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