More than 5,000 invasive green iguanas in Florida were removed during the state’s two-day exemption that allowed residents and visitors to capture the cold-stunned reptiles without a permit, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

The state wildlife agency announced this week that 5,195 cold-stunned iguanas were collected and brought to four designated FWC offices on Feb. 1 and Feb. 2 during South Florida’s period of record-setting cold temperatures.

“The removal of over 5,000 of these nonnative lizards in such a short time span was only possible thanks to the coordinated efforts of many staff members in multiple FWC divisions and offices, our partners and, of course, the many residents that took the time to collect and turn in cold-stunned iguanas from their properties,” Roger Young, FWC’s executive director, said at a Feb. 4 meeting in Tallahassee.

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Special regulations under an executive order allowed people to remove live, cold-stunned iguanas from the wild without a permit for two days only, the FWC said in a news release.

Of the 5,195 iguanas collected, 3,882 of them were amassed at the FWC’s office in Sunrise, about 13 miles west of Fort Lauderdale, the FWC said.

Another 1,075 were collected at the FWC’s location in Tequesta, some 24 miles north of West Palm Beach.

There were 215 iguanas collected at the drop-off location in the Florida Keys and 23 nabbed in Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast.

FWC staff worked to coordinate the transfer of iguanas collected to permit holders, including for sale outside the state. Any of the reptiles that couldn’t be transferred to permit holders were humanely killed by trained staff, according to the FWC.

Green iguanas are a prohibited species in the Sunshine State because of their “negative impacts on Florida’s environment and economy,” Young said.

Because they’re an invasive species in Florida, iguanas can be humanely killed on a person’s property and are not protected except by the state’s anti-cruelty laws.

“If you encounter a cold-stunned green iguana, you should never bring it into your home or building to warm up,” according to the FWC’s news release.

When temperatures dip, iguanas lose the ability to move their muscles. 

“Iguanas can recover from cold-stunning more quickly than you may expect — and, once recovered, can act defensively, with long tails that whip and sharp teeth and claws.”

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Low temperatures in Miami reached 35 degrees on Feb. 1, while lows in West Palm Beach hit 30 degrees — breaking records for that date, set in 1909, according to National Weather Service data.

Green iguanas were first reported in South Florida in the 1960s, according to the FWC.

When temperatures dip, they lose the ability to move their muscles and have been known to fall from trees, appearing dead. But they’re very much alive and in a state of paralysis, or torpor.

Many Floridians took advantage of the region’s rare winter freeze to round up the pesky reptiles that can damage people’s properties and “leave droppings on docks, moored boats, seawalls, porches, decks, pool platforms and inside swimming pools.”

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“In cleared habitats such as canal banks and vacant lots, green iguanas reside in burrows, culverts, drainage pipes and rock or debris piles,” according to the FWC. 

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“South Florida’s extensive man-made canals serve as ideal dispersal corridors to further allow iguanas to colonize new areas.”

The FWC is no longer accepting live iguanas from the public, the organization said. 

EXCLUSIVE: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard detailed her ongoing election security assessment in a letter to congressional lawmakers Monday, saying President Donald Trump “specifically directed” her to be present for the execution of a search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia, last week as part of the probe.

Gabbard sent a letter, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, addressed to Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn. The letter was also sent to House and Senate leadership, as well as GOP leadership on both committees.

The letter is in response to one sent in late January by Warner and Himes, in which they requested Gabbard brief them on why she was present at the FBI search of an election office in Fulton County, Georgia.

Gabbard announced in April 2025 that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was investigating electronic voting systems in order to protect election integrity.

TRUMP CONFIRMS WHAT TULSI GABBARD WAS DOING AT GEORGIA ELECTION CENTER

In the letter, Gabbard said Trump instructed her to be present at the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at the Office of the Clerk of the Court of Fulton County, Georgia, Wednesday.

“For a brief period of time, I accompanied FBI Deputy Director Bailey and Atlanta Acting Special Agent in Charge Pete Ellis in observing FBI personnel executing that search warrant, issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia pursuant to a probable cause finding,” she wrote. 

Gabbard said her “presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence (CI), foreign and other malign influence, and cybersecurity.”

“The FBI’s Intelligence/Counterintelligence divisions are one of the 18 elements that I oversee,” she said.

DNI Press Secretary Oliva Coleman told Fox News Digital in a statement, “President Trump’s directive to secure our elections was clear, and DNI Gabbard has and will proudly continue to take actions within her authorities, alongside our interagency partners, including the FBI, to support ensuring the integrity of our elections.” 

Gabbard said senior FBI officials in twelve field offices nationwide, including Atlanta, are “dual-hatted” as Domestic DNI-Representatives under a program established through a 2011 memorandum of understanding between ODNI and the FBI, adding that she has visited several of those officials as part of her oversight of domestic threats, including risks to critical infrastructure.

“While visiting the FBI Field Office in Atlanta, I thanked the FBI agents for their professionalism and great work, and facilitated a brief phone call for the President to thank the agents personally for their work,” Gabbard said. “He did not ask any questions, nor did he or I issue any directives.”

FBI AGENTS SEARCH ELECTION HUB IN FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA

Gabbard stressed that the ODNI’s Office of General Counsel “has found my actions to be consistent and well within my statutory authority as the Director of National Intelligence.”

In late January, FBI agents were seen carrying out a search at an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, a location that became ground zero for concerns and complaints about voter fraud beginning in 2020. 

The search warrant authorized the seizure of election records, voting rolls, and other data tied to the 2020 election, according to a copy of the warrant reviewed by Fox News.

Gabbard went on to address specific questions initially posed by Warner and Himes, detailing how election security “is a national security issue.”

“Interference in U.S. elections is a threat to our republic and a national security threat,” she writes. “The President and his Administration are committed to safeguarding the integrity of U.S. elections to ensure that neither foreign nor domestic powers undermine the American people’s right to determine who our elected leaders are.”

Gabbard said Trump “tasked ODNI with taking all appropriate actions” under her statutory authorities toward “ensuring the integrity of our elections” and specifically directed her to observe the execution of the Fulton County search warrant.

She added that ODNI has been “actively reviewing intelligence reporting and assessments on election integrity” since she took office.

“As part of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center’s responsibility to lead, manage, and coordinate counterintelligence matters related to election security, NCSC personnel traveled with me to Fulton County to support this effort,” she wrote, noting that they were not present during the execution of the warrant.

In the letter, Gabbard stressed that the DNI has “broad authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security.”

She also said ODNI is “the lead intelligence agency in the Joint Cyber Planning Office,” which coordinates and oversees the nation’s strategy to secure critical cyber infrastructure, “including cyber infrastructure used for elections.”

The DNI told lawmakers that ODNI “will not irresponsibly share incomplete intelligence assessments concerning foreign or other malign interference in U.S. elections.”

“As I publicly stated on 10 April 2025, there is information and intelligence reporting suggesting that electronic voting systems being used in the United States have long been vulnerable to exploitation that could result in enabling determined actors to manipulate the results of the votes being cast with the intent of changing the outcome of an election,” she wrote.

ODNI and the intelligence community continue to collect and assess intelligence related to the threat, she added, to ensure the security and integrity of U.S. elections.

Gabbard previously raised similar concerns during an April 2025 Cabinet meeting, when she said ODNI had evidence that electronic voting systems have long been vulnerable to exploitation and argued the findings supported a broader push for paper ballots.

Meanwhile, in the letter, Gabbard explained that the process of assessing the intelligence “ensures that the IC’s finished intelligence products are objective, independent of political considerations, and based on all available sources.”

“I will share our intelligence assessments with Congress once they are complete,” she said.

Gabbard said that the National Security Act of 1947 specifically highlights that the law does “not require that the president obtain approval from the congressional intelligence committees before initiating a significant intelligence activity.”

“Moreover, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued the search warrant on the Office of the Clerk of the Court of Fulton County under seal,” she writes, adding that ODNI had no ability, authority, or responsibility to inform the intelligence committees about the warrant ahead of its execution.

Congressional Democrats have been pressing Gabbard to share additional information about the role she played in Fulton County, Georgia.

“Much of the American public are quite reasonably alarmed and asking questions after the Director of National Intelligence was spotted bizarrely and personally lurking in an FBI evidence truck in Fulton County, Georgia yesterday,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said in a statement in late January. 

“There are only two explanations for why the Director of National Intelligence would show up at a federal raid tied to Donald Trump’s obsession with losing the 2020 election,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said in response to news of Gabbard’s presence at the FBI search.

“Either Director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus — in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed’ of relevant national security concerns — or she is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy,” Warner added. 

Fulton County is the most populous county in Georgia and includes the capital city of Atlanta. It most notably emerged as ground zero for voter fraud complaints in the wake of the 2020 election, though the claims did not survive court scrutiny. 

News of the search comes years after Fulton County emerged at the center of concerns and complaints about voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 elections, including from Trump, who lost the state to former President Joe Biden by a razor-thin margin. 

Despite a machine count and two recounts that confirmed the results, Trump continued to feud for years with Georgia officials and claimed that various instances of fraud had tainted the results, prompting Democrats to raise fresh concerns about why the FBI executed so broad a search warrant and what role Gabbard played in the process.

Most recently, Trump reiterated those complaints earlier in January during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He said then that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did,” though he declined to elaborate.

Trump at the end of January touted Gabbard for her work to protect elections in the U.S. 

“She’s working very hard on trying to keep the election safe. And she’s done a very good job,” Trump said. “And they, as you know, they got into the votes, you got a signed judge’s order in Georgia … And you’re going to see some interesting things happening. They’ve been trying to get there for a long time.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department sued Fulton County in December 2025 seeking access to ballots related to the 2020 lawsuit, though the FBI’s search appears unrelated. 

Fulton County, Georgia, is fighting the lawsuit and says the Justice Department has not made a valid argument for accessing the records.

Fulton County officials on Monday said they plan to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the FBI’s raid, challenging the legality of the raid and the warrant authorizing the “seizure of sensitive election records” in Fulton County.

The lawsuit also seeks to order the administration to “return the ballots taken,” officials said. 

A new year typically brings growth and opportunities. But not in Virginia.

Since last November, the winds in the commonwealth have carried a heavy weight. Elections have consequences, and just a few days into Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s reign, Virginians are reaping the fruit of their ballot-box decisions. This is no longer a warning.

Now that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s watch has ended, that progress is under attack. In just weeks, a newly emboldened Democrat majority has moved to drain the budget surplus by expanding costly social programs while imposing unnecessary tax hikes on middle- and lower-class Virginians. Virginians are experiencing a swift, calculated wave of anti-business, anti-family and un-American policies that will irreparably decimate everything that makes Virginia great.

We Virginians were spoiled under Youngkin’s administration. Over the past four years, Youngkin’s watchful eye prevented the Democrat majority in the Virginia legislature from leading the commonwealth down a destructive path.

VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS SEEK DOZENS OF NEW TAX HIKES, INCLUDING ON DOG WALKING AND DRY CLEANING

Thanks to his leadership, Virginia is stronger than ever. Our state is experiencing record revenues, record tax relief and record investment. Virginia’s general revenue has grown by 5.2% in the past year, with $9 billion in tax relief, $156 billion in capital investments and a $2.7 billion budget surplus. Youngkin left Virginia better than he found it, bringing our state to new heights. But the higher you climb, the harder you fall.

Now that Youngkin’s watch has ended, that progress is under attack. In just weeks, a newly emboldened Democrat majority has moved to drain the budget surplus by expanding costly social programs while imposing unnecessary tax hikes on middle- and lower-class Virginians.

These policies will only make life less affordable while creating new barriers to entry for businesses, forcing Virginians to absorb the rising cost of living or leave the commonwealth behind.

Democrats are advancing a sweeping tax agenda that will make everyday life more expensive for working Virginians. For Virginia Democrats, “affordability” means imposing new taxes on dog grooming, counseling, vehicle and home repairs, dry cleaning, hosting events and even owning electric leaf blowers and landscaping equipment. Their proposals would also authorize new local sales taxes and impose a delivery tax on services like Amazon, Uber Eats, FedEx and UPS, raising costs for families while offering nothing but a larger, more intrusive government.

VMI CADETS FIGHT BACK AS VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS THREATEN TO CLOSE HISTORIC MILITARY COLLEGE

While families are working day and night to make ends meet, Virginia Democrats are rewarding themselves. Their budget proposal includes an average 209% pay raise for state legislators, insulating politicians from economic reality as they repeal Virginia’s right-to-work law and mandate a $15 minimum wage. Together, these policies will drive up labor costs, eliminate jobs and leave workers with fewer opportunities.

At the same time, Democrats are pursuing an aggressive assault on Virginians’ Second Amendment rights. Their bills would impose an unprecedented tax on firearms and ammunition, layer on burdensome storage mandates and enact sweeping bans on both open and concealed carry in wide swaths of the commonwealth. These policies will not deter criminals. They will make it harder for law-abiding Virginians to protect themselves and their families.

Their transgressions do not stop there. Virginia Democrats are actively working to rewrite Virginia’s constitution.

VIRGINIA JUDGE VOIDS REDISTRICTING PUSH, RULES LAWMAKERS OVERSTEPPED AUTHORITY

Both the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates, despite Republicans’ vociferous opposition, voted to approve constitutional amendments that allow abortion on demand up to birth and gerrymander Virginia’s congressional districts to cheat their way to Democrat dominance for years to come. Despite recent defeats in lower courts, Democrats vow to continue disregarding procedural restraints in their pursuit of power at the expense of Virginia’s values.

In just weeks, a newly emboldened Democrat majority has moved to drain the budget surplus by expanding costly social programs while imposing unnecessary tax hikes on middle- and lower-class Virginians.

Nationwide, we’ve witnessed an exodus from California and New York City caused by radical left-wing policies, the same model that Spanberger seeks to emulate. She looks to California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Democrat Mayor Zohran Mamdani for inspiration but refuses to accept the repercussions of their policies, because she will never have to experience them.

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 It is the people of our great commonwealth who will carry that burden.

Spanberger and Virginia Democrats do not seek to implement commonsense policies that improve Virginians’ lives. As we have already seen in California and New York, their agenda will increase costs, undermine job growth, force families to relocate, dissuade businesses and protect criminals.

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Through constitutional amendments, they will consolidate political control until the Californication of Virginia is complete.

The choices being made today will shape Virginia’s economy, freedoms and competitiveness for decades to come. The consequences are not theoretical; they are real, unfolding now, and will be felt by families, workers, and businesses across the commonwealth.