SHADOW HILLS : Lost Iguana Is Reunited With Rightful Owner

She did not belong to the inmate who called from county jail. Nor was she the stolen property of a Van Nuys man. She was simply a gift who wandered away from home.

After a frustrating three-week search for the rightful owner, the mystery of the missing iguana was solved Tuesday by a teen-age boy who was reunited with his long-lost pal.

“She’s been gone for about three months,” said Jeff Gullickson, 17, as he picked up his pet of 9 years, “Izzy,” from Tierra del Sol School in Shadow Hills, where the lizard was discovered. “She was my Christmas present.”

The school for developmentally disabled adults had placed ads and sifted through more than 40 phone inquiries about the lizard since it was found in a pasture on the school’s 7 1/2-acre facility.

Because the animals can be worth up to $500, school officials were careful to make callers identify the creature’s scars. Until Friday, however, no one had come close, including the woman who called from jail.

Then Gullickson’s friend called him at his Lake View Terrace home and said they saw the reptile’s face on television. Pictures showing the scars were rushed to the school and, on Tuesday, Gullickson showed up to claim his pet.

One look at the pair and it was apparent that this was the correct match. The three-foot-long lizard clung to Gullickson’s shirt like a favorite necktie, with nary a scratch from his quarter-inch claws. In return, Gullickson gently pulled the dead skin off of Izzy’s sun-scorched back.

The only mystery remaining was how the lizard, which was suffering from dehydration and starvation, survived for so long.

“She went through the window at home and then through the back yard,” said Gullickson. “She probably swam across the river, jammed over here, and hunted bugs and mealworms.”

Because many of the students had grown attached to Izzy, whom they nicknamed Jade, the school has acquired another iguana to replace her. Izzy had been cared for in a classroom where students are given vocational training in dealing with animals.

Meanwhile, Gullickson will try and keep an eye on his reptilian playmate, which he often takes to school and keeps in his room.

“This is the second time she’s run away,” Gullickson said, smiling. The last time, he said, she fattened herself up for three months eating plants in a neighbor’s back yard. This time, she got so far away “it was like she was on a mission.”