RARE SPECIES: VICUNA AT U.S. CUSTOMS.(import problems over the import of vicuna into the U.S.)

Daily News Record, November, 2002 by MAYCUMBER, S. GRAY

Just when everyone thought it was safe to sell vicuna, there's another snag -- one that affects the states of New York, California, Michigan and Delaware.

To textile executives and retailers alike, it had seemed that the problems surrounding vicuna were solved this summer. In July, vicuna and apparel made from this rare, luxurious fiber became legal in the United States for the first time in a quarter-century.

The problems began when the U.S. Department of Interior in Washington declared the vicuna to be an endangered animal and banned the sale of vicuna fiber here, as it was in much of the rest of the world. That was back in 1976. But then the vicuna -- a delicate llama-like member of the camel family, native to the Andes, mostly in Peru --...

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