As the demand for chinchilla has increased, the price of the fur has increased correspondingly, and hunters have scoured every part of the Cordillera in search of the valuable pelt. The chinchilla hunters come from the little villages strung along the western edge of the mountains where the coastal des- ert begins, and they describe their journeys in the picturesque phrase ‘‘chinchillando en la cordillera.”” Ferrets, cage traps, and smoke are the means employed to drive the animals from their holes. The pelts are brought to the local markets, San Pedro de Atacama being one of the most important. When sorted and wrapped in bundles they are ready for shipment to the coast ports and thence to the northern markets.
In view of the dwindling supply of chinchilla an attempt has been made to grow them in captivity. Two companies in the United States have become interested in the plan, though with what ultimate success can only be conjectured on account of the difficulty of climate and food, but principally of climate. Certainly it is a more difficult business than fox farming.
The most ambitious effort to grow chinchilla in captivity has been undertaken on the ranch of Sir John Murray at Vallenar. There was established a chinchilla farm, probably the largest in the world. Five hundred chinchilla were pur- chased at the beginning of the experiment, and in a few years a round-up disclosed a population of about two thousand. The farm was enclosed by 3000 meters of wire fence, counting all the divisions, and covered an area of 25 cuadras. Covered squares of stone were provided to the number of two hundred and fifty (Fig. 39). These were covered with cane and mud; and it is better to provide this shelter than the simple rock piles, for the young can then be seen and the dead ones recovered and buried. The animals were fed chiefly upon alfalfa and a local cactus called tunilla, which flowers and fruits every year. Two loads of alfalfa of 46 kilos each were fed weekly to the chinchilla, and 16 arrebas of tunilla of 25 pounds each. The farm declined with an invasion of rats, and from present reports the experiment seems to have been abandoned.
In 1911 a party of about fifteen chinchilla hunters came up from Coquimbo and Vallenar and hunted the whole cordillera
