The vicuña (Lama vicugna) or vicuna (both , very rarely spelled vicugna, its Latin specific name) is one of the two wild South American camelids, which live in the high alpine areas of the Andes; the other camelid is the guanaco, which lives at lower elevations. Vicuñas are relatives of the llama, and are now believed to be the wild ancestor of domesticated alpacas, which are raised for their coats. Vicuñas produce small amounts of extremely fine wool, which is very expensive because the animal can be shorn only every three years and has to be caught from the wild. When knitted together, the product of the vicuña's wool is very soft and warm. The Inca valued vicuñas highly for their wool, and it was against the law for anyone but royalty to wear vicuña garments; today, the vicuña is the national animal of Peru and appears on the Peruvian coat of arms.

Both under the rule of the Inca and today, vicuñas have been protected by law, but they were heavily hunted in the intervening period. When they were declared endangered in 1974, only about 6,000 animals were left. Today, the vicuña population has recovered to about 350,000, Today, the vicuña is mainly wild, but the local people still perform special rituals with these creatures, including a fertility rite.

Description

The vicuña is considered more delicate and gracile than the guanaco and smaller. A key distinguishing element of morphology is the better-developed incisor roots for the guanaco. The vicuña's long, woolly coat is tawny brown on the back, whereas the hair on the throat and chest is white and quite long. Its head is slightly shorter than guanaco's, and the ears are slightly longer. The length of the head and body ranges from 1.45 to 1.60 m (about 5 ft); shoulder height is from 75 to 85 cm (around 3 ft); its weight is from 35 to 65 kg (under 150 lb).

Taxonomy and evolution

There are two subspecies of vicuña:

  • Lama vicugna vicugna
  • Lama vicugna mensalis

While vicuñas are restricted to the more extreme elevations of the Andes in modern times, they may have also been present in the lowland regions of Patagonia as much as 3500 km south of their current range during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Fossils of these lowland camelids have been assigned to a species known as Lama gracilis, but genetic and morphological analysis between them and modern vicuña indicate the two may be the same.

Distribution and habitat

Currently, vicuñas are restricted to South America's central Andes. They are found in Peru, northwestern Argentina, Bolivia, and northern Chile. A smaller, introduced population lives in central Ecuador. and the Straits of Magellan until the early Holocene, together with the related guanaco.

Behavior

thumb|right|Herd of vicuñas near Arequipa, Peru

The behavior of vicuñas is similar to that of the guanacos. They are timid animals and are easily aroused by intruders due, among other things, to their extraordinary hearing. Like the guanacos, they frequently lick calcareous stones and rocks, which, together with salt water, is its source of salt. Vicuñas are clean animals and always deposit their excrement in the same place. Their diets consist mainly of low grasses which grow in clumps on the ground.

Vicuñas live in family-based groups of a male, 5 to 15 females, and their young. Each group has its territory of about , which can fluctuate depending on food availability.

Mating usually occurs in March–April. After a gestation about 11 months, the female gives birth to a single fawn, which is nursed for about ten months. The fawn becomes independent at about 12 to 18 months old. Young males form bachelor groups, and the young females search for a sorority to join. This deters intraspecific competition and inbreeding.

Conservation

thumb|100px|Parties to the 1979 Vicuña Convention

Until 1964, hunting of the vicuña was unrestricted, which reduced its numbers to only 6,000 in the 1960s. As a result, the species was declared endangered in 1974, and its status prohibited the trade of vicuña wool. In Peru, during 1964–1966, the Servicio Forestal y de Caza in cooperation with the US Peace Corps, Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and the National Agrarian University of La Molina established a nature conservatory for the vicuña called the Pampa Galeras – Barbara D'Achille in Lucanas Province, Ayacucho. During that time, a game warden academy was held in Nazca, where eight men from Peru and six from Bolivia were trained to protect the vicuña from poaching.

To cooperate on the conservation of the vicuña, the governments of Bolivia and Peru signed the Convention for the Conservation of the Vicuña on 16 August 1969 in La Paz, explicitly leaving the treaty open to accession by Argentina and Chile. Ecuador acceded on 11 February 1976. A follow-up treaty, the Convention for the Conservation and Management of the Vicuña, was signed between Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru on 20 December 1979 in Lima. It explicitly allowed only Argentina to sign it if it also signed the 1969 La Paz Convention (Article 12; Currently, the community of Lucanas conducts a chaccu (herding, capturing, and shearing) on the reserve each year to harvest the wool, organized by the National Council for South American Camelids (CONACS).

In Bolivia, the Ulla Ulla National Reserve (now the Apolobamba Integrated Management Natural Area) was designatured as a UNESCO biosphere in 1977, partly as a sanctuary for the species. Their numbers grew to 125,000 in Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. Since this was a ready "cash crop" for community members, the countries relaxed regulations on vicuña wool in 1993, enabling its trade once again. The wool is sold on the world market for over $300 per kg. In 2002, the US Fish and Wildlife Service reclassified most populations as threatened, but still lists Ecuador's population as endangered. While the population levels have recovered to a healthy level, poaching remains a constant threat, as do habitat loss and other threats. Consequently, the IUCN still supports active conservation programs to protect vicuñas, though they lowered their status to least concern in 2018. The Italian company has been criticized for underpaying local communities collecting the wool. In 2022, the Argentine government's National Council for Scientific and Technical Investigation estimated that "Andean communities receive around 3% of the value generated by the vicuña fiber chain."

Vicuña wool

thumb|right|Vicuña near [[Chimborazo (volcano)|Chimborazo in Ecuador]]

Its wool is famous for its warmth and is used for apparel, such as socks, sweaters, accessories, shawls, coats, suits, and home furnishings, such as blankets and throws. Its properties come from the tiny scales on the hollow, air-filled fibres, which causes them to interlock and trap insulating air. Vicuñas have some of the finest fibers in the world, at a diameter of 12 μm. The fiber of cashmere goats is 14 to 19 μm, while angora rabbit is 8 to 12 μm, and that of shahtoosh from the Tibetan antelope, or chiru, is from 9 to 12 μm.

<gallery widths="200px" heights="150px">

File:Escudo nacional del Perú.svg|Vicuña in the coat of arms of Peru

File:Alpaca, Llama, Vicuna (illustration from New Student's Reference Work, 1914).jpg|Comparison of alpaca, llama, and vicuña (1914)

File:Vicuña.jpg|A vicuña on rocky terrain (2008)

File:Vicuñas camino a Geysers El Tatio.jpg|Vicuñas near El Tatio geysers, San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region, Chile (2011)

File:Female Vicuña running.jpg|Vicuña in Jujuy Province in the Argentine Altiplano (2011)

File:Vicugna-ESO.jpg|Vicuña fawn in the Atacama Desert (2014)

File:Vicugna vicugna Salar de Chalviri.jpg|Vicunas in Salar de Chalviri, Bolivia

</gallery>

References

Explanatory notes

  • Convention for the Conservation of the Vicuña (La Paz 1969, including the 1976 Ecuadorian accession) – Spanish Wikisource
  • Convention for the Conservation and Management of the Vicuña (Lima 1979) – Spanish Wikisource
  • The Vicuna Animal and Everything You Need to Know About It (Peru 2025)
  • Convention for the Conservation and Management of the Vicuña (Lima 1979)

– Original scan at Conveniovicuna.org