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Microchips to Save Peru's Alpacas
lakeesis writes "BBC News has published an article stating: 'Peru has launched a campaign to implant microchips in hundreds of pedigree alpacas to try to stop the best animals being smuggled out of the country. Officials say they know alpacas are being sneaked across Peru's borders'."
All it takes for the people smuggling the animals is to take a hand-held scanner and find out the location of the microchip and cut it out.
If it is easy to implant, it would be easy to remove.
Hmm, looks like they are just trying to throw technology at a problem hoping it would work.
Then again, ofcourse, the smugglers maybe quite unaware of this and the more gullible ones may just get caught.
And oh, first post?
Won't the smugglers just remove the chips, much in the same way that people now remove microchips from pedigree animals stolen from family homes? :)
I personally think they will have to do a bit better than this, but full marks for trying
Sheesh! The things people do for greed.
"...safeguard the gene pool of its three million-strong herd."
You mean, safeguard the genepool to stay within Peru. Heh.
Peruvian law bans the exportation of alpacas that win pedigree certificates.
Wow. Safeguard the genepool so that the best stay within my borders. Not to troll, but unless these have been specially bred (say, genetically modified), you are trying to hold onto what nature has bestowed upon you.
And prevent the best from getting out, so that if there is any disease or epidemic, the best will all die out with not too many of them outside my borders.
And that is good how?
Maybe Peru could start the new fad of turning 'pedigrees' into intellectual property.. It is bound to happen sooner or later with animals.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
The part about poor people having top animals sounds strange. If that's true, then instead of trying to tag the animals they should be trying to develop the market so those poor people could profit from their fine animals.
[i]"Not to troll, but unless these have been specially bred (say, genetically modified), you are trying to hold onto what nature has bestowed upon you."[/i]
Alpacas were specially bred by native americans to create fine lineages of different quality hair. The hair was woven into prized high quality fabrics.
When the Europeans came, they saw the Alpacas as beasts of burden and used them as such. They took the high quality alpacas (extremely fine and long hair fibers) and carelessly bred them with low quality alpacas (coarse and thick hair). As a result, a pedigree created from centuries of eugenics was destroyed because the European conquistadors didn't recognize the value of Alpaca fabrics.
It's as if someone robbed a prize dog show or horsebreeding show, and used all the purebreeds to mingle with the mutts outside. Generations of selective breeding and centuries of hard work was destroyed.
It's only been in recent years that Latin American countries have tried in vain to resurrect the old lineages with limited success. By carefully rebreeding Alpacas, they're hoping to recreate the old lines. Imagine trying to recreate esoteric dogbreeds from hybrids after losing all the purebreds.
And this isn't just the destruction of a hobby, but the destruction of an entire industry. The Europeans literally destroyed the Alpaca fabric industry when they conquered Latin America.
So in answer to your question -- this is NOT what nature gave them -- this is the result of centuries of eugenics from before the arrival of the Europeans. They're just trying to salvage that industry, with little success so far. Historians are aghast when they compare the fine fabrics of the past and the coarse, useless fabrics now being produced because all the purebreeds were destroyed.
They have enough money to acquire implants for their top alpacas, but they don't seem to be able to summon up what's needed to develop a viable textile industry for the benefit of the people who raise and work with the alpacas.
It's a marvelous wool--warm, lightweight, soft, and non-allergenic. It can be spun and knitted or woven into highly coveted, very expensive textiles. I suspect that if more thought were put into this effort, the owners of the pedigreed alpacas would have more interest in keeping them at home in Peru.
Anne
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