Stolen iguanas make it back to the Keys

Susanne Kynast pulled out all the stops this week — including calling in a Central Florida bounty hunter named Cobra — to find her stolen iguanas.

The hard work paid off Thursday, as 16-year-old Iggy and 10-year-old Lenny were reported found by a family from Fort Myers Beach. Kynast immediately drove north from her Marathon home to retrieve her beloved pets.

The family apparently was boating through Marathon and came to Banana Bay Resort’s marina, on the bayside around mile marker 49. They said they found Iggy and Lenny lying in the driveway leading to the resort and decided to scoop them up.

“Every day that passed, they noticed they were not wild iguanas. They were just too tame. When they [docked], they asked around and people said they’re in the newspaper,” said Kynast.

When they got back to Fort Myers Beach, the family called Banana Bay, which put them in touch with Kynast. Cobra picked Iggy and Lenny up and met Kynast halfway with them.

Kynast runs a small reptile sanctuary at Banana Bay, where Iggy and Lenny live. She arrived there the afternoon of June 19 and found the animals’ cages taken apart and them gone. She’d been searching desperately since.

She even offered a $2,000 reward for the animals’ safe return and hired Cobra to help track them down.

She says she’s elated to have the 5-foot-long iguanas back. “I’m ecstatic,” she told the Keynoter. “It’s a miracle for them to be found by that family. They’re not even going to take the money.”

Kynast said she believes the culprits were juveniles who wanted to play with Iggy and Lenny and never returned them to the sanctuary. She said the animals would not have survived if left to fend for themselves.

“Those people saved their lives and Iggy had a wonderful boat ride for three days,” Kynast said.

A lifelong reptile enthusiast, Kynast moved to Marathon with Iggy, Lenny and several other iguanas three years ago from Maine. She opened the Vaca Key Reptile Sanctuary shortly after and has been working to change the negative Keys attitude toward iguanas. Iggy is her “ambassador,” and is so tame that he can be held for pictures and petted on the nose by strangers. She takes him everywhere, including the beach and shopping.