| "There's one up there," yells my guide Captain Bud, pointing to a green iguana in the boughs of a pine tree. Through the scope of my air rifle, I can see the distant silhouette of a reptile skittering between tree branches. I soon lose track of it. Waves are rocking our small fishing boat on one of the drainage canals that helped make South Florida's suburbs possible, a patchwork of condominiums, backyard pools and strip malls. It's a surreal place to be hunting. I'm here at the behest of the state of Florida, ostensibly to help solve one of the state's intractable invasive species problems. About 12 miles outside of Fort Lauderdale, among the golf courses and retirement communities, green iguanas are everywhere. Since arriving in Florida from Central and South America in the 1960s, probably as part of the exotic pet trade, green iguanas have colonized suburbia. Residents and government officials accuse them of tearing up backyard gardens, collapsing canals and displacing native wildlife. Florida's response has been to declare open season on the species. "Every iguana removed is one less iguana causing negative impacts across Florida's landscapes," McKayla Spencer, who helps manage nonnative species for Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said in an email. Since 2023, anyone can trap or hunt as many as they want on designated public lands, provided they don't violate anti-cruelty laws. With this in mind, I headed back to my home state to hunt iguanas — and it's why I find myself raising my air rifle and slowly squeezing the trigger. An iguana high up in the trees scuttles off to the other, safer side of the trunk, untouched, my pellet having veered wildly off course. I'm not a hunter. Growing up, my shooting was exclusively at targets. But I am among the ranks of people that Florida, and many other states, are hoping to enlist in managing species that originated beyond their borders. From wild hogs to lionfish, nonnative species now inhabit an area the size of California across the United States, costing an estimated $120 billion annually in damage — and hunters are being asked to curb their populations. Florida is their wild west. "We have more nonnative reptiles and amphibians than any place in the entire world," says Christopher Searcy, a biology professor at the University of Miami studying reptiles and amphibians. "If you value native diversity, I think it's pretty bad." So my plan was simple: Go deep into Florida's suburbs and see how hunting iguanas can help restore Florida's ecosystems, easing the burden of invasive species. So would I be helping restore Florida's ecology? Or, as one wildlife biologist put it to me, just "adding to the body count?" I came to suspect iguanas' capital crime was thriving in an ecosystem we created for them. Have you had run-ins with invasive species? Write me at climatecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails. | 
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