Author Scott Barnes
Chinchilla History
History of the Chinchilla
The Chinchilla has been around for a long time and scientists believe they are direct descendants of the Pre Historic Megamys. They were Chinchilla like animals but much larger then the present day Chinchilla and were found in the Permian deposits in Argentina. As of the writing of this presentation I have not been able to track down information or a sketch of what they believe the Megamy would look like.
Chinchillas have always been in the same territory and never migrated to any other area, this could be explained by natural barriers and natural enemies keeping them in their home territory. Their home range is defined as a portion of the Andes Mountains that runs along the western coast of South America. It is about six hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide. This area covers parts of four different countries’ that are Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. This mountainous area has a desert like appearance with very little rainfall and little vegetation.
It is not clearly known when the Chinchilla was first used for its fur. But it is safe to say that long before the Inca Empire that the Spanish encountered, the Chinchilla fur was in use. Inca’s started as a small warlike tribe in Peru sometime around 1100AD. For three hundred years they remained small only fighting with their neighbors. In the 1400’s they began to expand their Empire over the next 100 years. It was to cover over 2500 miles north to south and 500 miles wide. During this expansion is when they conquered many tribes among these were the Chinchas who had used the Chinchilla for clothing, food, pets and also used the fur to weave blankets. After the Chinchas were conquered they were forbidden to wear Chinchilla furs and only the Inca royalty wore the furs after that. When the Incas conquered these tribes they would sacrifice many of there captors and some would be absorbed into their society. The end result was many of these tribe’s customs were lost forever.
The Chinchilla received their name from the Spanish who named it after the Chincha Indians who had used the fur and introduced it to the Incas. Chinchilla means Little Chincha in Spanish.
I feel it is very important to point out that at the time of the Inca’s expansion there were already great cities that lay in ruins from their unknown predecessors. According to the most recent researchers there are five distinct styles of architecture in the Andes alone, of which the temple of the Sun at Cuzco was the latest. This structure can be safely attributed to the Incas. Whose imperial glories are believed to have been the last gleam of a civilization dating back for untold ages. Researchers have found that skulls taken from burial grounds according to craniologists represent three distinct races. The Chinchas who occupied the western part of Peru from the Andes to the Pacific, the Aymaras dwellers of the elevated plains of Peru and Bolivia, and the Huancas who occupied the plateau between the chains of the Andes north of Lake Titicaca. I felt this was useful information to show that the Chinchilla was in use long before the recorded findings of the Spanish.
The London Zoological Garden received their first Chinchilla as early as 1829. Writings from a Dr. Pechuel-Loesche editor of the mammal section of Brehm’s Tierleben 1893 edition states that observation of the Chinchilla has drawn to a conclusion they can live without drinking liquids. Also, he found that of any rodent they are very suitable for domestication, as the Zoo had bred the Chinchilla repeatedly.
Frederico Alberrt, who was the director of the zoological and botanical research station in Santiago, Chile in 1900, had asked the government at that time to protect the Chinchilla and develop a management program, but his efforts were in vain. No one was worried about the Chinchilla because there were still an abundant number of wild pelts being offered. He reports in his first article on Chinchillas “ La Chinchilla” about Fransico Irrazaval in Santiago who had received a pair of Chinchillas from the province of Coquimbo in 1895. The first offspring was born that same year in October. Every year after they would have two litters a year one in March the other in October. Unfortunately, because of an epidemic outbreak in the summer of 1898, all of his 13 Chinchillas died within a 2-month period.
By the time the governments of Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Peru put restrictions on the hunting and collecting of Chinchilla furs it was to late. The only factor that saved what was left of the wild Chinchilla at that time was it became uneconomical to hunt the few remaining Chinchillas left in the wild.
In 1910 Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru under a mutual agreement simultaneously decreed laws, which prohibited the hunting, trapping, and killing of the Chinchilla and prohibited the selling of their pelts.
Chinchillas in the US
The first large-scale attempts at domesticated breeding of the Chinchilla in Chile began in 1920. Several young men petitioned the government for permission to trap fifty pairs of Chinchillas and breed them in enclosed shelters. The restoration of the animal and the re-establishment of the industry for the country were the basis of the petition. As a result of this petition a Decree Law was passed which modified the prohibitive trapping decree of 1910. It authorized the Director General of Hunting and Fishing to issue individual case licenses on approved applications to establish domesticated Chinchilla breeding pens and the trapping of a stated number of wild Chinchilla to stock them.
They imposed strict regulations on the sale of animals and their pelts and left it to the Director of fishing and hunting to monitor. All animals lost or stolen were to be reported to the local police in 24 hours and to certify the natural deaths of animals by the closest notary public. Also, the breeder had to register all animals trapped and bred and to submit an inventory every six months.
The site they chose was an abandoned copper mine located in the “Puna de Los Andes”. The quota of 50 animals was trapped with the aid of a few Indians over a four-month period. The first year the production was almost nil, as the animals were slow in becoming accustomed to captivity. These animals that were caught were of the Lanigera species of Chinchilla. A second application was granted in 1921 and among these were some of the Brevicaudata species of Chinchilla. These were found a considerable distance from the breeding farm over the Bolivian border and had to be smuggled in. The Brevicaudata were found to adapt very quickly to captivity and its fur was much finer than the Lanigera. Later the Brevicaudata were found further north within the Chilean border. By the end of the second year the pioneers were in possession of nearly 300 hundred animals.
Then, in 1923 the pioneers were forced to sell out because of lack of funds to operate. Up to this time the authorities refused permission to sell the animals for export. Finally an agreement was reached and the original owners were allowed to liquidate.
This period also coincides with the same time period with M. F. Chapman applying to the Chilean government to trap live Chinchillas and to take them back to the United States. I will come back to Mr. Chapman later.
Between 1923 and 1930 the breeding farm changed hands several times. The government set the price on live animals and limited the sales to newly licensed breeders within the country. The price set for the sale of the animals proved to be too low to carry on breeding on the farm, which had no other means of support. These low prices beckoned many amateurs into the breeding business, most of whom started out with 5 to 10 pairs. This is exactly what the authorities wanted because it fell in with their conservation plan. Unfortunately, this plan failed and it is estimated that these amateurs lost several thousand Chinchillas over a ten-year period. History has shown us that get rich quick schemes usually fail with only a few people making money in these schemes. This disastrous blunder in amateur breeding brought about the cancellation of all breeding permits except for a few which were located in the northern provinces. Most importantly, it brought about a change in sales regulations.
The government realized that the few remaining breeders had to be provided with a source of income for their work. As the total numbers of Chinchillas in captivity had not yet reached a figure to allow pelting for the fur trade, a limited number of licenses were granted for the exportation of live animals. Between 1936 and 1946 one hundred and thirty-two Chinchillas were sold to the United States and forty to Norway that were known of by the government.
As of the early fifties there were four well established breeding farms in Chile all located in the northern province of Antofagasta about 1,000 miles north of Santiago and all run by experienced breeders. The combined total count of these farms is well above 2,000 Chinchillas. It is believed that once each farm can maintain at least 1,000 breeding females the exportation of the Chinchillas might cease if the farmers can make a living off the fur.
Many European countries had well-established Chinchilla herds by the fifties. A few of the countries were Norway, West Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Soviet Union and Italy.
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