A NEW UNDERTAKING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23690, 23 December 1938, Page 14

A NEW UNDERTAKING

CHINCHILLA FARM « (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Nov. 22. Mr Fletcher Robert, who is stated to be a New Zealander, living at Great Yarmouth, on the Norfolk coast, has imported ton grey-furred chinchillas from South America. They were brought most of the way from the Andes by air. Mr Robert is endeavouring to establish a chinchilla farm, for this fur is very rare and costly nowadays. Already the original number has been increased by healthy offspring.

“With less than average luck," Mr Robert states, “each pair should in five years multiply to 60.” The “babies” are the first born in Britain, where it was formerly believed impossible for them to breed.

“ I believe we shall have better chinchillas even than in America.' declared the owner. The chinchilla’s fur is the most expensive in the world. A coat made from about 120 pelts would cost £20,000; most of the few coats in England to-day are heirlooms. So serious became the problem of the disappearance of the little animal that the Governments of Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia once passed laws prohibiting export and trapping on pain of the loss of a hand for the first offence and death for the second. There are believed to be only about 2000 chinchillas in the whole world.

Owing to the scarcity of the rodent, none has been killed to make coats for the past twenty years. In America their price is £640 a pair, but it is almost impossible to buy any.