There used to be a few different species of chinchilla, one of the coolest being the king chinchilla. It was the size of a cocker spaniel, and hunted to extinction for its fur in the 1600s.
The chinchilla lanigera was so rare in the early 1900s when M.F. Chapman hired 23 men to trek the hills and live capture as many chinchillas as they could, they could only find 12 animals in 2 years of hunting. And that was 9 males and 3 females. For some perspective, it takes approximately 150 chins to make a full length fur coat.
Chapman really liked chinchillas, and basically wanted to start a herd of his own in captivity for the purpose of being pets. None of the animals were pelted while he was still living. He exported those 12, I think one or two died on the way. From there the captive population steadily grew to the thousands of chinchillas we have today. It's remarkable considering chinchillas only have 1-2 kits at a time, and only once or twice a year (twice a year is pushing it, and females will break down pretty fast if you push them that hard.) They also live 15-20 years.
When Chapman died it was his son who had the idea to farm them for their pelts. Otherwise the herd would have probably dwindled into old age and disappeared. Pelting gave a lot of people a reason to study their health, reproduction, genetics, etc. Most pelters today who have been at it for the past 30-40 years are more knowledgeable about chinchilla health and reproduction than any exotics vet I have ever taken my animals to. The animals developed for the fur trade have superior pelts to the few wild chins left, so have pretty much secured them total safety from poachers. You would maybe get $15 for a pelt of the quality a wild chinchilla would produce, and they are sold in volume at auction anyway so unless you got 100 of them to sell at once, you're just stuck with a fairly worthless pelt.
A few of the pelters also eat the meat from the chinchillas, because they figured it was like rabbit, and they don't want to be wasteful.
Today in Chile, wild chinchillas are still so rare that the penalty for killing a wild chinchilla is equal to killing a human being.
Sorry for the essay, lol.
Pops, I definitely think that idea has merit. One of the biggest obstacles for black footed ferrets is the wild ones mainly prey on a specific kind of prairie dog, that also has a limited range. If you were able to convert captive animals to broader food sources, then it wouldn't be very difficult to maintain large numbers of them.
One thing those pieces of "OHMIGOSH BAN ALL EXOTIC ANIMALS AS PETS!!!11" legislation always fail to consider, is the American Zoo Association is mostly private members, and not large institutions. They are THE organization that maintains all the genealogies/studbooks of captive threatened and endangered species, and make recommendations to the keepers about which animals are best to breed to preserve genetic diversity. Also, a lot of animals reproduce better and have much lower stress levels when they don't have thousands of strange humans gawking at them daily.
The chinchilla lanigera was so rare in the early 1900s when M.F. Chapman hired 23 men to trek the hills and live capture as many chinchillas as they could, they could only find 12 animals in 2 years of hunting. And that was 9 males and 3 females. For some perspective, it takes approximately 150 chins to make a full length fur coat.
Chapman really liked chinchillas, and basically wanted to start a herd of his own in captivity for the purpose of being pets. None of the animals were pelted while he was still living. He exported those 12, I think one or two died on the way. From there the captive population steadily grew to the thousands of chinchillas we have today. It's remarkable considering chinchillas only have 1-2 kits at a time, and only once or twice a year (twice a year is pushing it, and females will break down pretty fast if you push them that hard.) They also live 15-20 years.
When Chapman died it was his son who had the idea to farm them for their pelts. Otherwise the herd would have probably dwindled into old age and disappeared. Pelting gave a lot of people a reason to study their health, reproduction, genetics, etc. Most pelters today who have been at it for the past 30-40 years are more knowledgeable about chinchilla health and reproduction than any exotics vet I have ever taken my animals to. The animals developed for the fur trade have superior pelts to the few wild chins left, so have pretty much secured them total safety from poachers. You would maybe get $15 for a pelt of the quality a wild chinchilla would produce, and they are sold in volume at auction anyway so unless you got 100 of them to sell at once, you're just stuck with a fairly worthless pelt.
A few of the pelters also eat the meat from the chinchillas, because they figured it was like rabbit, and they don't want to be wasteful.
Today in Chile, wild chinchillas are still so rare that the penalty for killing a wild chinchilla is equal to killing a human being.
Sorry for the essay, lol.
Pops, I definitely think that idea has merit. One of the biggest obstacles for black footed ferrets is the wild ones mainly prey on a specific kind of prairie dog, that also has a limited range. If you were able to convert captive animals to broader food sources, then it wouldn't be very difficult to maintain large numbers of them.
One thing those pieces of "OHMIGOSH BAN ALL EXOTIC ANIMALS AS PETS!!!11" legislation always fail to consider, is the American Zoo Association is mostly private members, and not large institutions. They are THE organization that maintains all the genealogies/studbooks of captive threatened and endangered species, and make recommendations to the keepers about which animals are best to breed to preserve genetic diversity. Also, a lot of animals reproduce better and have much lower stress levels when they don't have thousands of strange humans gawking at them daily.