About Alpacas

Alpacas are members of the camelid family that were domesticated thousands of years ago by the inhabitants of the Andes Mountains in South America. These ancient herders developed two types of domestic animals from native wild camelids: the llama, which was used as a beast of burden, and the alpaca, which was raised for its fiber.

When the Spanish invaded South America over 400 years ago, they brought with them horses, sheep and other domestic animals that spread disease and competed with the native animals for grazing space. Millions of alpacas and llamas were slaughtered and thousands of years of animal husbandry and selective breeding practices were disrupted. The native people, whose daily lives, religious beliefs and herding traditions were tightly interwoven, succumbed to brutality and disease at the hands of the invaders. The traditional Andean way of life was destroyed in all but the most remote mountain habitats. These few surviving communities became the basis for the populations of alpacas and llamas that exist in the world today.

Several hundred years after the Spanish invaded South America, a British wool importer, Sir Titus Salt, noticed that sheep wool from Peru arrived in Britain in bags made from a fine, lustrous fiber. Salt's "discovery" of alpaca fiber led to the British involvement with the fiber mills in Peru and brought worldwide recognition of alpaca as a luxury fiber.

Until recently, Peru, Chile and Bolivia were home to virtually all the world's alpacas. In 1984, alpacas were first imported into the United States and, today, there are over 100,000 alpacas being raised in all areas of the United States.

 

Please visit our Breeder Directory for locations and contact information for our member farms.