Nature Magazine CoverWhat follows is an article appearing in the December 1926 (Yes...1926!) issue of Nature Magazine. The article entitled "Chinchilla - A Vanishing American" was written by Colin Campbell Sanborn of the Field Museum of Natural History.

We think you will find this an interesting piece of chinchilla history.

Title from magazine: Chinchilla - A Vanishing American

A big T ODAY we speak of the wild buffalo, passenger pigeon, and other species of mammals and birds as things of the past. For one reason or another, they have lost their place in the order of things and have fallen before the crushing advance of our so-called civilization. North America is not the only place where certain creatures of the wild have fought a losing battle against man, for in South America also are found animals and birds that soon will be forced into oblivion.

One of these unfortunates is the chinchilla, far-famed for its soft gray fur. Many know chinchilla fur because it is so scarce and expensive, but few know anything about the little animal whose coat it is. Before the chinchilla becomes just a faded memory it is fitting to tell something about him besides the mere money value of its fur.


The chinchilla (Chinchilla laniger) was first described by Moline, the pioneer naturalist of Chile, in 1782, and up to twenty or twenty-five years ago was common in the Andes of Northern Chile and Argentine, and Southern Peru and Bolivia. The chinchillas lived at altitudes of from three thousand feet to fifteen thousand feet above sea level, where the climate is cold and dry. Their homes were among the rocks and boulders, and they lived upon the bark, branches, and leaves of the low bushes of that region. Coarse mountain grasses also figured in their diet, and the dew that settled upon these plants supplied the drinking water.

Man with chinchilla in his lap.
Here, then, was their home - many miles from man and his works. They held their own, as Nature intended they should, against the depredations of their natural enemies, the quiques or weasels, foxes, wild cats, and birds of prey. As they were provided with no means of defense against those enemies, their safety lay in flight, and in holes and crevices among the rocks. Nature adapted them to movement over uneven ground by giving them long hind feet and legs for leaping from rock to rock, and a long plumed tail to act as a balance and rudder while sailing through the air. In some hole or cranny under a jumbled pile of boulders, each pair brought forth from one to three young to a litter and are supposed to have had two litters a year. Nature also provided them with a thick warm, gray coat, for the mountain winds are cold and piercing, and this same coat has been the cause of their downfall.

Elqui Valley in Chile. When Milady expressed her desire for the chinchilla's fur, Man and his dogs invaded their rocky homesites. The faces of savage dogs peered into their dens and Man brought their worst enemy, the quiqui, who he had conquered and trained to work for him, to run them out. Where the chinchilla had hitherto found safety beneath overhanging boulders, they now found death in the form of a figure four trap. This persecution was not for a few months in the year, when their coats were the heaviest and thickest, but, once started, it never stopped until only a few shriveled carcasses were left to mutely speak of what had been.

When the slaughter first began, their skins sold for a peso and a half, or about fifteen cents each, and , even then at that low figure, many fur buyers lost money on the investment. Today, skins are valued at from two hundred and fifty to four hundred pesos, or twenty-five to forty dollars each, depending on the quality. The higher the altitude and the dryer and colder the climate, the better the fur.

At last and inevitably the chinchillas became very scarce. When it was too late, the Chilean government passed a law prohibiting the trapping of chinchillas. In 1924, in North Chile, however, I met a Chinchillero, a man who makes his living by trapping chinchillas, who told me that he caught from one to three a month. He probably exaggerated, but he had caught some and the law seemed to mean nothing to him. There was no one to watch him and enforce the law, so he did not worry about it.


Next, people began trying to breed them, but to date, and many people have tried it, no one has been able to raise them successfully for the fur market. One man in La Serena, Chile, had some chinchillas about six years. He found them hard to mate as they were very quarrelsome, one of their greatest faults. If a female was placed with two or more males, the males fought until one was left to claim the female. The same thing happened when there was a surplus of females and only one male. Sometimes the females that had been living peacefully together, instead of killing each other, killed the male. This, however, could easily be overcome by placing a male and a female in a cage with a wire division between them and not allowing them together until they showed positive signs of wanting to mate.

If the young are disturbed, the parents kill and eat them. If young are allowed to run with old ones, other than their parents, the old ones bite off their front paws, and later attack their hind legs. This breeder had to keep all his pairs separate and be very careful about disturbing them when they had young. Feeding them, however, was not difficult. They lived on barley, corn, oats, and fresh green grass. They had no water.

Chin with his back turned.

The breeder's place was on the coast where it was damp, so his furs had only a low market value. Chinchillas must have a high, dry and cold climate to produce good furs. Finding a suitable, practical, and yet accessible place for a farm is one of the many difficulties connected with raising them for profit. The fur is valuable only because it is hard to obtain. It is very soft, is spoiled if it gets wet, and never wears more than one season.

The so-called chinchilla rat.

Like everything else of value, however, chinchilla fur has its cheap substitute. There is a large mountain rat, Abrocoma, living in the same country as the chinchilla, called the mixed chinchilla. The natives believe these light colored rats are crosses between chinchillas and mountain rats, and no arguing, reasoning or scientific explaining can change their views. Once species of these rats, Abrocoma murrayi, the one from the highest altitudes, has light gray fur almost the same color as the chinchilla. The difference in the animals themselves can be seen in the photographs, but when the feet, head, and tail have been cut off, the fur passes readily enough, with the average person, for real chinchilla. Many people, tourists mostly, have been fleeced by paying ten dollars each for rat skins which could be bought anywhere for ten cents had they noted the difference.


It appears now that the chinchilla is doomed to extinction, for the law cannot protect it and it cannot be raised successfully enough ever to restock even a small portion of the Andes. While it has never been shown that the chinchilla has ever been of any great benefit to man, it certainly has never done him harm, and it seems a crime that such a pretty, inoffensive creature must pass forever from this earth. Would that we of the northern hemisphere might gain a lesson from this passing of a beautiful and harmless creature, for many of our own animals are in similar danger as a result of man's thoughtless cupidity and killing.

A bright little chap.


Stamps available at www.ChinWorld.com		The good news is that the chinchilla is not yet completely extinct. And, while we now know how to breed chinchillas in captivity, the unfortunate truth is that like so many species, chinchillas are still virtually on the edge of extinction in the wild. Hopefully, time has not run out for these wonderful creatures and, someday, they will know again what it is to live unmolested by man.
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