A 9-year-old pet iguana named Tasslehoff spent about a week on the loose before firefighters in Spring Hill, Kansas, found him perched 35 to 45 feet up a tree and brought him down safely on Wednesday, Oct. 7. The 3-foot-long reptile, who weighs between 30 and 40 pounds, had escaped from his owner roughly a week earlier and was discovered in the 200 block of West Allen Street, just south of the Spring Hill Sports Complex.
Crews with Johnson County Consolidated Fire District No. 1 responded to the scene and used a ladder truck to reach Tasslehoff at that height, according to Johnson County Post. The fire district's Public Information Officer, Matt Gillotti, provided details of the rescue, which also relied on a catch pole borrowed from the Spring Hill Police Department to finally pry the iguana loose from his perch.
The rescue involved bringing Tasslehoff down from the tree. As for why the rescue went so smoothly, the station's report notes that a member of the fire department happened to have experience handling reptiles, which helped the mission move along without incident, according to KMBC.
A Week Missing Near the Sports Complex
Tasslehoff had been missing for about a week before crews located him, and Spring Hill Fire officials described the lizard as very sweet despite his size, per the same KMBC account. The search ended near a stretch of West Allen Street close to the Spring Hill Sports Complex, a public area where the sizable reptile would have been hard to miss once spotted up in the branches.
Fox 4 Kansas City's FOX4KC also covered the rescue, which capped off a week of Tasslehoff wandering the Spring Hill neighborhood unsupervised.
Another Runaway Reptile in Kansas
Escaped pet iguanas have made headlines elsewhere in Kansas. In Wichita, a red pet iguana named Charlez slipped out through a second-story screened-in window and wasn't found until nine days later, when resident Amy Stevens spotted him and alerted a neighborhood Facebook group, according to KSN. At least four neighbors or families pitched in to help search for Charlez, and his owner ultimately netted him while he was submerged in a nearby river, the station reported.
Both cases ended the same way: a missing iguana, a community effort, and a happy reunion. For Tasslehoff, that effort came courtesy of Johnson County's firefighters and a borrowed catch pole rather than a fishing net and a river search.
