The Story of One Tough Iguana: Demo, by Elaine A. Powers, Author

Having an iguana rescue, I met a lot of iguanas. Some came from people who couldn’t or didn’t want to care for them. (Iguanas come with a lot of responsibilities.) I also received calls about iguanas who had been found in leaf piles, in the middle of the road or worse, from NJ and PA.

One day, I received a call from a crew demolishing a building. They had found an iguana who had been left behind in a tank. Think about that. This iguana had been abandoned long enough for the building to be condemned , for the permits for its demolition to be obtained, and for a crew to be sent over to knock it down.

When the man arrived at my door with the iguana in a box, I didn’t have much hope. The large lizard was listless and very thin—starved—and covered in mud. I didn’t expect it to survive overnight. Sometimes all you can do for an animal is give it a safe place to die in peace, not worrying about predators.

I washed the iguana, gave him a warm, comfortable place, with food, if he wanted. The next day, he was alert and ready to eat and drink! I named him Demo, short for demolition. Demo recovered amazingly quickly and became quite socialized. The young man who had brought him to me came by to check on him and asked to adopt him. I happily agreed. His twin brother adopted his own iguana from me a little while later.

I meet truly wonderful people because of iguanas.