NORTH PALM BEACH, FL — After a cold snap earlier this month, a South Florida pizzeria made headlines for a video shared to social media showing their staff making a pizza with iguana meat.
More than 5,000 of the reptiles were collected and removed from the state when the temperatures dropped in early February, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Temperatures 40 degrees or less tend to leave iguanas, an invasive species in Florida, cold-stunned and immobile. The FWC offered residents and trappers a one-time opportunity to collect the reptiles without a permit.
A trapper brought iguana meat to Bucks Coal Fired pizzeria in North Palm Beach in early February.
A video showed staff at the pizzeria using the meat on a pizza specially requested by the trapper. (Watch the video below.)
A staff member who answered the phone at Bucks Coal Fired told Patch they haven’t actually been serving the iguana pizza, which has been a misconception.
“It was never on the menu or anything,” she said.
Still, the restaurant has been receiving about 200 calls a day about the iguana pizza, “trying to order it,” the employee said.
Now, the pizzeria is looking for a vendor who can legally provide iguana meat so they can offer it to diners, she said. “We do plan on getting this on the menu.”
Watch a video of the trapper bringing the iguana meat into Bucks Coal Fired: