Coveted Vicuna Finds a Refuge in Peru

The vicuna, relentlessly hunted for its prized wool and fur, has survived the threat of extinction thanks to an international environmental effort, a Peruvian ecologist says.

Hundreds of thousands of vicunas, a smaller, fleet-footed cousin of the camel and llama, once ranged throughout the Andes mountains from Ecuador to Bolivia.

But demand for the animal’s light-brown fur, and the practice of hunters who killed entire families for their wool rather than shear the animals live, led to a drastic decline in vicuna herds.

By 1963, only 5,000 vicunas were left in South America.

Population Now at 70,000

Now, however, renewed breeding efforts, a resurgence in shearing wool from the animal without killing it and efforts by several governments have brought the vicuna population up to 70,000, said Peruvian ecologist Carlos Aldana.

In June in Lausanne, Switzerland, European delegates meeting on the sale of products from endangered species of animals and plants voted to lift a ban on the sale of soft vicuna wool, provided that it is sheared from live animals.

Aldana said in 1963 that there were only about 5,000 vicunas in South America because their wool, coveted worldwide, brought high prices on the international black market.

He said that an agreement signed that year by Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Argentina imposed severe restrictions on the sale of vicuna wool. Now, 23 years later, he said, those measures have brought tangible results.

Most Live in Peru

About 80% of the world’s population of the fuzzy, long-necked beasts now live in Peru. Most live in the Pampa Galeras National Reserve, 15,000 feet above sea level in the southeastern Andean province of Ayacucho.

Augusto Dammert, president of Prodena, an international conservation group, said a vicuna can be sheared twice a year, producing one pound of wool annually.

He said Prodena promotes a return by vicuna wool producers to the Inca custom of shearing the vicuna live in order to preserve the species.