Where might I learn more about this?
Gus diZerega
on 11/11/02 10:53 AM, John Foster at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> One really good example about carrying capacity comes from Arequipa, Peru.
> Here the vicuna was almost poached to extinction until recently. The locals
> were forbidden to kill these animals (even during the reign of the Incas
> killing a vicuna was punishable by death). There the locals 'poached
> vicunas' and sold the hair and hides for thousands of dollars to black
> markets. However recently the Peruvian government created refuge parks for
> the Vicunas and the population of vicunas rebounded into the tens of
> thousands perhaps. The parks were created to protect vicunas from poachers
> and also to protect habitat. The locals were given rights to shear the hair
> of the adult vicunas once a year or so, and the market for vicuna hair
> increased. The locals therefore stopped poaching and increased their incomes
> dramatically. It became legal to then sell the hair to purchasers in Italy
> where expensive sweaters worth over one thousand dollars were sold.
>
> jf
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