Vicuña ( Vicugna vicugna)

The vicuñas (Vicugna vicugna) are the smallest of the camelid family, they weigh approximately 45 kilo-grams and they are one meter long. They are wild. Its hair (beige in the back and white in the abdominal zone and legs), is the finest animal fiber of the world (diameter of the fiber: between 11 and 14 microns).

Its habitat limits to the Andean Plateau, at more than 3,200 m.o.s.l., cold and dry climate. They are herbivores, they feed themselves on plants from the Plateau. Other animals that also feed themselves from these plants are the suris, the vizcacha, the chinchilla and other camelids (guanacos, llamas and alpacas).


The vicuñas are very well adapted to the environment where they live, since they are the most important wild herbivores of this ecosystem. Because of the way they feed themselves they are called “low impact grazers”, this means they do not put in danger the possibility of the recovery of the pastures. As opposed to the to the camels, the vicuñas are “obligated drinkers”, this means, they should drink water every day, that is why they generally live near the rivers and lagoons.

The Plateau settlers assure that the vicuñas have an owner: they are the herb of the Pachamama, the mother earth and they have their own shepherd, Coquena.

The vicuña fiber was valued since pre historic times. The indigenous practices had a certain limit in its use. The ones who did not have limit were the conquerors because they hunted them by thousands with fire weapons (weapon that did not exist before in America). This indiscriminate hunt continued in the time of the fights for independence. Simon Bolivar (1783 - 1830) dictated one of the first conservationist laws of America. Since the independence until 1950 the vicuñas were still hunted until the specious was really in danger of extinction and only 10,000 of them were left in the entire Plateau of the four countries were they live.

In the last red book of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) vicuñas were classified as low risk but dependent on the conservation. This is what the abbreviations mean in English LRcd (from English: lower risk; conservation dependent). This means that the vicuña is not at risk because it is protected. If this protection should end the group would be in the category of danger of extinction, before 5 years pass.

The governments of of Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, were animated to continue fomenting the conservation and the management of the vicuñas, they signed a agreement for the Conservation for the Vicuña in La Paz on August 16th, 1969.

In the four Andean countries (Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina) where the vicuñas have recovered, the plans to use them began. All the plans are based on obtaining its fine fiber from the shear of live vicuñas, but non of the countries is free of the problems of clandestine behavior, this means the problem of illegal hunters obtaining the fiber from dead vicuñas.

In Peru the vicuñas are under the ownership and usufruct of the farming communities through the Communal Committees of Vicuña (260). In Bolivia the communities do not have the ownership but the exclusive usufruct and in Chile and Argentina the animals are property of the State.


Bolivia is the only country that uses free vicuñas. The rest of the countries have captive and free vicuñas.