Seven Inches of Separation!
by Jo Ann McGrath
Copyright 1998 - Llama Life II
People sometimes change their point of view as a natural result of market forces. If they follow market changes to maintain their position in an industry, it is understandable that they do so simply to survive in a competitive world.
But, for a breeder - or a car manufacturer - or a stock broker - to completely reverse a strongly held position to achieve a market advantage does leave a door open to speculation about opportunism.
Most of us agree that all llamas - small or tall - even those that are knock-kneed, sickle-hocked, or dim-witted - are appealing and lovable. Where there is disagreement is how and why they become the way they are, and if we are meddling in the evolution of an entire species for no other reason than selecting for short term profit.
The comments of ALSA (Alpaca and Llama Show Association) judge Virginia Christensen on her personal view of a breeding program in LLII, Spring Issue No. 46) inspired a response from Lester Reed, a breeder in Corvallis, Oregon (see Letters in this issue that includes a reply from Christensen).
The Reeds, llama breeders for five years, are admirers of small-sized llamas - as are many others. However, in his criticism that ALSA judges unfairly select against small llamas, Reed quotes Andy Tillman as his authority for the justification he finds in small, or as Tillman calls them, "lady-sized" llamas: "Andy Tillman says 'the median South American llama is about 38 inches tall at the withers,'" Reed tells us.
Paying Lip Service
If true, that would mean that half the millions of llamas in South America are even shorter than than three feet two inches! Not a reasonable consequence for countries that bred llamas to be beasts of burden - or for meat. Sure, a small llama can carry a pack - but does it make sense for a campesino, even a short campesino, to select for a huarizo characteristic when more weight could be carried by what we were once told is a real llama?
And, if we believe what Andy Tillman is now publishing - that they no longer use llamas for packing in South America, and llama and hybrid llama wool is near worthless....... and if Fred Hartman is right when he told LLII that it is "hardly worth boning out a llama because there isn't much meat on them".... then why are there any llamas in South America at all?
Tillman further tells us that even the median 38-inch South American llamas may attain 40 to 42 inches when better fed in this country. Does that mean his "lady-sized" llama is only a llama that is malnourished? This would certainly hamper the Reeds' goal to raise 36-inch llamas with genetically programmed 42-inch ones. Particularly since Tillman has told us it takes 23 generations to "fix" a characteristic. That works out to more than 80 years!
Back to the 'Source'
Since this whole size question seemed at odds with what I thought was Tillman's very strong position, I went through my files for a copy of The Responsible Breeder - his much-touted lecture series (circa 1988) - and retrieved the text that accompanied the seminar I attended, and paid for.
In it I found the answer Tillman supplied to his posed question "About how high to the withers are most pure bred North American and South American llamas?"
In 1988 he assured us this was 45 inches.
However, this (dated? obsolete? wrong?) conclusion seems to be qualified in Tillman's open letter sent this spring to the ILR (International Lama Registry) in which he hints that llamas found in South America that are this size (42 - 45 inches) could be guanaco crosses. A conclusion that smacks of a similar one he presented some years ago when discussing the 'wild' color of a llama. An aversion to this bi-coloration, which he said suggests guanaco influence, has taken a dozen years to overcome.
Interestingly enough, Tillman's 1998 promotional material indicates that he still clings to the goal of breeding for "tall, balanced, athletic llamas." Recent visitors to his farm, however, report that, "We were surprised at how small all the Tillmans' animals are." Perhaps they wondered where he kept all the "tall, balanced, athletic ones."
That Was Then, This is Now?
In the above-referenced letter (the purpose of which is to have the ILR abandon its screening requirements on his second generation imported llamas) Tillman tells them this screening is "racist" and "encourages line-breeding."
I am not sure how to interpret the "racist" attribution, but line-breeding (inbreeding) I can handle.
I cannot find Tillman published in any of the scientific literature, but I did find a peer review of his The Responsible Breeder lecture at the 1988 ILA conference. That critique was by Richard Olsen and printed in Llama Life, No. 8 - Winter 1988-89 and entitled Hybridization and Inbreeding: Roads to Ruin - Part II in which Olsen addresses portions of Tillman's The Responsible Breeder lecture tour.
In a thoroughly detailed discussion, California-based Olsen (who holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and began breeding llamas in 1979) took Tillman to task because Tillman had then concluded that line-breeding was OK for fixing certain characteristics.
Tillman now argues that line-breeding will be the negative result of the ILR's stringent screening procedures.
These are procedures he insisted they make stringent! Now he tells them they need to loosen up their screening criteria to accommodate his imports?
Weeding Out the Hybrids
In the section of The Responsible Breeder where Tillman talks about showing llamas, he says "that many llama owners feel left out of halter competitions unless they have a super-wooly (sic) llama." This comment appears to preface a criticism since it is shortly followed by the observation that these small woolly llamas often have "many alpaca-like characteristics." He then pronounced that he is ".... not personally interested in breeding this type of llama and feels the promotion of it is a detriment to the species (after all, that is what an alpaca is for)."
Probably the most mystifying of Tillman's many promulgations are those he endowed on Richard Freeman, who headed up the ILR Screening Advisory Committee, in a letter dated November 11, 1992 to the ILR when he urged the ILR "...Not to shy away from its responsibility to its members regarding importation. Closing the Registry was a bold step. Now all you have to do is really close it. No more extensions," he said.
He added that that he hopes the ".... standard will be so tough, very few imports will pass it......it is the ILR's duty to protect our investment from un-restricted imports of hybrid llamas."
Now he seems to believe that the ILR has no right to maintain any standards and criticizes phenotypic (by appearance) screening.
But in his 1992 recommendations to the ILR he said "....A 39 - 40 inch breed standard (to the withers) might be a useful yardstick to weed out the most obvious hybrids......"
Attached to these recommendations was his guideline for ALSA show standards which says fairly specifically:
"The requirement that all participants in the adult halter class be at least 39 inches to the juncture of the neck and back may exclude 7/8 and 15/16 hybrids and/or miniature llamas from the adult halter class. The largest Peruvian and American alpacas measure 37 - 39 inches to the intersection of the neck and back and llamas are often over 45 inches."
To quell any agitation on the part of owners of hybrids prior to closure, he assured them that closure would not affect any already here and registered by saying "......no one who currently owns a registered llama, whether it turns out to be a hybrid or not, has any reason to fear an ILR sponsored breed standard. Our hybrids will still be in the Registry. And their offspring will still be in the Registry; even if they don't pass a rudimentary 39-inch breed standard."
Rudimentary? Didn't he tell Lester Reed that 38 inches is the average?
Are We Dumbing Down?
In the above-referenced 1992 letter to the Registry - sent just two years before his own 1994 South American imports arrived - Tillman told them that ".....no one in the world knows more about these animals than the North American llama breeder. We should not be afraid to describe a llama as we know it."
But today he says "The Camposinos (sic) who breed llamas and alpacas in South America are the same people who selectively bred 250 species of corn and 400 varieties of potato from wild plants....
"Screening and listing assumes that Quechua, Aymara and Spanish speaking Camposino's (sic) cannot and do not selectively breed their llamas and alpacas. It also assumes that U.S. breeders are not capable of making intelligent decisions for themselves."
But! we thought we had made those intelligent decisions - based on all the information Andy gave us - which he certainly must have believed was valid four years ago - just before he became owner and manager with the Bohrt Brothers of 85 llamas and 86 suri alpacas brought from Bolivia to Bend. Only then did he start preparing those who read his views with.... "In the last 10 or 12 years as an industry we've come to accept a much smaller, woolly llama." (Llama Life, No. 31, 1994).
Who accepted this, and when? Does this "acceptance" arrive on the same boat as small imports? Was this "new view" transmitted to all those who paid to hear his "old view?" And are his "newest new views" meant to condition us to the idea that we should be sending all our 45-inch llamas to the butcher so we can buy "lady-sized" llamas from those shrewd enough to have made this departure from the "old old views"?
Our Continuing Education
In a recently published essay in The Llama Banner, Where Do Llamas Come From (marked Vol. 10, No. 5, no date supplied) he said a lot of other stuff, some of which seemed designed to convey to us how cheaply llamas are held in South America, and that it is natural to market them as a source of meat because it's what they do there.
But we in North America name all our animals.... and write obituaries for them when they die - usually after we have spent hundreds of dollars to keep them from dying. This illustrates a very wide cultural and philosophical gulf that even the most gifted salesman is going to have difficulty crossing. And IF it is crossed, how do we then continue to sell llamas as magical works of art or lovable companions AND as a cheap source of protein?
Another pronouncement Tillman made was, "I think we have lost friendliness and milk production in our North American llama population."
What!? He thinks this is so? What does that mean? What scientific measurement is there for this conclusion? There are 40 very friendly females in my own herd and the only one that is a poor milker is half Chilean. Do I reasonably infer that the fault lies in her North American half?
Tillman also tells us in this story that he "bought the grand and reserve Bolivian champions," and that he also "bought seven Chilean suri types," and he made sure we understood what a coup that was by quoting an exporter's view that (these?) seven are all anyone is likely to find of this type after rummaging through 14,000 lesser animals.
My impressions after reading his views on llamas from Peru and Argentina are that they somehow are mixed up with TB, short wool and guanacoes. But, if I read it right, it's definitely a plug for Bolivians....with Chileans a close second..(especially if they don't have any guard hair).
So, if you want a Peruvian or an Argentinian or a North American llama - or if you think nature created guard hair for a purpose - you're probably out in left field somewhere.
Total Anti-Import is Shortsighted
I think everyone will agree that some imported genetics should be a sensible part of a continuing invigoration of the national herd. However, we - with the ILR as our single and stable 'standards' bearer - should be making the rules about what we import.....not the importers for whom a boatload of animals may be just a boatload of money.
It seems a matter of desperation if we feel required to change a llama as we know it into something else - or create a bizarre departure from the very well established form to function formula - in order to attract fanciers to an industry that may be down, but certainly is not out.
"Boutique" breeders have a much different agenda than do breeders interested in the establishment of a bona fide, genetically sound and lasting industry that can take pride in its measured progress that must allow for the fact that llamas are reproductively viable throughout their lives of 15 to 20 years.
Why is This Important?
In any commercial enterprise - in fact, in any area of competitive life, including life itself, - there will be an elite. It is inescapable since we are a competitive and free society.
However, it seems more acceptable when the elitism is achieved in the context of natural selection - because what you are and what you do actually is superior. Or, in an arena where, if you were told there were rules, abiding by them wouldn't put you behind the eight-ball.
Many acolytes have put in the time and effort and followed the rules. Now they find themselves in competition with a whole new kind of animal bred and promoted by those who made the rules, but haven't abided by them.
Yes, things change - and, yes, breeding livestock is a chancy business - and, yes, succeeding requires more fancy footwork that anyone might have believed - BUT..... give us a break!