Vicuña dung gardens at the edge of the cryosphere.

Abstract

The decline and subsequent recovery of the vicuna (Vicugna vicugna, Quechua: wik'una), one of the few large, native herbivores in the Andes (Figure 1), is one of the world's greatest conservation success stories. Over-exploited nearly to extinction by the 1960's, the current population of these wild camelids is estimated at close to 500,000 animals, with nearly half of the global population in Peru (Acebes et al. 2018). Vicunas are prized, noted for the high economic value of live-shorn wool from wild populations and their cultural significance among high-Andean indigenous pastoralist communities.