| Paleontologists tell us the camel family | | | | the amimal's small size (about 90 lbs, |
| arose in the North American Great Plains | | | | yielding only 6-8 ounces of fleece every two |
| about 45 million years ago. One group took | | | | or three years), its obstinacy (supremely |
| the Bering land bridge into Asia to establish | | | | evasive and disinclined to eat or reproduce |
| the populations of Bactrian camels and | | | | in captivity), its death-defying habitat |
| dromedaries, while the other chose the | | | | (greatly surpassing 14,000 feet or 4300 |
| southern route through Panama when that land | | | | meters) and the cashmere-like fragility of |
| bridge rose from the sea about 3 million | | | | its fiber. If you were to own, say, a pair of |
| years ago. Several of those species prospered | | | | trousers 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 the | | | | make it go further, the Incas would often |
| extinctions of the latter two but, according | | | | blend their vicuña fiber with that of the |
| to prevailing wisdom, bred the domesticated | | | | viscacha, an Andean rabbit-like animal; but |
| alpaca from the vicuña and the llama from | | | | in any case by law only their royalty could |
| the guanaco. They prized the fleeces of all | | | | wear 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 Microns | | | | and Chief of Staff Sherman Adams got the boot |
| | | | after reporters learned that he had accepted |
| Vicuña 6-13 | | | | various sumptuous finery, most famously a |
| | | | vicuña coat, from a certain Boston textile |
| Chiru 7-9 | | | | magnate named Bernie Goldfine in exchange for |
| | | | some extra lenient treatment by federal |
| Alpaca 10-28 | | | | regulators. The scandal even engulfed future |
| | | | columnist Jack Anderson, who was caught |
| Merino 12-20 | | | | bugging Goldfine's hotel room. |
| | | | |
| Cashmere 15-19 | | | | Since as far back as the Spanish conquest, |
| | | | hunting and poaching has been stressing the |
| Guanaco 16-18 | | | | vicuña to the brink of extinction. By the |
| | | | 1970s there were only a few thousand left. |
| Llama 20-40 | | | | But thanks to vigorous conservation measures |
| | | | undertaken toward the end of the 20th |
| Chinchilla 21 | | | | century, most significantly on the part of |
| | | | the Peruvian government, their populations |
| Human 15-200 | | | | have recovered. In 2002 the U.S. Fish & |
| | | | Wildlife Service reclassified the vicuñas |
| As you can see from the table above, only the | | | | of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru from |
| chiru, a gravely endangered Asian antelope | | | | endangered to threatened and legalized |
| which is legally off-limits, rivals the | | | | exports from those four countries, subject to |
| fineness of its cinnamon-colored wool. Beyond | | | | stringent documentation, for the first time |
| that, vicuña is exceedingly rare due to | | | | in decades. |