There are 3 camilids native to South America; the llama, the alpaca, and the vicuna. Archeological excavations suggest that these animals have been domesticated since 4000-5000 B.C. The Incan civilization of the Andean highlands raised alpaca fiber quality to its highest quality through careful selective breeding. The society had a chosen caste, the "llama-michis" whose purpose was to breed llamas, alpacas, and vicunas to better serve the Incan people. The alpaca and the vicuna produced fiber for clothing, the finest of which was reserved for royalty, and the llama was a pack animal. The Incans were a highly developed, successful society for thousands of years. They were able to achieve an extremely fine micron count, the measurement of fiber quality, in their alpacas. Archeologists have found cloth in the tombs of Incan royalty that surpasses anything we produce today. The arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors in 1,531 A.D. is the reason for the lower quality of today's alpaca fiber. The Spanish were only familiar with sheep's wool and therefore had no respect for the strange-looking alpaca. As they decimated the Incan society they, also, decimated the Incan's alpaca, either killing them or chasing them into the wild to dilute their bloodlines by breeding with wild alpaca. There was an estimated 40-50 million alpacas in those pre-colonial times but as of 1980 only 2.1-2.5 million exist today.
Modern breeders of Peru, Bolivia and Chile have been diligently working to reclaim those fine standards of the Incan civilization. It is a process of careful, selective breeding that takes generations to accomplish. Most of the world's alpaca are still in South America. The first exports of alpaca to the United States were made in 1984 and have been very restricted since. This leaves American breeders of alpacas with the great responsibility of continuing the work of careful, selective breeding. There is a limited possibility of receiving more fine South American animals; therefore we must improve our own national herd. The fine genetic work that the Peruvians did still remains within the alpacas. Sifting out the negative traits and adding the positive ones by selective breeding is how to recover the best in an alpaca. The fleece is the end product, and may carry an extra priority, however the entire animal with its structure, health, and personality are an important consideration.
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