Camels then....

 

Vicuña, guanacos, alpacas and llamas, are all South American ‘New World’ camels, and are related, in the distant past, to the sort of camels that we might associate with parts of Africa and the Middle East.

 

But it's too far to swim!....

 

How can this be?  Well, if you look at the shape of Africa and South America, you can see that if they were a jigsaw, they would neatly slot together.  This means that sometime in distant history, both continents were actually joined together, and the animals that lived there were able to freely roam this vast land mass.

 

Plate tectonics and all that jazz!....

 

We know that the earth has changed massively over millions and billions and years.  Land masses have moved thousands of miles and new land masses have been formed - plate tectonics.  Over millions of years, the once joined continents of South America and Africa separated along with all their species of flora and fauna and began to evolve completely separately each adapting to their distinct climatic and environmental conditions.

 

The Pre-Incas and the Incas.

 

If we move forward several million years, it was the pre-Incan man that first saw value in these animals, domesticated them and selectively bred both alpacas and llamas, each for a purpose, but it was the Incas who really ‘industrialised’ things, breeding and developing the animals which made a significant contribution to the trade and wealth of their empire.

 

Llamas (lama glama) were developed primarily as ‘beasts of burden’ pack animals, perfectly suited for transporting goods loaded into panniers and strapped to their backs long distance over rough and mountainous ground.  Also due to their size they were also used for meat, whilst their coarser fleece when compared to alpacas, could be used for harder wearing (non-clothing) fabric i.e. rugs etc.

 

Alpacas (vicugna pacos) descended from the much smaller and finely fleeced vicuña, and it was this fleece trait that the pre-Incas focussed on in their selective breeding programmes, producing animals with very fine fleece which could be spun into fine yarn which was very suitable for making clothing that could be worn next to the skin.

 

We also know that the Incas had been very successful in breeding high quality alpacas, with very fine fleece characteristics, because, similar to the Egyptians, Inca nobles mummified alpacas as gifts for their gods.  It is from these well preserved mummified alpacas that samples of alpaca fibre have been tested and it has been found that the fibre characteristics are far more advanced than those present today.

 

And there you have it, alpacas and llamas, are related, but are not the same! ...and all was well....

 

But the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors, upset things a bit!....

 

With the development of trade and shipping in Europe during the 15th to 18th centuries, European countries sent out explorer - soldiers to far flung areas of the world in search of new lands, raw materials and riches.

 

The conquistadores, or explorer-soldiers, were largely made up of less affluent nobles from the poorer areas of the West and South of Spain, looking to improve their wealth and standing in the Spanish and Portuguese empires.

 

They began their assault on South America by colonising many of the islands of the Caribbean using them as bases to consolidate their position and push forward into mainland central and South America.  Not only did the conquistadores take lands by force, they also brought with them ‘old world’ diseases such as flu, smallpox, to which the indigenous population had no natural immunity, which lead to the deaths of nearly 90% of the native population.

 

The two most notable conquistadores were Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro.  Cortés focussed on conquering the territories of the Aztec Empire and extended his rule into Central America and parts of the now a southern and western states of the US.

 

Pizarro focussed on conquering the lands of the Inca empire by pushing a route from the Atlantic to the Pacific across Panama and sailing across to Northern Peru.  Once the Inca empire had been conquered, the conquistadores then used it as a base to extend their lands into what is now Equador and Chile, later consolidating their position with the help of fresh conquistadores joining directly from the Caribbean to take Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina.

 

So, what's all this got to do with Alpacas?....

 

Well, as the Spanish conquered and settled, they did not value the alpacas or llamas and instead began replacing them with more familiar sheep from Europe.  This relegated the status of the alpaca to a source of meat and they were almost completely wiped out.  However some of the native populations saw what was happening, did not want to be enslaved by the conquistadores, and ‘disappeared’ high into the inhospitable lands of the altiplano with their alpacas, placing themselves out of reach of the conquistadores.  This allowed the remnants of the alpaca gene pool to survive, but it had been severely compromised.  As a result, alpaca fleece characteristics have still not developed to the levels once seen at the peak of the Inca empire.

 

Modern day Alpacas....

 

The first alpacas in the UK were seen in zoos rather than on farms. However, the alpaca has become increasingly popular in this country over the past 20 years, but their numbers are still relatively low at around 60,000.  To put that in context, there are around 22.6 million sheep in the UK.

 

Alpacas are primarily bred as fibre producing animals, however given their low numbers the UK industry and supporting infrastructure is very fragmented and embryonic.  In the world market the majority of alpaca fibre is still sourced from countries in South America where production costs are low.

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Our focus at Abberley Alpacas is to support the development of a profitable and sustainable UK alpaca fibre industry.

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