Photo: The Green Iguana Society
Jake, a 9-year-old green iguana, was rescued by a member of the Green Iguana Society.

It's a jungle in Claire Lambe's Brooklyn brownstone. A friendly husky roams around the kitchen, while in the living room, a white rabbit hops among scattered legos and beneath the hamster cage.

But the star of the show inhabits a 6-foot-high terrarium along the living room wall. Here in this mini-rainforest, a 30-inch long green iguana climbs branches, chews lettuce and stares at the curious onlookers on the other side of the plexiglas.

"We bought Igatha at a stoop sale," Lambe said, in her thick Irish brogue. "She had been abandoned by a kid who grew up and discovered girls were more interesting than iguanas. We knew nothing about them, but we learned fast."

Thousands of pet iguanas like Igatha are abandoned each year. Popular in cities, where stores stock exotic animals and people desire quiet pets that can be kept in tanks, the baby reptiles soon grow into temperamental, high-maintenance giant lizards.

According to the Green Iguana Society, an organization that matches iguanas with new owners, over 10,000 are abandoned in the United States each year, and the numbers are on the rise in Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom. Usually the iguana, which can grow as long as six feet, has simply gotten too large to keep in a tank. Other owners decide they've had enough when their cute babies mature into territorial males, who may attack them, or ailing females, who can die if they don't have a proper place to lay their eggs.

Some owners decide to let their growing iguanas loose in the house, rather than build them a habitat of the proper dimensions. This causes other hazards, such as fire, when the iguana knocks a lamp over, or salmonella, when an iguana tracks its fecal matter throughout the home.

"I think they are the worst lizard you could pick as a pet," said Frank Indiviglio, a herpetologist at the Bronx Zoo in New York City's northern borough. "Chances are, a bite or salmonella is going to come about sooner or later."

As a result, a new breed of animal rescuers has cropped up around the country, men and women who struggle to find qualified owners for the abandoned pets.

"Most people that keep iguanas have no idea what an iguana needs. It's a tragedy," said Robert Shapiro, who runs a T-shirt store in Manhattan that doubles as a temporary home for dozens of reptiles, amphibians, cats and dogs. "You're talking about mass holocaust of reptiles around the country."

Pet stores typically recommend large fish tanks and heat lamps for iguanas, but the reptiles actually require much more to lead a healthy and happy life. The basic needs include a humid habitat with varied temperatures between 75 and 100 degrees and several feet of vertical climbing space.

"Iguanas are tree lizards -- how many people have trees in their homes?" said Shapiro, who takes in up to five iguanas a week. "And if you do everything right and you do give them what they need, many of them will become territorial and attack you. If you think you have a tame iguana, you actually have a half-dead iguana."

Even their diet, which consists of varied greens, is complicated by the fact that some salad staples, such as spinach, are actually poisonous to the animals. Additionally, females require a dark, sandy spot to lay eggs, or the eggs must be surgically removed to prevent infection and death.

"They're really a high-maintenance animal," Indiviglio said. "It's not like having a goldfish."

In 1999, the New York City Department of Health banned the domestication of wild animals such as iguanas, but the law is rarely enforced. Pet stores continue to sell inadequate iguana supplies and the New York Herpetological Society continues to rescue iguanas abandoned in city parks, trees and empty apartments. Once safe in the hands of rescuers, the neglected reptiles may already be permanently disabled by metabolic bone disease, marked by muscle deformities and uncontrollable shaking.

Many owners, such as Lambe, did not even know pet iguanas were illegal when they acquired their lizards. Fortunately, she and her family have since thoroughly researched Igatha's needs and are moving upstate, where they plan to build a special room in their new house just for her.

"When we first got her, she was outdoors on a cold September night, living in a small aquarium and on a pretty miserable diet," Lambe said. "We didn't realize it at the time, but we were rescuing her. Now she's one of the family."