Researchers Race to Witness Vicuña Birth | National Geographic

this vicuna mom-to-be
is about to give birth her calf is
slowly emerging into the world and will
soon land on the ground of its home in
the Argentinian Andes the vicuna is a
cousin of a llama alpaca and camel also
known as camelids
they only occur naturally in Argentina
Chile Bolivia and Peru the birth takes
several minutes at first only the little
ones head and two legs emerge while most
vicunas give birth while standing the
full birth in this case will happen only
after the mom sets herself down for a
rest finally as the camera gets shaky
from the wind you can see the baby
completely born with legs squirming in
the air and it tries to sit up for the
first time
researchers are trying to establish
survival rates and find out what is
causing deaths among the young the team
waits for 10 minutes after birth to
allow mother baby imprinting and then
they only have a very short time to
capture these newborn calves before they
can run away in fact within 15 minutes
this little four leg 11 pound Laconia
who will be able to outrun the
researchers to researchers move in on
the mom and baby one to measure weigh
and tag the other to keep the angry
mother at bay not often but sometimes
the moms can be violent the full process
is done quickly
the researchers retreat and the mother
returns to her young babe the ear tags
have a transmitter with a mortality
sensor so when the animal stops moving
for two hours it transmits a different
signal researchers recover the bodies
and gather data the three years study in
Argentina’s San Guillermo National Park
and partially funded by National
Geographic track the juveniles for a
full year or until they were killed
young vicunas are a favorite prey of
Pumas on the researchers hope the
information gathered in this study will
help in the conservation of both animals
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