Why did the Caymanian Chicken cross the road?

...because they do pretty much whatever they want here.

The prevalent wild chickens are just one of the surprises that mother nature has in store for visitors to Grand Cayman. There have been many others though, and below is a summary of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on how you feel about them) that I have experienced in my time on island.

Wild Chickens

Wild chickens roam freely all over Grand Cayman. Literally everywhere....on the road in the main town, in the supermarket car park, around my apartment building, you name a place, there's probably a chicken there. I was late to work during my first week on island because I literally had to wait for a chicken to cross the road. 

Apparently raising chickens and letting them run loose in the yard is a bit of a Caymanian tradition, which dates back to the days when pirates used the island - they left a bunch of chickens to prosper so there was always food for them when they came back. I personally prefer a trip to Kirk Market, call me a snob if you must. Nobody really knows why there are so many now, but they certainly proliferated after Hurricane Ivan devastated the island, when their fences were all destroyed and they were left to roam free. 

As far as I'm concerned, while they are charming they can also be a pain when they wander aimlessly across the road in front of your car (though they do appear to have more road sense than the cruise ship passengers) and I want to wring their necks when they cock-a-doodle-do at some ungodly hour of the morning. Maybe someone should mention it to the supply chain manager of KFC in the UK? 

Iguanas

Now there are two types of Iguana in Cayman and they are treated VERY differently. The Blue Iguana is native to Grand Cayman and is a giant dragon-like blue lizard which can grow to over 5 feet long and live as long as humans. Smaug eat your heart out. 

Due to a combination of roadkill, habitat destruction and feral dogs and cats, they were almost extinct by 2002 with only 12 left in the wild. Since then, the Blue Iguana Recovery Program has tried to swell the numbers back up to 1,000. They're currently at about the halfway mark. 

Was going for "majestic" Blue Iguana, had to settle for "stoned"

Then we have the definitely-nowhere-near-extinct green iguana (also known as the common iguana). These are NOT native to Cayman but come from Central and South America, or possibly escaped from Newt Scamander's briefcase. Because they evolved surrounded by so many predators, they've got more instinctive survival strategies than a cockroach in the firing line of a can of Raid so live longer in urban areas than the blue iguana can (cunning little bastards). While the Blue Iguana Recovery Program is fighting to get their numbers up to just 500, there are estimated to be 500,000 green iguanas on Grand Cayman. This number DOUBLES every five years. That's equivalent to 1,000 green iguanas born EVERY DAY. So I guess what I'm saying is, rabbits have got nothing on the green iguana. 

The Caymanian government has tried a number of strategies to reduce the numbers, because they decimate the local flora and fauna and have no natural predator on the island. There are lots of trees on island with metal sheets wrapped around them with the sole purpose of stopping iguanas getting up into the branches (where they then wreak all sorts of havoc - you quickly learn not to park under a tree for instance, lest you have to get your paint job re-done). The best solution they've come up with so far is putting a bounty on the green iguanas and paying a few dollars for every dead iguana brought in. This has obviously become rather expensive....

I was reliably informed by one of my colleagues that if you want to clear out an iguana infestation in your own backyard, you give "Fast Eddie" a ring. Eddie is conveniently head of the Cayman Islands Sports Shooting Association and is the most successful culler on the island. Eddie comes to your house for a designated period and you pay him $8 per dead iguana. My colleague anticipated that Eddie would round up 8 or 10. After just an hour, Eddie presented him with 25 dead Iguanas. $450 later......

Stingrays

One of Cayman's best tourist attractions is Stingray city, which is a series of natural shallow sandbars in North Sound. Years ago, local fisherman cleaned their fish on the sandbars which attracted the southern stingrays who'd feast on the leftovers and they've been showing up there every day ever since. Nowadays, if you go out on a clear day there can be upwards of 15 boats parked in a circle around the sand bar. You can touch, hold and feed the stingrays if you're game. And no, they won't barb you in the heart (Steven Irwin, rest his soul, unjustifiably tarnished their reputations). The worst they'll do if they're really hungry is suck on your arm or leg and leave you with a very attractive hickie for a few days. Good luck explaining that one in the office!

Mosquitos

As in most humid climates, mosquitos are a nightmare on island and if you're not prepared you can be mauled by them in minutes on a warm summer evening. Having said that, most restaurants and bars you go to on island have their own mosquito spray for guests (if they have an outside area) and if you go out with friends, someone's usually packing.

While we enjoy some 36 different species mozzies on island (I thought there were only 2 types of mosquitos - the ones that have bitten me and the ones that are coming to bite me) one of the common varieties, Aedes aegypti is the type that carries dengue fever, chikungunya and until recently, Zika. Happily however, Cayman is now Zika free. Pregnant women, come on down! The Cayman Mosquito Research Control Unit tries to combat the swarm with aerial insecticides but has also piloted a program involving the controlled release of genetically modified mosquitos. Essentially, the GM male mosquitos can't bite (turns out it's the females who do) and have a self-limiting gene which prevents their larvae from surviving to adulthood so once they mate with the females, the offspring don't survive - hello mosquito-free future! 

Obviously, these are just the most common fauna encountered in Cayman on a daily basis - we also have lots of starfish, turtles, crabs (who do an adorable freeze with their claws up if you catch them scuttling across the road when you come home from work at night), all sorts of fish and sea life. Best of all is that unlike back home, there is barely anything here that can kill me on land or in the water - that's a pretty good feeling.