Alpaca herders’ theft fight goes high-tech

PUNO, Peru – Peruvian alpaca herders are turning to technology to thwart a growing problem of the high Andes Mountains: the smuggling of prize-winning, wool-producing alpacas to neighboring countries.

An association of alpaca farmers is surgically implanting microchips into hundreds of alpacas as part of an effort to reduce illegal transport of the animals. A herd of 700 Alpacas had microchips implanted in their neck muscles beneath their ears on Friday in the high plains of Peru near the town of Nunoz, about 540 miles southeast of Lima.

The program, costing $5,000, is sponsored by Peru’s National Council of South American Cameloids and is designed to create a genetic registry of the animals as well as identify beasts that have been smuggled out of the country for sale.

The microchips, which are about the size of a pencil eraser, include genetic information about each alpaca and can be read by hand-held scanners.

Alpacas – along with related llamas – are native to South America’s Andes Mountains, but are increasingly prized by herders in other parts of the world for their superb wool, said to be softer and warmer than sheep’s wool.

More than 3 million of the animals are in Peru, more than half in the region around Puno, which sits at an elevation of 12,570 feet above sea level near the Bolivian border.