In Chile, an Animal Whose Numbers Please No One CERRO SOMBRERO, Chile — The guidebooks for Tierra del Fuego somehow fail to mention the gunfire. From the mist-shrouded Patagonian steppe to the dense beech forests, shots pierce the air here for months on end each year. Hunters armed with telescopic rifles roam this archipelago at the southern tip of South America in pickup trucks as they pick off their prey: the guanaco. Humans have already hunted the guanaco, a wild cousin of the llama, out of existence across big swaths of the continent. While hunting the animal here is legal, the culling of Tierra del Fuego’s guanaco herds is setting off a fierce debate over the fragile recovery of a native species and the sway of powerful ranching and logging interests, which contend that rising numbers of guanacos are competing with sheep for pasture and foraging in commercial hardwood forests. “We’re witnessing a grotesque subordination to businessmen who view a creature of remarkable beauty a
Post: 14 December 09:44
