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Ancient Vicuna Wool Shearing Tradition Lives on in Peruvian Andes

Vicunas are herded into a catch pen as men dressed as Inca servants standby to capture the animals for their shearing during the national "Chaccu," or annual roundup of vicunas, at the Pampa Galeras National Reserve, in the Peruvian state of Ayacucho, Wednesday, June 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Sebastian CastaÒeda)
Vicunas are herded into a catch pen as men dressed as Inca servants standby to capture the animals for their shearing during the national "Chaccu," or annual roundup of vicunas, at the Pampa Galeras National Reserve, in the Peruvian state of Ayacucho, Wednesday, June 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Sebastian CastaÒeda)
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Ancient Vicuna Wool Shearing Tradition Lives on in Peruvian Andes

Vicunas are herded into a catch pen as men dressed as Inca servants standby to capture the animals for their shearing during the national "Chaccu," or annual roundup of vicunas, at the Pampa Galeras National Reserve, in the Peruvian state of Ayacucho, Wednesday, June 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Sebastian CastaÒeda)
Vicunas are herded into a catch pen as men dressed as Inca servants standby to capture the animals for their shearing during the national "Chaccu," or annual roundup of vicunas, at the Pampa Galeras National Reserve, in the Peruvian state of Ayacucho, Wednesday, June 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Sebastian CastaÒeda)

At daybreak on a freezing cold day high in the Andes, dozens of Peruvian peasants clamber up a mountainside to carry out a centuries-old tradition of shearing the highly-prized wool off vicunas, which are relatives of the llama.

One week each year, the peasants of Totoroma, a village 50 kilometers (30 kilometers) to the southwest of Lake Titicaca, join forces for a process of herding and shearing known locally as the "chaccu".

They trudge up the mountainside and herd around 500 vicunas back down the slope into a pen made of posts and three-meter high mesh -- a necessary precaution to keep the agile members of the camelid family from escaping.

The comuneros -- men and women, some even carrying children -- wrap up against the cold and wear wide-brimmed hats to protect them from the sun.

This year, they're also wearing face masks to protect against Covid-19.

"It's an ancestral activity that has been going on since time immemorial and now we're helping out as a public state administration," vet Jaime Figueroa told AFP.

Jesus Pilco Mamani is following in the footsteps of his father and grandfathers.

"I started working as a comunero in 1986," he told AFP.

The vicuna appears on Peru's national coat of arms and there are an estimated 200,000 of the Andean camelid in the country.

The annual chaccu helps support families in 290 communities in the Peruvian Andes.

Vicuna wool is highly-prized for its soft qualities and is one of the most expensive in the world.

The vicunas live at least 3,500 meters above sea level so getting their wool -- by rounding up and shearing them -- is a difficult task.

The communities in the Peruvian Andes produce around 10 tons of vicuna wool a year.

Unlike llamas and alpacas, amongst Andean camelids, vicunas and guanacos have not been domesticated.

Alpaca wool is far more common, while llama wool can be used to make rugs and carpets but is considered too rough for clothing.

Guanaco wool is also highly-prized, although not as soft as vicuna.

Inside the pen, the comuneros hold each brown vicuna down on a blanket on the ground while an expert quickly shears them using a machine powered by a portable generator.

The wool of each vicuna is collected and placed inside individual plastic bags.

Once shorn, the vicuna is immediately released from the pen and runs at top speed back up the mountain.

A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of unprocessed vicuna wool sells for $400 -- much more than alpaca wool.

But a single sheared alpaca produces three kilograms of wool, compared to "150 to 180 grams" from the much smaller vicuna, Erick Lleque Quisoe, an official in the regional Puno government, told AFP.

He said that in Totoroma the locals "took off 35-40 kilograms" of wool from the 500 vicunas.

In 2019, Peru made $3 million exporting seven tons of vicuna wool, whereas alpaca exports bring in around $300 million, according to official figures.

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Rats Feast on New York’s City’s Bagged Garbage. Can Putting It in Bins End the Smorgasbord?

A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)
A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)
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Rats Feast on New York’s City’s Bagged Garbage. Can Putting It in Bins End the Smorgasbord?

A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)
A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)

For half a century, New York City residents have taken out their trash by flinging plastic bags stuffed with stinking garbage straight onto the sidewalk.

When the bags inevitably leak or break open, they spill litter into the street, providing smorgasbords for rats. In the winter, the trash mounds get buried in snow and remain frozen in place for days, sometimes weeks, reinforcing the city’s reputation as filthy.

Now, New Yorkers are slowly adjusting to a radically new routine, at least for America's biggest city: Putting their trash in bins. With lids.

Earlier this month, covered bins became a requirement for all residential buildings with fewer than 10 living units. That’s the majority of residential properties. All city businesses had to start using bins earlier this year.

“I know this must sound absurd to anyone listening to this who lives pretty much in any other city in the world,” said Jessica Tisch, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, who oversaw the new measures before becoming the city's new police commissioner this week. “But it is revolutionary by New York City’s standards because, for 50 years, we have placed all our trash directly on the curbs.”

Residents who've already experienced trash containerization elsewhere agree it's long overdue for New York City to catch up.

“You see plastic bags open with the food just rotting and stinking and then it leaking out over the sidewalk and into the road,” said John Midgley, who owns a brownstone in Brooklyn and has lived in London, Paris and Amsterdam. “Just the stink of it builds up, you know, week after week after week.”

New York City's homes, businesses and institutions put about 44 million pounds (20 million kilograms) of waste out on the curb every day, about 24 million pounds (11 million kilograms) of which is collected by the city's sanitation department. Much of the rest is handled by private garbage carters.

In the early 20th century, New York City required trash to be placed in metal cans. But in the era before widespread plastic bag use, refuse was thrown directly into the bins, making them filthy and grimy.

Then in 1968, the city’s sanitation workers went on strike. For more than a week, trash cans overflowed. Garbage mounds piled high on sidewalks and spilled into the streets like some dystopian nightmare.

Plastic bag makers donated thousands of bags to help clean up the mess, and New Yorkers never looked back, said Steven Cohen, a Columbia University dean specializing in public affairs.

“It had to do with convenience,” he said. “After the strike, the sanitation workers preferred the modern advance of lighter and seemingly cleaner sealed plastic bags.”

Plastic kept more odors in, compared to the old metal bins. A worker could grab the neck of a bag and easily fling it into a truck.

But Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has deemed trash bag mounds Public Enemy No. 1 in his well-documented war against the city's notorious rats.

Rats have little problem getting into a plastic bag. Durable bins with closing, locking lids should, in theory, do a better job of keeping them out.

The bin requirement, which took effect Nov. 12, comes with its own challenges. Among them: Finding a place for large, wheeled bins in neighborhoods where most buildings don't have yards, alleys or garages. Landlords and homeowners also have to collect the empty bins and bring them back from the curb in the morning — something you didn't have to do with plastic bags.

Caitlin Leffel, who lives in Manhattan, said residents of her building had to hire someone “at surprisingly high cost” to bring out the bins the night before and bring them back in three times a week.

“I know there are problems with the way this city has collected trash for years,” she said. “But the way this program has been rolled out, it has not taken into account many of the nuances of living in New York City.”

Building superintendents are also grumbling about the added work of bringing bins back from the curb.

“It’s completely rearranged our lives,” says Dominick Romeo, founder of NYC Building Supers, a group of building managers that recently rallied in front of City Hall against the new requirements. “Folks are running around like crazy.”

Eventually, the largest residential buildings — those with more than 31 units — will have their own designated container on the street. New trash trucks built with automated, side-loading arms — another innovation that is already common in many other countries — will then clear them out.

The upgrades should make pickups easier and cleaner, even if it might take longer for trash collectors to make the rounds, says Harry Nespoli, president of the union representing some 7,000 city sanitation workers.

For now, he says, workers are still tossing trash into their trucks manually, which has its own downsides.

“Some places, they’re not even using bags. They're just putting their trash into the bins,” Nespoli said. “It's going to take time to get everyone to do it the right way, but at the end of the day, it's our job to pick it up.”

Tisch believes New Yorkers will eventually come around to the new reality.

City officials, for now, are issuing written warnings for non-compliance. Not everyone knows about the new rules yet. But come Jan. 2, fines ranging from $50 to $200 will kick in.

“No one wants to live on a dirty block,” Tisch said. “No one wants to walk past a heaping mound of trash and trash juice when they are leaving to go to work or they are walking their kids home from school.”