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