394 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Concerning the Bolivian race, the so-called "Indian" or 

 "Cordilleran" chinchilla, Carlos Garcia-Mata, of the Argentine 

 Embassy, wrote Dr. Harper that in April, 1933, the Argentine 

 Government started a chinchilla farm in Abra Pampa, Jujuy, 

 at 12,548 feet altitude in the Andes, and has been very success- 

 ful with it. From a start of 9 animals, in three years the number 

 had increased by breeding to 61, an average per pair of 3.8 a 

 year. It was planned to start selling breeding stock to local 

 breeders by 1937. A decade before, the Argentine Government 

 had made a similar attempt in cooperation with local hunters 

 at the same place, but most of the stock was lost through 

 ignorance of proper methods of care. They prove very sensi- 

 tive to humidity and quickly succumb if kept in a damp place. 

 At the present time there are stringent laws establishing close 

 seasons and regulating the hunting of these animals. In 1926 

 the hunting, exportation, transportation, and sale of chin- 

 chilla skins were prohibited by law. In Bolivia, likewise, laws 

 have been passed for its protection, and the exportation of the 

 fur was prohibited under laws of 1920 and 1922. The hunting 

 of chinchillas in Bolivia is said to be in the hands of a monopoly, 

 but because of the scarcity of the animals very few are taken. 

 In 1931, according to the American vice-consul at La Paz, 

 there were no chinchilla farms in Bolivia. 



The royal chinchilla ("chinchilla real") of the Andes of 

 western Peru is the most valuable of the three forms because of 

 its longer and silkier fur and its pale "bluish" tint. The most 

 valuable skins formerly came to market at Oruro or Tacna and 

 Arica. This form has now been brought nearly to the verge of 

 extinction. Not only were they persistently trapped and 

 hunted by the natives for the fur trade, but it is said by Water- 

 house (1848) on the authority of Bridges, who traveled in Peru 

 a century ago, that they even trained a species of grison (of the 

 weasel family) to hunt them by entering their burrows and 

 capturing them as they endeavored to escape. Dogs also were 

 used in hunting. In a letter to Dr. Harper in 1935, Carlos 

 Garcia-Mata, of the Argentine Embassy, wrote that a few 

 still remain in the steep and inaccessible rocks of the lower 

 Andes, but that attempts to capture a pair for breeding stock 

 have resulted in failure. Where 30 or more years ago they were 

 common, and the pelts brought only $6 or $7 a dozen, by 1930 

 they had become so scarce that pelts brought as much as $200 



