The Happy Head-Bobbers of Garrobolandia

by Dwight Wayne Coop A.

If Popeye wanted a cheap live-in role model for Sweat Pea, he might consider the iguana, which gobbles not only spinach but collards, mustard greens and endive. They also relish papaya and zapote. The down side is that some iguanas — like some babies — are fortuitous predators that will chomp any bug that gets too close. Popeye’s iguana likely came from the world’s Iguana Central: El Salvador, where they are called garrobos. The grandmother of all iguana nurseries is in that tiny republic, whose emerald complexion matches that of the garrobo. Given that camouflage is the garrobos’ principal defense, they perhaps feel at home there. The nursery is actually an archipelago of hidden farms that, among Salvadoreños, are only rumored to exist. They have no address, much less a visiting center, petting zoo and snack bar serving garroboburguesas. In fact, they are high-security lockouts that you cannot visit even with an appointment. There are walls and fences and rifle-toters doubling as nursery wardens.

Animal lovers will be relieved to know that the technology concealed by all this does not entail factory-farm misery for the reptilian brave new world inside. Not only that, but all animals raised there are destined to become pets abroad instead of a link in the Central American food chain. The primary destination is the United States. The farm's biggest asset is its manager and resident herpetologist, Colombian Andrés Merizalde, who found his calling so early that at only 32 he can boast of a quarter-century of experience with herptiles (reptiles and amphibians). "I'll tell one of the employees that a lizard I see is ready to mate. He'll wonder how I know. But there's something about its poise that indicates this. (I can't smell any pheromones but) after so many years, you just know stuff like that." Merizalde's unaccented English is a legacy of his years studying agribusiness and animal science at the University of Louisiana, where he befriended only native English speakers.

Garrobos are only the bread and butter of the farm. Among other lizards, there are the fearsome frilled dragons from New Guinea and a hardy Sudanese booger named Mali euromastix who looks like he needs to call home — to look-alike owner ET. The fat-tailed geckos have a head-like tail that is a booby-prize for would-be predators with high cholesterol. Unlike the vegetarian garrobo, these other lizards are insectivores. Their breakfast of champions is the cricket, which Merizalde breeds by the millions in a climate-controlled hatchery that is more than what immediately meets the eye. It’s a self-contained ecosystem, complete with spiders hunting live crickets and beetle larvae hunting dead ones. The farm itself is owned by a commercial cricket producer, so the reptile subsidiary never suffers from supply-side lizard-kibble problems. Merizalde appears to have bonded with many of his charges. A resplendent panther chameleon from Madagascar, with scales like turquoise beads, readily latches onto its keeper and moves among his fingers with delicate sail-spined grace. Are lizards intelligent enough for anything resembling true bonding? “Apparently,” according to Merizalde, “they’re smart enough to associate a particular human with feeding. And they have other characteristics suggesting primitive intelligence. Male iguanas, for instance, have complex hierarchies. They are also territorial, which ... shows ability to recall surroundings. They mark these territories with a waxy stuff secreted from a gland behind their legs.”

Tens of thousands of baby iguanas occupy the farm’s main “barrio.” A stroll though this city of platforms, each a dozen or so levels high, sets off a rainstorm of scurrying feet. The lizards move to the far side of the platforms and spill in gangly green blobs over the edge to avoid being eaten by Merizalde and any human companion that might be with him.
These garrobos, as well as the thousands of baby tortoises on the farm, are no more than several months old. When bigger, they go to nearby satellite nurseries which are also under the stewardship of Andrés Merizalde and his crew of 50. The year since he has taken over has augured well for the animals. “I found out that too many animals were dying, and others were sick. The place was run by two veterinarians who knew cats and dogs, but not reptiles. So I contacted the owners and offered my services. They were adamant about not needing to hire anyone, but I persisted. Finally, they gave me an interview and hired me on the spot.”

Merizalde has not only applied reptile-specific technology to the operation, but original techniques of his own devising. “I’ve tried a lot of things to see what works, and I’ve got everything about the best it can be for the animals.” Evidence of this is seen in the eclectic architecture of the farm’s structures. Considerations of space, lighting, climate and nutrition all contribute to the design of almost as many synthetic habitats at the farm as there are species. Some mimic nature, others are finely pruned departures from it. In one corner of the farm, some failed experiments — condemned housing, so to speak — still stand. “About the only animals that die nowadays are those with bad genes,” Merizalde says. “A lot more of them make it to market. The owners are pretty happy.”

The iguana satellite farm is some 15 kilometers away. Inside its acre-sized pens are what look like thatched-roof barracks for the army of Lilliput. On top of these are massive green leaves that, on closer inspection, turn out to be ... well, garrobos.
Their keeper, Antonio, lives on the site with his family. He points to a pen of relatively small “leaves,” which he affectionately calls los BEY-bis. In other pens are stages of older iguanas; the adults reach nearly two meters –– mostly tail. Not all are still green; many are brownish or mottled. But all are living the life of Riley I. Garrobo, munching salad, soaking up sun. Like humans, iguanas use sunlight to manufacture Vitamin D. Equally fascinating is the tortoise satellite, which Merizalde regularly visits to gather eggs. Amilcar, another family man, is the resident keeper of this Turtletopia. The carapace (dorsal shell) of most of his spur-thigh and leopard tortoises would make a fine army helmet for Alley Oop, and there are enough of them to outfit a regiment. After the famed Galapagos giants, these are Earth’s largest tortoises.

A huge pit is the hangout of a half-dozen larger tortoises. One male, bigger than the rest, “charges” like a rusty panzer when Merizalde gets too near the pit. Jutting from his plastron (ventral shell) is a massive two-pronged cowsweeper that is the worst nightmare of any Jell-O mould unfortunate enough to be in the way. “Ninety Kilos” (as Amilcar calls him) may not be very scary, but he is formidable at a meter in length. With esoteric tracking instincts, Amilcar leads Merizalde to the nests. Together they burrow through eight inches of firmly packed dirt to uncover clutches of a dozen or so ping-pong balls which they dot with felt pens. The dot means “this end up.” “Tortoise embryos aren’t like chicken ones,” Merizalde explains. “If you upend them, they die.” Amilcar knows the identification number of the female that laid each clutch. This and other facts are logged in a special database.

Merizalde considers himself a conservationist to the extent that some of his species are threatened. But he is also a pragmatist. “Some of our species could disappear from the wild. But we don’t try to duplicate wild conditions, because we’re commercial. So ... there’s a compromise with natural selection. On the other hand, their (survival) could someday depend on operations like ours, which could help repopulate a restored habitat.”