Diario las Américas Newspaper, May 9, 1954, Page 26

The Chinchilla =-Aristocrat of Fur Bearers By Mary G. Reynolds A CHINCHILLA — This animal’s pelt is one of the richest and loveliest furs in the world. The chosen few who have ex- | perienced the thrill of seeing 4 coat or cape made of chinchilla fur readily admit that chinchilla | is one of the great furs of the | \world. They maintain that is is | impossible to do justice in mere words to the depth and beauty and overwhelming richness of the pearl-gray fur. “So fine and de- licate are the hairs,” said one of these privileged people, "so light and airy, that on stroking them | one has the sensation of passing one’s hand through a cloud.” The source of all this beauty is a small, hopping rodent, about the size of a squirrel, whose native habitat is the slopes of the Andes in Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. The chinchilla has a long, bushy tail, large ears, and big bright eyes. Its famous coat of soft gray fur is darkly inottled on the upper sur- face, and dusky white beneath. Chinchillas are shy, fast-moving animals. They live in burrows formed out of loose rocks and come ott mainly at night. Their food consists of grains, seeds fruits of shrubs, dry and green herbs | mosses, and lichens. Like squirrels, they sit on their haunches while eating and hold their food in their tiny forepaws. Three kinds of chinchillas, all belonging to the species zoologists call Chinchilla lanigera, are gen- erally recognized although scien-| tists have found it hard to assem- ble enough data to arrive at definitive classifications. First there is the Chilean or coast chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera la- | nigera) which prefers the warmer | areas along Chile’s coastal foot- hills and inner valleys. Then there is the Peruvian or royal chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera brevicaudata), whose native range is at altitudes of 8,000 to 10,000 feet on the western slopes of the Peruvian Andes. This animal is the most valuable of the three because its fur is longer and silkier than that of the others and has a pale bluish tint. And lastly there is the Bo- livian chinchilla (Chinchilla lanig- era boliviana), inhabiting the east- ern Andean slopes and upper pla- | | |idea of collecting enough of these | Argentina. Long before the white man came to the New World, the chinchilla’s | fur was used for wearing apparel. The first Spaniards to reach the west coast of South America found | the Chincha Indians using it in} their fabrics, and named the ani- mal for these Indians. The Incas, who has previously conquered the | Chinchas, were using the fur too. Early in the 16th century the first chinchilla furs were exported | to Europe. and demand for them | increased until the poor chinchilla One day in 1913 “Teddy” Roose- , velt and his party were moving | up the Sepatuba River, a small | tributary of the Paraguay, in se-| 9 arch of game. Suddenly they saw what looked like the glistening black head of a baby hippopotamus | moving through the water just | ahead, but it could not be a hip-| popotamus, for Africa is the home | } of that animal. They turned their | canoes toward the creature, but | it dived and remained under} water a long time. When sighted again, river bank under heavy foliage. Roosevelt fired but missed, and | the beast plunged into the dense | forest. Three or four dogs were sent in pursuit. After a short while it returned to the river farther upstream, and the canoes were again paddled rapidly toward it. Once more the animal dived, this time swimming underneath the bo- ats and emerging near the op- posite bank. Roosevelt fired again, | and this time the bullet struck | home. The body sank but, as the natives predicted, it reappeared three hours later. The prize speci- men was placed in one of the | canoes and the party headed jubil- | antly back for camp. The unwilling hero of this story | Was one of the strangest looking | beasts on the face of the earth —a tapir. One traveler has des- | cribed these animals as looking | like a cross between a pig and a} hornless rhinoceros, and this comes | about as close to presenting the | tapir in a few words as one can | get. Approximately the size of a} som it is the largest animal nat- ve to South America. It is clum- sily built, with heavy legs, a short meck, an abbreviated tail, and an elongated nose and upper lip that form a short, flexible trunk. Its hide is tough and thick and cover- ed with short hair. PAG 14 it was scrambling up the| § A TAPIR IN CAPTIVITY — The tapir is believed to be an almost unmodified descendant of the prehistoric ancestor of horses and rhinoceroses. It is a shy, unassuming, nocturnal creature, and, like Ferdinand, it hates to fight. |achieved the questionable distinc- tion of becoming the most hunted | animal in the Andes. For the next 400 years it was ferreted out of its burrows with the help of grison- s (a type of weasel), dogs, blow- guns, and red foxes (the latter im- ported by the English miners in Chile). No animal could hold out forever against such odds, and the turn of the 20th century found ;the little live gold mines rapidly |becoming extinct. The price of pelts, which as late as 1880 had {been only $18 a dozen, rose to and Peru woke up to what was | happening. and by 1920 laws had been passed in all three countries restricting the hunting and ex- port of chinchillas. The depletion |had gone so far, however, that many believe the laws came too late and that the wild chinchilla has had its day. Fortunately, this does not mean | that there will be no more of this fabulous fur for milady’s wraps, because chinchillas are now being successfully raised in captivity. In 1919 an American enigneer in Chile, Mr. M. F. Chapman, got the |rare little animals to start a farm in California. He hired 23 Indian} | trappers and over a four-year pe-| | riod they managed to capture 11} | eral “hundred chinchilla farms in this country. Most of the big ones are in California, but there are others in Ohio, Virginia, Pennsyl- vania, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Washington, D. C. Chinchilla farms are also grow- {ing in size and number in South America. Two of the largest and most successful are the one direct- ed by the Pan American Chin- chilla Corporation in Colona, Chile, and the governmet - operated station at Abra Pampa in Jujuy Province, Argentina. For success in raising chinchillas, growers have to keep them in dry, clean cages, and protect them against drafts and the direct rays |of the sun. The feed varies with the breeders, but consists for the most part of preparations of grains, carrots, and apples. No amount of pampering is consider- ed too much trouble as a pair of ranch chinchillas is now worth up to $3500! The rich, silky fur of North American chinchillas, al- | though not quite as long and thick jas that of their South American forebears, has the same _pearl- blue lustre. | Coats of wild chinchilla (of | which there are believed to be | now onty about 25 in the world) have been sold at prices ranging | chinchillas. On the voyage to the|from $20,000 to $100,000. The United States, Mr. Chapman kept} his precious cargo alive in ice-cool- ed cages hung with wet canvas cur- tains and supplied with fans. In) | 1923, he established a ranch in) Inglewood, California, which prov- | ed to be the start of a fast- “growing | | chinchilla-raising industry in ' United States. delicacy of the fur has the ad- vantage of making a coat made of |it as light as a wool dress and the disadvantage of making it in- ‘eapable of surviving much wear. For obvious reasons, most chinchil- \la is used for trimming on coats the | of less expensive furs and fabrics, Today there are sev-'and for muffs and scarves. Ta Dir ir A living Relic of the Past thickest sections of the forest ne- |ar a pool or river. If caught when young, the tapir can easily be tam- ed, and once domesticated becomes much attached to its master, fol- lowing him around like a dog. In some parts of Brazil tapirs have even been trained as beasts of burden. Unfortunately for the ta- pir it makes good eating, and is therefore hunted by man and be- ast. Its chief protection when at- tacked is its perfect adjustment to both land and water. The tapir is a vigorous swimmer, can re- main under water for long periods, and is generally remarkably at home in the water for an animal without gills, flippers, or fins. The large flesh-eating animals are un- able to cope with it in the water, and caimans and crocodiles are unable to keep up with it on land. And, as the Roosevelt story shows, even man with his high-powered rifles finds it difficult to outmane- uver a tapir. The ability of tapirs to escape heir pursuers is even more re- narkable in view of the fact that they are apparently quite near- sighted. Several traveiers have des- cribed incidents to illustrate the animal’s dire need of spectacles. One explorer left his canoe at the ledge of a jungle river in Brazil There are five species of tapirs pical South America east of the clined to believe that horses and | and went ashore to search for food. |in the world; four are found in| Central and South America and | one on the Malay Peninsula and the nearby islands of Sumatra and Borneo. The four Latin American tapirs are known to zoologists as the Tapirus bairdii and the Tapirus dowi of Central America; the rare, hairy tapir T. roulini)( of the highlands of Colombia, Ecuador, and possibly northern Peru; and the “American” tapir (T. ameri- jeanus or T. terrestris), which is indigenous to most parts ef tro- | Andes. Old World tapirs are larger than | the New World ones, and have |} white areas on their sides and! | backs, which contrast, with the | | black foreparts of their bodies and their black legs. Full-grown | Latin American tapirs are a funi- form blackish brown. The young of all five species are covered with white streaks and spots, As in the case of the lamoids, fossil remains indicate that New and Old World species had a common prehistoric | rhinoceroses are other descendants : of this ancestor, which, in contrast (to the tapir, have developed and changed with the passage of time. To look at a tapir they say, is to | look at a pretty fair copy of this hypothetical prehistoric animal. The tapir is a shy, unassuming, nocturnal creature, which general- ly lives alone and likes it. Like Ferdinand, it hates to fight so nev- er preys on other animals. It lives entirely on leaves, shoots, and other vegetable matter. The tapir’s In the course of the search he came face to face with a tapir, | and the frightened animal turned |and bolted for the river. On reach- ing the bank it dived headfirst for the water, failing completely to see the canoe. As luck would have it the myopic beast landed right on top of the delicate craft, smashing it to bits. All the poor explorer could do was to stand by and “give thanks to Providence for endowing the bananas and yams in the canoe with a specific ancestor. Paleontologists are in-' favorite wtamping grounds are the gravity less than 1.00” HEMISFERIO DOMINGO, 9 DE MAYO DE 1954 “ pis BR ie ah sa a CB ae ES, i xed msde Fic etik: