The Guanaco 273

THE GUANACO
By G. DENNLER DE LA TOUR, M.D., D.Sc.
In South America there are many animals, such as chinchillas,
coy pus and armadillos, which have no near relatives elsewhere.
Among them are the South American camelidae, which are not
true camels but only camel-like. They have no hump, their ears
are proportionately long and their tails short and bushy, but
their slender build and long necks remind one of camels. Like
camels, they walk on two toes or phalanges, on the last one, as do
all artiodactyles, and also on the penultimate one, so that they
seem to be rather digitigrades than unguligrades. Behind their
relatively long claws, below the second phalange, there is a kind
of little cushion which serves as a callous sole.
The South American Camelidae.—There are four species of
South American camelidae : the llama, Lama glama, the alpaca,
Lama pacos, the guanaco, Lama guanico and the vicuna,
Vicugna vicugna. Of these, the llama and the alpaca are
domestic animals but the guanaco and the vicuna are truly wild
and their preservation is of great importance.
The Guanaco and its Sub-species.—The guanaco is the tallest
South American wild animal. It stands about 43 inches (110 cm.)
high at the shoulder ; its length from nose to tip of tail is 7 feet
(210 cm.). In colour it is dark fawn-brown above, with white
underparts. It has a blackish face. Callosities on the inner side
of the forelimbs distinguish the guanaco from the vicuna.
The first detailed description of the guanaco was given by
Molina, who called it Camelus huanacus. Waterhouse, in 1839,
named it Auchenia lama—hence the family's other name
Auchenidae. Frisch earlier (1775) named the genus Lama and
Miiller (1776) called the species Camelus guanicoe. The valid
scientific name is therefore Lama guanicoe, not Lama huanacus,
as was usual in zoology compendia until recently.
Although some people distinguish between the mountain
guanaco of the Andes and the pampa guanaco of the plains,
systematic zoology recognizes two sub-species only, Lama
guanicoe cacsilensis of the area around Nunoa, Peru, and Lama
guanicoe guanicoe in other areas. The former was established by
Lonnberg in 1913 on account of its small size, and Osgood
approved it, basing his opinion on material of the Collins-Day
South American expeditions. However, Glover M. Allen stated
(Bibl., 1942, p. 407), " very likely when sufficient series of
specimens are available, more geographic forms may be
distinguished."

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 274 Oryx

In Chile and Peru the vernacular name is preferably—

huanaco ; in Argentina and Bolivia—guanaco. Its origin is
Quichua, the language of the Incas, still spoken by the natives
of Peru. Among the Chilian Indians, the Aracaunos call it luan,
the Puelches pichua, the Patagonians of the south nau, the
Yamanes of Navarino Island amere. The Onas call it yoohn,
but make a difference between the adult male, mar in, and the
female, cheyuan o toulpai, meaning mother of toul, the offspring.
They call both sexes of the young undn, distinguishing between
clatudn, the male, and omten, the female. In general the offspring
is called guanaquito, but in Patagonia chulengo, and in the north
of Argentina teck.
Distribution.—The guanaco's range extends along the
Cordilleras of the Andes in Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina,
but the northern limit is not exactly established. While Cabrera
and Yepes (1940) indicate the distribution as reaching the limit
of the Peruvian Andes to the north, Osgood (1916) states that the
herds he saw on the Pampa de Arrieros, between Puno and
Arequipa are " almost if not quite the northernmost now
existing ". However, this author mentioned in the same paper
the sub-species Lama huanacus cacsilensis, from Cacsile (Caccili),
near Nunoa, north-west of Titicaca Lake. Nunoa is about
14° 20' south latitude, nearly two degrees north of the Pampa de
Arrieros. In my travels in Peru I have never seen guanacos
north of a line Nevado Quenamari-Nudo de Vilcanota-Nevados
de Condoroma-Cordillera de Ampato-Cordillera de Huanzo-
Pacific coast at Pisco.
In the west the guanaco reaches the Pacific coast wherever
food conditions give permanent or temporary support, that is in
the canyons which periodically conduct water to the sea. From
Pisco (Peru) to Antofagasta (Chile) it is confined to semi-desert
high pampas which lie inland in the western Cordilleras. In the
southern parts of the Andes and in Tierra del Fuego the guanaco
inhabits the forestless zones. It reaches its southerly limit in
Navarino Island.
To the east the guanaco's range is limited in the Peruvian
and Bolivian Andes by the forested zones called " montanas ".
In Argentina it extends to the Precordilleras and Sierras
Pampeanas. From the foothills of the Andes at Cuyo its distribu-
tion goes across the pampa as far as the Sierra de la Ventana
(Window Mountains) in the province of Buenos Aires. During
the colonial era the guanaco was probably found all over the
pampa of Santiago del Estero and the southern Chaco as far as
the Paraguay river, and to the Atlantic coast in what is now the

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 The Guanaco 275
DISTRIBUTION MAP

Between Pisco and East of

Caccili :—
A= Cordillera de Ampato
C = Nevados de Condoroma
H= Cordillera de Huanzo
0= Nevado Quenamari
V= Nudo de Vilcanota
^ Ti«rro
Fuego
*NovarinoIs. Present distribution

Past distribution s^g

included UlR

province of Buenos Aires. It reaches the coast even to-day,

across the Patagonian plateau, south of the Colorado river.
Habitat.—The guanaco is not a climber like the mountain goat
for, as Finsterbusch observed, its foot is adapted to sand or dry
clay, not to rock climbing. Both in mountainous districts and
in the plains it inhabits semi-desert country. In the mountains
it chooses the high pampas and the plateaus, moving along the
contours and avoiding rocks, cliffs and steep slopes. Thus it
ranges from almost sea-level up to 13,000 feet (4,000 metres).
It never enters woods or forests but likes clearings in the wooded
regions of the southern Andes and Tierra del Fuego.

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 276 Oryx

Habits.—Guanacos live in small herds of four to ten females

led by a male. Young males and others which have failed to win
a harem, unite into herds of a dozen to fifty. Darwin saw small
herds of half a dozen to thirty and, in southern Patagonia,
large herds of at least 500.
During the last fifteen years I myself have failed to find
female herds of more than seven, or male herds of more than
twenty-five. Ten years earlier I often counted herds of a dozen
females or eighty males.
In a small herd, while the females are grazing, the male
always stands at a vantage point on watch.
Unlike the camel the guanaco is a good swimmer, which
explains its presence in Tierra del Fuego and Navarino Island.
Reproduction.—The mating season is from November to
February. When in rut the male chases the female but dares
not go far from the herd lest another male should try to steal one
of his harem. When this happens the two males fight bitterly,
often inflicting deep wounds with their upper incisors and
lancet-shaped canines. During mating the female is placed with
her belly to the ground, as with camels.
Conservation of the Guanaco.—The guanaco is preyed upon by
the puma and, at high altitudes, by the condor, which sometimes
attacks the young if it strays too far from its mother. But the
real enemy is man—not the native who hunted the guanaco for
centuries without harming the species, but civilized man,
beginning with the Spaniards.
When the Spaniards conquered South America guanacos
were plentiful from the Piura region, north of Peru, along the
Andes to Tierra del Fuego. Their range extended from the
Pacific coast to the Peruvian and Bolivian " montanas ", and all
over the pampas to the Paraguay and Parana rivers. Further
south it reached the Patagonian plateau and the Atlantic ocean.
This is proved by reference to the many authors of that time who
describe the slaying of hundreds of guanacos. The Spaniards
until they had imported sheep and cattle from Europe, fed their
troops upon the meat of guanacos and llamas. There may have
been millions of guanacos in existence at that time, and at the
end of the nineteenth century there were still many hundreds of
thousands.
During the early decades of the present century, however, the
demand for guanaquito pelts increased and the Indians became
possessed of firearms. This heralded the threat to the species,
for the big herds of males in the Indian reservations were
massacred and natural increase of the species was stopped by

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 The Guanaco 277

the killing of the young.- I myself saw the total extermination,

within twenty years, of between 8,000 and 9,000 guanacos in an
area of 25 leguas, i.e. 125,000 hectares or 500 square miles. It
was in the Tehuelches Indian Reservation, in the Gastre zone of
Chubut, Argentina.
Extension of sheep and cattle breeding and increase of agri-
culture in the pampas, in the Patagonian plateau and in the
Chilean valleys, contributed also to the diminution of the
guanacos. In the semi-desert zones of the Andes the guanacos
stock was also threatened by the engineers and workmen of the
mining companies, who hunted them in their spare time. More
recently it even happened (horribile est dictu) that frontier
officers hunted guanacos herds with machine-guns.
Thus the guanaco is everywhere threatened and stringent
measures are necessary if its extinction, already accomplished in
many of its previous areas, is to be avoided in others where it is
steadily decreasing. To judge the extent of the guanacos decrease
is not easy, because it is the newly-born young that are killed.
The animals' life-span is estimated at thirty years, which enables
the adult herds to remain intact for a long time. Suddenly the
collapse comes and a whole generation vanishes. This threatened
extinction of a species by the killing of the young and not by the
persecution of adults is an unusual and remarkable phenomenon.
In Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru, the countries in which
guanacos exist, hunting of females is forbidden by law and
hunting of males and guanaquitos limited to certain months.
In Argentina, for example, the open season for male guanacos
is June and July. Commercial hunters may, however, kill
them during November and December also, and these two
months are open for guanaquito hunting. But the immense areas
involved and the thin human population makes strict control
impossible. Furthermore, the co-operation of the police is
negligible.
It was this difficulty of control and lack of police co-operation
which prompted me in 1938, when preparing the hunting regula-
tions for the Ministry of Agriculture of Argentina, to insist on
the earmarking of furs, before they left the territories in which
the animals were killed. The situation, particularly in Patagonia,
was extremely difficult because not only was the demand for
guanaquito fur increasing year by year, but the sheepbreeders
were extremely hostile to wild fauna and called for the complete
extinction of the guanaco.
The ranchers based their campaign against the guanacos on
the following arguments :—•

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 278 Oryx

(1) A guanaco eats from three to five times as much as a sheep.

Guanacos are stronger than sheep and drive them away from
the best pasture grounds.
In truth the guanacos eat leaves and buds of bushes
inaccessible to sheep.
(2) Guanacos prevent sheep getting to the watering places.
This is not true. I have often seen guanacos and sheep peace-
fully drinking together.
(3) Guanacos destroy the wire fences.
This very rarely happens. Sometimes in winter a guanaco
gets entangled in a fence hidden by the snow. Guanacos easily
leap the fences, which are never higher than 4 feet (1-20 metres).
(4) During the rut the male guanacos chase the females and
disturb the sheep, which at this time are accompanied by lambs.
Lambs are thereby separated from their parents and may die.
Actually the guanacos, during the rut, stay in the foothills of
the Andes and in the canyons of the Patagonian plateau and on
the coast. There are very few flocks of sheep in these areas
during that season.
(5) The guanaquito hunters disturb the sheep and often kill sheep
without permission, sometimes destroying pedigree animals of great
value.
Strict regulation of hunting and prohibition of trespass would
cure this.
(6) The guanaco is a carrier of scab and mange.
The scab of the guanaco and of sheep differ and are not
transferable. This was proved twenty-five years ago on the
estancia " Sara", the property of the Braun-Menendez
Company. If guanacos could catch sheep-scab there would be no
guanacos left in Patagonia. They would all have been exter-
minated by it, as were the pampa-deer in the Pampa Argentina
when they were infected with foot-and-mouth disease by cattle.
Future Preservation.—Against an unbiased assessment of the
facts, the arguments advanced by the ranchers can not be
maintained. Furthermore, the government must try to keep in
being a fine natural product such as guanaquito fur. The
guanaco continues to decrease in most of its habitats and there
is danger of its complete extermination. The way to avoid it is to
establish complete reserves in areas which offer little or no
prospect of agricultural development. Such reserves would serve
also by re-establishing guanacos in the surrounding hunting
zones. These reserves would have to be sufficiently large to
ensure maintenance of the biological equilibrium, and I suggest

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 The Guanaco 279
the Nahuel Pan, in Chubut, Argentina, for the guanacos southerly
habitat and, in the north, an area in the high pampas and the
Precordilleras.

The author of the above article, Dr. G. Dennler de La Tour, re-

ceived in 1953 the Pan American Award for outstanding activity
in conservation education among the people of Argentina.

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