E6 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, JUNE 7 , 2022
Especially vulnerable
Unlike the superabundant
green iguana, which is native to
Central and South America and
widely introduced elsewhere,
there are exceedingly few Anega-
da rock iguanas. By the 1990s,
the presettlement population of
about 10,000 iguanas had fallen
to around 200. A simple conser-
vation strategy has doubled the
population since. But recent set-
backs show the limits of the
work.
The iguanas are especially vul-
nerable when they emerge from
eggs buried in sandy nests. Kelly
Bradley, a conservation biologist
with the Fort Worth Zoo who has
been working with these iguanas
since 2001, estimates that as
many as half of the juveniles are
eaten in their first week by native
snakes and birds — Puerto Rican
racers and American kestrels.
This is natural, these animals
evolved together for thousands of
years. What has tipped the bal-
ance are nonnative feral cats that
are very efficient predators. They
eat baby iguanas like popcorn,
and very few iguanas survive to
adulthood.
The cats probably arrived with
colonial settlers in the 1700s and
have spread across the island.
They have no natural predators,
and as their numbers grew, the
iguana population declined to a
critical threshold that demanded
human intervention.
Near the bluff, Young beats a
few yards into the thorny brush,
scanning the ground. He soon
finds a horseshoe-shaped scrape
in the sandy soil. It doesn’t look
like much, but it’s an old nest,
where an iguana laid its eggs in a
recent year.
Each summer, he and Bradley
painstakingly search for new
nests excavated by the iguanas —
tunnels leading to deep chambers
where they lay their eggs. It can
take days to find even one nest.
When they find a nest, they
place large steel hoops to trap the
emerging hatchlings, more than
40 in a good year. They bring
them to a “head-start” facility,
cages where they are raised for
several years until they are large
enough to defend themselves
against cats. Then they are re-
leased back into the wild.
Limits of human intervention
The program has released 274
iguanas. Bradley has radio-
tracked dozens and more than 80
percent survived the first two
years after release. But as long as
cats remain abundant on Anega-
da, Bradley says the iguanas will
be a “conservation-dependent
species” — one whose survival is
predicated upon human inter-
vention. Recent events show the
limits of such intervention.
In 2017, Hurricane Irma ham-
IGUANA FROM E1
Island, one of several smaller
islands with introduced popula-
tions of Anegada iguanas. Brad-
ley says there are now more igua-
nas on those islands than on
Anegada itself, but because they
are all descended from just eight
animals taken from Anegada in
the 1980s, they lack genetic diver-
sity, so their conservation value is
limited.
Tandora Grant, a conservation
program specialist with San Di-
ego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and an
officer with the Iguana Specialist
Group, says when most people
think of iguanas, they think only
of the green iguana, Iguana igua-
na. Its abundance obscures the
scarcity of its cousins. As a family,
Grant says, iguanas are among
the world’s most endangered ani-
mals.
“There are 45 different species
of iguanas,” Grant says, “and only
one is the pest species that has
been transported all over the
place.”
There are 10 species of iguanasin the genus Cyclura, all endemic
to West Indian islands (another
went extinct sometime in the
1900s), and molecular analysis
suggests they are all descended
from the Anegada rock iguana.
When sea levels dropped during
glaciations, the Anegada iguanas
spread to other parts of the Carib-
bean, Grant says. When the sea
rose again, those iguanas became
isolated on islands and evolved
into species that look distinctly
different.
Other Cyclura species on Ja-
maica and Grand Cayman also
have head-start programs to help
them survive predation. These
populations are growing, like that
of Anegada. But without the pro-
grams, Grant says, all would
again plummet.
“We have to keep doing that
until all the threats are really and
truly mitigated, that’s why they
are conservation dependent,”
Grant says. “If we could get the
money together, and the political
will, to eliminate all cats on Ane-mered Anegada just before the
trapping season. The team cap-
tured no juveniles that year.
Then, while the island was still
recovering from the hurricane,
the British Virgin Islands was
locked down during the pandem-
ic. Both events have limited Brad-
ley’s fieldwork in recent years,
and she and Young have gathered
fewer iguanas.
Walking among the cages at
the head-start facility, Young says
there have been as many as 64captive iguanas in years past, but
there are now 48. The facility is a
project of the National Parks
Trust of the Virgin Islands, featur-
ing educational panels about the
iguanas and island flora and fau-
na. When four American tourists
arrive, Young shows them
around.
Young says one occasional visi-
tor, who typically arrives barefoot
with a small group of compan-
ions, is Richard Branson. The
billionaire owns nearby NeckerFeral cats areeating iguanasinto extinctiongada, we could go home.”
“Head starting is not a solu-
tion, it’s just a Band-Aid,” Bradley
says. “We’ve doubled the popula-
tion on Anegada, and that sounds
great, but it’s not enough. The
cause of the decline hasn’t been
removed or addressed.”
The International Union for
Conservation of Nature still con-
siders Anegada rock iguanas crit-
ically endangered and includes
them on its “red list” of threat-
ened species.
Cassander Titley-O’Neal, di-
rector of the National Parks Trust
of the Virgin Islands, says an
ongoing spaying and neutering
project aims to limit Anegada’s
cat population. She does not envi-
sion a more ambitious cat-control
program for now, but says con-
serving the iguanas is a long-term
priority for the agency.
“The conservation status by
IUCN says it all,” Titley-O’Neal
said. “They are critically endan-
gered and need to be protected
for generations to come.”MURRAY CARPENTER
A mature Cuban rock iguana, which is closely related to the Anegada rock iguana, at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay.their female counterparts.” Some
of the reasons include stigma,
shame and being perceived as
effeminate.
Glasofer also said there’s a link
between sexual and
g ender-minority groups and dis-
ordered eating: “Some research
also suggests that individuals
who are members of marginal-
ized groups may face higher rates
of eating disorders,” she said.
When it comes to treating men,
James Greenblatt, chief medical
officer and vice president of medi-
cal services at Walden Behavioral
Care, a treatment center special-
izing in eating disorders, told me
that there are “unique psycholog-
ical and medical concerns.”
“The medical and nutritional
deficiencies in males, including
low testosterone and often low
vitamin D, are rarely addressed in
current treatment programs,” he
said.
A harsh reality set in when I
was admitted to the hospital at
the end of last year with critical
lab results. As I stood outside the
emergency room, every part of
my body shaking, I turned to my
partner and said, “This has to
end.”
My advocacy work started
shortly after. I enrolled myself in
a college course while in the hos-
pital and earned a mental health
worker certificate. I learned a lot
about my illness and how low
self-esteem, trauma and perfec-
tionism had increased my risk.
By advocating for men, and
speaking openly about my experi-
ences with anorexia and bipolar
disorder, I’m learning to empow-
er myself and others. Regardless
of the research, I’ve found many
people unwilling to accept that
we exist. It sends me spiraling
back into my 12-year-old body, to
that horrifying day I sat,
ashamed, in my doctor’s office.
Men account for about one-
third of the 70 million people
worldwide with eating disorders.
We deserve to be seen, heard and
treated the same as our female
peers.Sean Loughran is working on his
memoir. Find him online at
@sean_writes.BY SEAN LOUGHRAN“Boys don’t get eating disor-
ders.”
That was what my doctor told
me when I was 12. It had taken me
a year to pluck up the courage to
tell him that I was engaging in
self-induced vomiting, food re-
striction and laxative and diuret-
ic abuse.
After a physical examination,
he noted my weight and calculat-
ed my body mass index (BMI),
which was still within the normal
range at the time. My BMI num-
ber — a deeply flawed tool used by
global health-care providers —
determined that I wasn’t sick
enough for treatment.
He recommended an exercise
regime to lift me out of what he
assumed was a phase of adoles-
cent depression. “It’ll help you
feel better,” he told me.
His uneducated decision was
one that led to years of compul-
sive exercise behaviors and seek-
ing out illegal substances to aid
with weight loss.
In recent years, a number of
male celebrities have opened up
about their eating disorders to
raise awareness — including Ed
Sheeran, Tom Daley and Zayn
Malik. However, there are still
millions of us harboring a life-
threatening illness that thrives in
secrecy.
Today, 1 in 3 eating disorder
patients are men, and 10 million
American men are at risk. Men
are also at a higher risk of not
being diagnosed, in part because
of the belief people hold that we
don’t have eating disorders — just
like my doctor thought when I
was 12.
As I came into my teenage
years in the early 2000 s, I turned
to dieting to maintain my phy-
sique as a competitive dancer. But
I was also struggling with coming
out as gay in a repressed Catholic
environment, and I found solace
in online p ro-anorexia forums,
which were trending on the news
at the time.
When I reached adulthood, I
was in deep; I had become com-
pletely consumed. Bingeing and
purging was my drug of choice,
and I would engage in it like a
sport, from morning until night. I
was spending upward of $200 a
day on food. Outside of that, I
would exercise three hours daily
and fast for long periods.
After 15 years, my body sig-
naled that it had reached its limit.
Along with increased anxiety,
physical pain and gastrointesti-
nal symptoms, test results
showed signs of electrolyte imbal-
ances and a low heart rate.
In September 2019, I was ad-
mitted to the Columbia Center for
Eating Disorders and diagnosed
with anorexia nervosa. When I
entered the inpatient program, I
was the only man in the ward and
felt more alone than I had ever
been. While the women discussed
losing their periods, experiencing
infertility and having been hospi-
talized as kids, I couldn’t relate.
It was the first time I could
speak openly about the problem
that had haunted me for the
majority of my life. And yet I still
felt I shouldn’t be there.
Upon discharge after three
months of intensive treatment, I
returned to Vancouver and re-
lapsed immediately. My eating
disorder convinced me I wasn’t
sick enough. This time, I refused
food almost entirely, and my
treatment team referred me for
another inpatient admission.
At the beginning of last year, no
longer able to work or see friendsPERSPECTIVE
It’s dangerous to ignore
eating disorders in men.
I know why firsthand.
while in treatment, I reached a
breaking point. After an attempt
to end my life, I was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder and C-
PTSD (complex post-traumatic
stress disorder).
During the height of the pan-
demic, I spent most of the year in
the hospital for psychiatric evalu-
ations, medical stabilization and
re-feeding. Despite many stays, I
have never met another man in
treatment with an eating disor-
der.
Contrary to what people might
believe, my symptoms don’t differ
much from the stereotype. On the
outside, I’m striving for thinness,
perfection and control. Inside,
I’m using my eating disorder as a
way to cope with insecurities,
anxiety, C-PTSD. I can simply
engage in symptoms and dissoci-
ate.
The eating disorder voice is
relentless, obsessing about calo-
ries, weight, activity levels and
specific food rituals that I mustcarry out in order to eat.
It’s important to note that eat-
ing disorders present differently
in everyone. While I spent my
teenage years restricting my in-
take, some men are doing the
opposite — using supplements
and steroids to increase their
body size.
I’ve since learned that social
media is playing a huge part in
how we see and judge our bodies,
and not just for teen girls: A 2020
study found that men are faced
with social media trends that
have given rise to a desire for a
muscular and lean body. The in-
flux of “health” and “fitness” in-
fluencers is potentially harmful
to men’s body image, the study
found.
Deborah Glasofer, associate
professor of clinical medical psy-
chology in psychiatry at the Co-
lumbia Center for Eating Disor-
ders, told me that “men are also
less likely to disclose their symp-
toms and seek treatment thanDANIEL HEARN
“Bingeing and purging was my drug of choice,” Sean Loughran writes.“By advocating formen, and speakingopenly about myexperiences withanorexia and bipolardisorder, I’mlearning to empowermyself and others.”
Sean Loughran