rest of the budget is substrate changes and replacement bulbs which would need to be done in the same way regardless if you had one or two tortoises. 

By far the most affordable animals in our care, our South American Horned Frog (or Pacman Frog) and Desert Blonde Tarantula finish up this list.  They certainly shouldn't be breaking anyone's bank account.  Like the other animals, set up costs did not include the cost for the animal itself.  These only include the cage, water dish, and hides.  We also did not factor in veterinary care for the frog or the tarantula.  In fact, our frog might be one of the only frogs that our veterinarian sees in his practice!  

So, when people ask us which animal is the most expensive animal in our care, we can now point them to this article and answer with confidence that it is our cat!  We can say with some confidence that most animals in the small pet trade will be less expensive than a pet dog or a pet horse, but some are not as cheap as you would expect.  Owning a parrot, ferret, rabbit, or large lizard can cost nearly as much as a cat or a small dog.  There are also going to be many individual variables.  Some may wear through their toys faster or have special dietary needs.  When one of our animals is sick, it is not uncommon for us to see veterinary bills of $500-$1500 in order to diagnose and treat an illness.  We factor these numbers into our animal care budget.  Hopefully with this information, now you can too!

It is so important to recognize that turtles and tortoises are long-lived animals, and therefore mature much like human beings (and in some cases they mature much more slowly than humans). When it takes an animal 15 year or more to be able to reproduce the loss of mature adults can be extremely devastating to populations - and that is often what leads to the decline of turtles and tortoises. They are often harvested for their meat, meaning that the largest individuals are usually targeted for poaching and meat trade which can reduced reproduction tremendously. Collection of animals for pet trade is also devastating, but not necessarily to the degree that poaching or death of adult individuals can be. I encourage everyone to show compassion to these creatures - especially with the frequency in which they cross roads. Stopping to move a turtle or tortoise from a roadway can have huge positive impacts on populations. 

I wanted to take the time to highlight some of my favorite animals in need: turtles and tortoises. After my friend's took a  trip to the Turtle Conservancy last year, the brought me back a 2018 publication of the most endangered turtles and tortoises  of the world that was distributed by the Turtle Conservancy. It is that publication which I am basing this blog list off of. The species listed are not North American, but it could only be a matter of time until some of the turtles and tortoises of North America begin to make an appearance on lists like this one. 

For More information on these tortoises and turtles please see the link below for the 2018 publication of "Turtles in trouble" put out by the Turtle Conservancy:

https://www.turtleconservancy.org/turtles-in-trouble
​

​The American alligator is a large reptile native to the southeastern united states Previously the American alligator was a federally listed endangered species. In the early 1900s the alligator was hunted close to extinction which brought it to be listed under the Endangered Species Act. The hunting of these animals was prohibited, and their habitat was protected. In the 1980s the species had recovered enough to be removed from the endangered species list. Today, however, the large reptile is still protected due to its similar appearance to the American crocodile which is currently protected due to low population numbers (they are on the rise though!) Hunting of the American alligator is currently allowed, but it is regulated.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have statistics that show alligator attacks have actually increased from around 6 per year in 1971-1986 to around 10 per year from 1987-2017. This is likely due to human population increasing in the areas that alligators call home. Another source showed that human population was positively correlated with alligator attacks - more people, more likely the chance of an encounter. Humans also increase their chances of conflict by feeding alligaors (intentionally or unintentionally - throwing fish off the dock when alligators are present in the area can produce a similar association as feeding the gators), swimming in bodies of fresh water which gators are present in, allowing pets or children to play or drink from open bodies of fresh water, and generally approaching alligators fro photographs or not giving the animals space. The best way to mitigate conflicts with alligators are to simply leave them alone.

More information on American alligators can be found:

1. https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/wildlife/alligator/data/
2. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/a/american-alligator/
3. https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-alligator
4. https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Reptiles/American-Alligator​
5. https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Alligator_mississippiensis/
   

​The American crocodile is a large carnivorous reptile which can grow to over 15 feet long and up to 2,000lbs. it is an at-risk species throughout its range in North and South America. There is not much information known about their population status except for in the United States, but illegal hunting and habitat loss are two factors that are heavily influencing the populations. 

American crocodiles have a global status of “vulnerable”, which means that this species is likely to become endangered unless the circumstances that are threatening the species survival and reproduction are improved. In Florida, the northern most extent of the American crocodile’s range, laws have been put in place to protect the American crocodile and there has been improvement in the reproduction and survivorship which has led them to be state listed as Threatened.

There are 22 species of crocodilians found in the whole world, of these species only 13 of them are crocodiles, and only two crocodilians are found in the United states - the American alligator, and the American crocodile! In the U.S. the American crocodile thrives in the mangrove swamps, bays, and creeks of Florida and tends to spend the winter months further inland than during the summers and breeding season.  

The population in Florida, however, is quite a small portion of the crocodiles range. A majority of the population lives in southern Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the northern portions of South America. A recent push has begun in Jamaica to protect the American crocodile, which is an amazing step for their conservation. One of the tools being used to conserve this species is to educate residents with “Croc-Wise” – an educational outreach program targeting communities and schools. This program will help to inform residents about the natural history of the crocodile, their preferred habitat, and to help prevent human-crocodile conflicts from occurring.

​This is a huge step, considering a VICE article written in 2016 (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8ge4yv/the-rogue-conservationist-trying-to-save-jamaicas-alligators) which discusses how decades of development has destroyed much of the habitat for the crocodiles, overfishing has depleted the food sources of the crocodiles, and a surge in demand for crocodile meat has led to increased poaching (which is still a big issue now in 2019). At the time this article was written the government had not shown much interest in protecting the crocodiles and one individual, Lawrence Henriques, who had taken it upon himself to help the crocodiles out in any way he could.

​

The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) is managing the American crocodile population in Jamaica. The management includes a crocodile rescue and research operations committee which are a combination of efforts from NEPA the Hope zoo, and several other NGO's and private individuals. Together they relocate nuisance animals, perform research and general assessments of the crocodile population, and formulate policies and strategies to create effective management plans. All conservation efforts will hopefully keep these creatures from going extinct, and create a happy environment for the crocodiles and human beings to be able to coexist peacefully. To learn more about the American crocodile more information can be found at the link provided below:

1. https://www.nepa.gov.jm/new/services_products/publications/brochures/docs/crocodile.pdf
2. https://www.fws.gov/verobeach/MSRPPDFs/Croc.pdf
3. http://spacecoastdaily.com/2017/04/florida-wildlife-american-crocodiles-numbers-have-increased-from-300-to-1500/
4. https://databasin.org/datasets/a125e5b4ad4c474b93cff0cd95748866
5. http://www.animalspot.net/american-crocodile.html
6. http://santivachronicle.com/Content/Default/Outdoor/Article/LIVING-SANIBEL-Charles-Sobczak-American-Crocodile/-3/35/6572
7. http://www.themiamiplanet.org/2011/10/10/american-crocodiles-scare-but-co-exist/

Jaguar
​
The Jaguar is likely one of the most well-known cats of Belize. Jaguars can reach lengths of around 7 feet from head to tail and weigh up to 250lbs. This cat used to be very common in the coastal mangroves, savannas, and shrub lands of Belize, however it is highly prized for its fur and is a persecuted killer of livestock which makes the jaguar a target for hunting and poaching. These cats are rarely seen during the day time, and spend their nights hunting prey along the rivers, lakes, and mangroves. Prey of the Jaguar include peccaries, monkeys, agouties, deer, birds, fish, lizards, turtles, among others. Historically the Jaguar is thought to be a powerful being. They are depicted in many Mayan ruins and art. Since this time of reverence the cats populations have been reduced due to hunting for fur trade, deforestation, and poaching of cats on protected lands.

Puma
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The Puma, or mountain lion, is the second largest wild cat found in Belize. The puma can reach 5-8 feet in length and weigh around 100lbs.They are adapted to living in all kinds of areas ranging from the deserts of north America to the tropical forests of central and south America. They are opportunistic predators who rely on ambushing their prey. They hunt deer, agouti, and paca. This cat is an apex predator and plays a very important role in controlling the populations of prey species. Theses cats are also facing population declines as a result of hunting and deforestation.

​Ocelot
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Ocelots are one of the smaller cats of Belize. They only reach sizes of around 3 feet in length and weights of 30lbs. They are active during the day and night time and live in tropical forest. These cats spend their time foraging on the ground, and are rarely seen in trees. These cats are endangered from poaching for their furs. The trade of Ocelots fur was banned in the United States in 1972, but continued pressure from deforestation and agricultural development are still putting high pressure on the already fragmented population. The name “Ocelot” is derive from an old Aztec word “tlalocelot” which means ‘tiger cat’.

​Jaguarundi
​
The Jaguarundi is another smaller cat that can be found in Belize. Its color can vary from black to gray, to a yellow or tan coloration. They grow to be a max size of 2 and a half feet and weigh 15lbs. They live in dense forests and open scrub habitat, and feed on smaller animals including rats, rabbits, and mice. Their feeding habits are of great economic importance in Belize since they prey on agricultural pests. Unfortunately they too are facing declines from deforestation and agricultural pressure.

Margay
​
The last of the wild cats found in Belize, the Margay. Margays live from Mexico down into Argentina. They live exclusively in forested areas, and are very tactful climber. These small cats reach lengths of around 2 feet and weigh a whopping 5 to 8 lbs. They may be tiny, but these cats are extremely nimble and spend a great deal of time in the forest canopies. The Margay is strictly nocturnal and has ankle joints designed specifically for climbing down trees vertically. They feed on arboreal prey including opossum, monkey, squirrel, rat, and bird species. These cats do not thrive in human presence, and are threatened by deforestation. They are currently listed as an endangered species, but Belize is home to one of the healthier populations.

For more information:
https://belize-travel-blog.chaacreek.com/2014/05/big-cats-list-belize/
http://consejo.bz/belize/cats/cats.html
https://ambergriscaye.com/critters/belize_cats.html
http://www.belizezoo.org/index.php

​About the Author: Jenna is a graduate student at the University of Florida. Currently she is studying Wildlife Ecology and Conservation while working in south Florida to manage invasive animals. Jenna primarily works with the Argentine Black and White Tegu and other invasive lizards

The Rock iguanas are composed of three species with seven subspecies:

• Cyclura carinata
  • Bartsch’s Iguana (Cyclura carinata bartschi)
• Cyclura cyclura
  • Allen’s Cay Iguana (Cyclura cyclura inornata)
  • Exuma Cay Iguana (Cyclura cyhlura figginsi)
  • Andros Iguana (Cyclura cyclura cyclura)
• Cyclura rileyi
  • Acklin’s Iguana (Cyclura rileyi nuclalis)
  • San Salvador Iguana (Cyclura rileyi rileyi)
  • White Cay Iguana (Cyclura rileyi cristata)

In the Bahamas all of the Rock iguanas are protected by the Wild Animals (protection) Act, and they are all listed by CITES in Appendix 1 meaning they are near extinct or very endangered. Today it is illegal to hunt or harm any rock iguanas, and they can live up to 40 years in the wild.

Reptiles Magazine published an article in 2010 giving a quick run-down of the Cyclura sp. Which can be read here (http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Cyclura/em-Species-Rundown/)

You can read more about the Rock Iguanas in the Bahamas min their website (https://bnt.bs/wildlife/reptiles/lizards/bahamian-rock-iguana/)

IUCN Redlist profiles of the iguanas are as follows:

Cyclura carinata

• Bartsch’s Iguana (Cyclura carinata bartschi) - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6026/12317199

Cyclura cyclura

• Allen’s Cay Iguana (Cyclura cyclura inornata) - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6041/12360350
• Exuma Cay Iguana (Cyclura cylura figginsi)- http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/6040/0
• Andros Iguana (Cyclura cychlura cychlura) - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6039/12349025

Cyclura rileyi

• Acklin’s Iguana (Cyclura rileyi nuclalis) - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6047/12369475
• San Salvador Iguana (Cyclura rileyi rileyi) - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6048/12360803
• White Cay Iguana (Cyclura rileyi cristata) - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6046/12358978