GUANACO HUNTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 224, 21 September 1929, Page 16 (Supplement)

GUANACO HUNTING.

IN THE WILDS OF PATAGONIA HUN DOWN AND LASSOED. ■ Hunting young guanacos —a sort of llama—is the chief occupation of many Argentinians living in the bleak, desolate. wilds of Patagonia. Armed only Avith a boleador (two heavy balls of metal fastened together by several yards of tough rawhide), the hunter sets out in the spring on his annual guanaco hunt. Each hunter carries supplies of several weeks and a number of changes of horses, as guanaco hunting is hard on horseflesh. ' On sighting a. herd tb* hunter picks out a newly born calf and, whirling the boleador above his head, races toward the game. On nearing the calf the hunter lets fiy with his boleador, the halls and cord tangling the animal's legs, which makes capture easy. A young guanaco weighs about as much as a small calf. It is of tawny colour and when the skin is cured and made into a robe the hunter may realise as much as £2 for it. Although once found in countless herds on the Argentine pampas, the guanacos are now becoming scarce, and the hunters are compelled to journey to the wilds of Patagonia to capture enough animals to make a living.