* F I B E R

Vicunas are known as the "bearers of the golden fleece" for good reason. Their fiber ranges from a delicate 10-15 microns and is a beautiful dark cinnamon color. Only about 4 ounces of the best fleece can be harvested from each animal in one year. It does contain some guard hair which is removed, much in the same way as cashmere. But many people think they have no guard hair because it is so fine itself. The fiber is extremely light and quite short, being not even one inch long. It is the most sought after fiber in the world. It commands a high price not only because it is so rare and fine but also because government authorities want to ensure the vicunas' survival by making it more lucrative to shear these beautiful creatures than to hunt them.

About 30 years ago, it became illegal to sell any part of vicunas, including their fiber, because they were being killed for their fiber. Now, there are very strict regulations put in place by foreign and US governments to ensure their survival. Peace of Yarn only sells legal vicuna fiber with documentation guaranteeing that the fiber is from living animals taken from one of the regions where vicunas are a "threatened" species and no longer an "endangered" species.

* V I C U N A

Vicunas are a member of the camelid family. Its closest relative in appearance is the guanaco, although it is thought to be the ancestor to the alpaca. Vicunas are one color, dark cinnamon backs with white along their chests, bellies and legs. They are quite small, generally weighing about 90 pounds and being about 3 feet tall at their head. They originate in the Andes Mountains at an altitude of 3700 to 5500 meters, about the timber line but below the snow line.

A short history of the Vicuna: Some of native tribes inhabiting the Andes, honored the Vicuna as a holy animal, whereas other tribes just saw a valuable bag in it. Already at the time of the advanced civilization of the Incas the use of the Vicunas wool played an important role. For the Spanish conquerors the wool was of great value too. As long as the animals have just been caught, shorn and then released again, the stocks of the Vicuna were not in danger. But they also have been hunted and killed for their fur, resulting in a continuous decline of their numbers. Already in 1825 Simón Bolívar, the founder of the state of Peru, enacted a law to protect the Vicuna. For centuries, Inca royalty maintained strict observance of laws, which forbade commoners to wear vicuna wool. Although the Inca rule was lost when the Spaniards and Portuguese came to South America, the wool's regulation continued to favor the wealthy, ruling classes because the State governments took over ownership of the animal herds.

Today, thanks to the efforts of dedicated and foresighted officials, the vicuna population has reached approximately 15,000 and their fleeces are being harvested in ways that will ensure the continued growth of the species. The Peruvian government handed ownership of the animals back to the common villagers of the country, creating a viable and stable source of income for struggling villagers.

The Peruvian government liberalized its policies on vicuña wool in 1992, and Andean communities immediately resumed the centuries-old practice of herding and shearing the animals in a ritual known as the chaccu. The chaccu lasts several days, with men from the communities fanning out over the plains and slowly guiding the herds to makeshift corrals. Once penned, a swath of wool is sheared off their backs, and then the animals are released. Each vicuña produces about one-quarter of a pound of wool.

The innovative policies provide for government sponsored chacus, or fleecing days when the vicunas are trapped and sheared (at less than a 2% injury rate and no fatalities). In Inca days, the chacu was the standard way of catching and fleecing vicunas, but it fell out of favor when guns was introduced to the populace of the country. The return to traditional methods enables the vicuna population to continue and eliminates poaching by removing the only thing that vicuna have worth taking. Since the villagers maintain possession of the vicuna and the means of wool production have been secured by the Peruvian government to stay within the villages, the villagers now have an economically sustainable system. While this, by no means, reduces the cost of production (quite the opposite), it assures that vicuna wool will be available to countless generations and that the Peruvian villagers will be able to support themselves.

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