Green iguanas are invasive exotics and in South Florida, their numbers have exploded. They eat vegetation and sometimes bird eggs. And they dig into the ground, destabilizing canal banks, bridge pilings — and at the Key West cemetery, grave sites.

One weekend a month, two guys from Miami-Dade County head to Key West, to catch iguanas on city property. They navigate around the crypts and headstones at the city cemetery, lassoing the lizards.

Manny Hernandez has been catching reptiles all his life.

"I tell everybody that I was born with my hands wrapped around my umbilical cord, like if it was a snake. Ever since I was a kid, I would catch the little lizards and stuff," he said. "In kindergarten, they would call me on the PA: 'There's a lizard in the principal's office — come and get it.'"

Hernandez has a day job, with the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department. But his passion has always been reptiles.

For years he and his friend Cris Garcia would catch local reptiles and sell them. Now they only catch exotics like tegu lizards — and iguanas. And they have more demand for iguana catching than they can handle.

They've been visiting the Key West cemetery for two years. They estimate they've removed 3,000 iguanas in the two years they've worked there.

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