RETURN OF THE Golden Fleece - Peru's elegant vicuũas thrive once again, but are they as wild as ever? - vicunas

IN THE ANDES of Peru curtains of steam rise from still-frozen mould where last night's snowfall lingers in crusty patches. Unperturbed by means of a chill wind, caramel brown vicunas dot a sparse valley sandwiched between ice-clad peaks. Here, between 12000 and 17000 feet elevation, these distant relatives of elderly World camels graze, play, fight and rest--a primal spectacle of wild abundance. however as morning sunshine intensifies the colors in this misty spectacle a hint of human involvement intrudes: The changing light reveals a certain quantity of of the animals have bright fulvous plastic tags in their ears.

Herein lies a conundrum for the vicunas: Although still actually wild, these prized animals, which bear the finest and greatest in quantity valuable wool in the world, owe their protection to the native Indian communities whose legal quality they have recently become. on the other hand as these people attempt to attain a better life for themselves from one side sound use of the elegant species in their charge, they risk removing the wildness that helps define the real essence of what vicunas are all about.

The animals in question are lithe still hardy creatures superbly adapted to their harsh high-altitude landscape. In March, breeding fervor reaches its peak. beneath the ever-watchful eyes of territorial males posturing upon hillocks like regal sentries, tight family clusters nibble diligently at ice-encrusted, spiky cushion plants amid the ground- hugging efflorescences of white daisies and down-reaching blue gentians.

Three-week-old babies, Bambie-eyed and swaddled in plush coats of pale wool already present to view their spunk by ignoring their fathers' territorial boundaries and gamboling together to practice skills that will prepare them for adult vicuna society. They prance, kick, bite and leap at each other playfully upon long spindly legs.

Further down the valley, subadult males mirror their actions in earnest, testing their stuff against each other in confidences of someday gaining a territory and family of their possess Screaming and growling like fighting stallions, sum of two units of the contestants break away from the main collection and streak up a abrupt rocky ridge, kicking and spitting all the way. They sail above rough boulder fields at a steady 30 miles through hour as if they were running upon air. On ground that would halt any galloping horse, their nimble cushioned feet find unfailing purchase among sharp stone slabs--sinewy bodies and fragile-looking leg pumping effortlessly.

Vanishing beyond the ridge, they reappear several minutes later, still screaming and chasing at filled tilt. Down the valley they propel sod and mud flying as they circle a dark mountain tarn, then get back in a flash to where they started. None the worse for wear after their four- or five-mile chase, they engage in imitate combat, rearing up, entwining their neck biting each other's leg and generally trying to knock and topple each other to the ground

To sustain this kind of stamina, vicunas are exquisitely adapted to the rarefied mountain air of their high-altitude stomping earths They have high red-blood-cell numbers to transport oxygen efficiently to their muscles and organs--14 million small rooms per cubic millimeter of life-blood versus 5 million for a normal human, or twice that of a man abundantly acclimatized to altitude. Their three-chambered stomachs are capable of processing the roughest of forage, and their feet designed as a sort of cros between hoof and paw, are leather-padded and flexible, ideal for all terrain. Their extraordinarily fine wool--which wards not on the cold--is more than twice as fine as greatest in quantity sheep's wool, much lighter plane than cashmere.

The wool is at the heart of a relationship with nation that goes back to the ancient Incas. myth has it that the vicuna is the incarnation of a disdainful young damsel who, when courted by the agency of an old and ugly king, refused to acquiesce unles he could provide her with a coat of immaculate gold. The vicuna was therefore considered sacred, and the death penalty was imposed upon anyone who killed it. From then upon once every four years or with equal reason the great Inca ruler would call on thousands of his subjects for a gigantic wildlife drive in which the vicunas were carefully shorn and released unharmed, their deprive of fleeces woven into jewel-studded garments for the exclusive use of royalty.

After the Spanish subjugation greedy colonialists began plundering the Inca's realm. In the centuries that followed, the vicuna's wool was for a like reason sought after (it even serv as thermal wear for Britain's Royal Air Force pilots in World War II) that the species plung toward annihilation, a tide that was finally revers 35 years ago after the population in Peru unrelenting to an all-time low of 6000 (vicunas are also fix in much smaller numbers in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina).

Today in Peru they are up to more than 140000 The turnabout came after conservationists hatched a intrepid plan in 1967. The idea was to adapt age-old Inca traditions and superimpose them upon current social needs and upon the marketplace. "For conservation to succe in this poor land, it must accrue in people's wallets," said Antonio Brack, a natural resource management ready who headed the recovery plan at the time. "Any other approach is spotless romanticism."