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“Kong” came to be with us on June 15, 2007. He was a class mascot at a local elementary school for the last nine years but was considered too much of a liability to keep around small children anymore. When the call came in Zachary and Douglas were ready to roll. When they arrived at the school they met with the teacher who owned Kong. They were taken to a class room where the iguana’s enclosure was. It was in the corner next to the window sitting on a shelf. The cage measured approximately one and half feet deep, six feet tall, and five feet long. This had been his home for nine years. Two of the other teachers there had their turns at owning him for three years each thus making Kong about fifteen years old. He was a bright orange color, very robust and muscular looking. Since school was out for the summer and without the daily influence of human contact he had began to rub his nose on the cage wire. The wound was about an inch wide and slightly infected. Once Kong was taken out of the cage he was given a quick inspection and then he was measured. At fifty seven inches long and around ten pounds Kong is a big boy. Zach and Doug put him in a box, bid farewell to the teachers and they were on their way back to the sanctuary. Once there, they started building Kong an outdoor enclosure. His new home is around three feet wide, four and a half feet tall, and nine feet long. He has a bathing tub, a log for basking in the sun, and a heat light for cool nights. His nose is almost healed using antibiotic cream and he has more green and blue coloration in his skin where before he was almost solid orange. He loves his large variety of foods we give him which consists of native edible plants to fruits and vegetables. Male iguanas have been known to live twenty to twenty-five years in captivity. Hopefully he will be with us another ten years or more. His original name was the all too common “Iggy”. We decided “Kong” would be more suitable because of his size and age. The Sanctuary is lucky to have him.
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