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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'."
You are assuming an even distribution in alpaca quality. We know that this is not the case, as there are specific alpacas that are banned from being exported.
If smugglers are trying to export the best of the best, it's likely that:
* These alpacas are separated from the rest of the herd to avoid unwanted damage and breeding. This probably makes them easier to identify.
* Even if mixed with lesser speciments of their breed, these alpacas may be visually differentiable to someone familiar with judging alpaca quality. For instance, let us assume that Peru is breeding alpacas to have particularly large, firm rear ends. One would imagine that someone that has worked intimately with alpacas for years would be able to quickly visually skim over alpacas and identify the ones to be stolen. It's even possible that they could take part in an "inside job" -- being hired by an alpaca owner, identifying the best alpacas, and then taking a list or marking these to later be stolen.
* There is presumably some dissuasive factor involved in making the statement of microchip presence at *all*. Heck, the chips don't even really have to be there -- it'd drive a smuggler mad to think that he stole what seems to be a really excellent, high-quality alpaca, but cannot find the supposed embedded chip.
* I'm of the suspicion that many Peruvian alpaca rustlers may have been deprived of a thorough statistics education (thus forcing them to smuggle alpacas instead of becoming credit card market analysts). They may not catch on to how unlikely it is to get the short straw -- Americans certainly don't when it comes to lotteries, for instance.
May we never see th
This has me worried though (from the article):
"We know that alpacas are being moved across the border with Bolivia and then on to Chile," Pilar Tuppia from Peru's National Council of South American Camelids told the Associated Press.
This included "unscrupulous individuals" buying top animals from poor people in the countryside, she said."
If these people's animals are such top-notch and pedigree, why are they so poor and living in the countryside? Isn't the Alpaca industry booming?
I'm not the only person to thing that the Alpaca business is a little fishy. See here and here (google cache of geocities page)
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
the smugglers maybe quite unaware of this and the more gullible ones may just get caught.
The people who do the smuggling are not peasants or petty criminals. It's an upscale crime undertaken by those who are already quite well off, by the very nature of what's required to pull it off. Smugglers in business suits driving Mercedes, who read newspapers.
And a legitimate pedigreed Purvian alpaca might bring as much as $100,000.
That's right, for a single animal. We're talking big business here. An American bred alpaca with a couple of show ribbons to its credit might well run you $30,000.
The headline is misleading. The Peruvian alpaca is in no danger. It's in danger of spreading. What's at risk is the market value of Peruvian alpaca fleece. For the most part what's going on constitutes what most people think of as "saving" an animal today.
Camalids are being reintroduced into territories in which they have become extinct.
This is a trade embargo vs. free trade/open market issue, not a "saving the poor little furry thing" issue. The only animals being moved are pedigree domestic stock. 4H club stuff. Legitimate tradable goods that the government doesn't want traded out of the country.
KFG
>If it is easy to implant, it would be easy to remove.
Or modded. A multi-region animal ought to be easy to move into another country.
However, I do not think that alpaca fleece is quite the luxury item in Peru, Bolivia and Chile like it is in the US...
Exactly the point, from the Purvian point of view.
You're certainly right about the showing, breeding and pyramid scheme aspects of the American Alpaca market though. It's the very reason that I don't breed Alpacas myself. It is also what makes animals of a certain pedigree so valuable here (Although they have closed down registration to new Purvian animals. When I said it is a 4H club type issue I was speaking about inside Peru where the animals are common and ownable on a peasant's budget, just like prize pigs or sheep are here).
KFG