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Weave of the Gods: The Real-Life Golden Fleece

Paleontologists tell us the camel familythe amimal's small size (about 90 lbs,
arose in the North American Great Plainsyielding only 6-8 ounces of fleece every two
about 45 million years ago. One group tookor three years), its obstinacy (supremely
the Bering land bridge into Asia to establishevasive and disinclined to eat or reproduce
the populations of Bactrian camels andin captivity), its death-defying habitat
dromedaries, while the other chose the(greatly surpassing 14,000 feet or 4300
southern route through Panama when that landmeters) and the cashmere-like fragility of
bridge rose from the sea about 3 millionits fiber. If you were to own, say, a pair of
years ago. Several of those species prosperedtrousers made of pure vicuña, they'd look
in South America, including the guanaco,and feel heavenly but unless you resolved
vicuña,  Lama  owenii,  and Lama gracilis.never to sit down in them you would quickly
wear through the seat. To strengthen it or
Ancient humans likely witnessed themake it go further, the Incas would often
extinctions of the latter two but, accordingblend their vicuña fiber with that of the
to prevailing wisdom, bred the domesticatedviscacha, an Andean rabbit-like animal; but
alpaca from the vicuña and the llama fromin any case by law only their royalty could
the guanaco. They prized the fleeces of allwear  such  exquisite  fabric.
four, but to them the most precious and
magical  was  that  of  the  vicuña.In 1958 vicuña was on everybody's lips.
President Eisenhower's favorite golfing buddy
Type Micronsand Chief of Staff Sherman Adams got the boot
after reporters learned that he had accepted
Vicuña 6-13various sumptuous finery, most famously a
vicuña coat, from a certain Boston textile
Chiru 7-9magnate named Bernie Goldfine in exchange for
some extra lenient treatment by federal
Alpaca 10-28regulators. The scandal even engulfed future
columnist Jack Anderson, who was caught
Merino 12-20bugging  Goldfine's  hotel  room.
Cashmere 15-19Since as far back as the Spanish conquest,
hunting and poaching has been stressing the
Guanaco 16-18vicuña to the brink of extinction. By the
1970s there were only a few thousand left.
Llama 20-40But thanks to vigorous conservation measures
undertaken toward the end of the 20th
Chinchilla 21century, most significantly on the part of
the Peruvian government, their populations
Human 15-200have recovered. In 2002 the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service reclassified the vicuñas
As you can see from the table above, only theof Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru from
chiru, a gravely endangered Asian antelopeendangered to threatened and legalized
which is legally off-limits, rivals theexports from those four countries, subject to
fineness of its cinnamon-colored wool. Beyondstringent documentation, for the first time
that, vicuña is exceedingly rare due toin decades.



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