Beasties make big business.

• Author: Goethals, Henry
• Position: Animals from Chile

Depending on where you live, you can buy an alpaca and have it shipped to you from Chile for under US$900. According to the Research and Budget Division of Chile's Undersecretariat of Agriculture, 273 alpacas were shipped overseas in 1989, at a total cost of US$243,789, or US$893 per animal.

The alpacas were relatively few in number compared to other animals, birds, reptiles and insects exported from Chile during 1989. In all, the Research and Budget Division reports that during the first nine months of the year, 89,185 Ilamas, penguins, lizards, snakes, frogs, rats, iguanas, scorpions, turtles and other animals were shipped out of the country. Some were purchased for reproduction, some for exhibit in zoos and others as pets and mascots. These figures don't include some 3,000 lambs and 31,000 sheep exported for breeding purposes, or 126 racehorses, saddle horses, jumpers and polo ponies bound for foreign destinations. On the avian side, more than 3 million birds--including goldfinches, blackbirds, finches and hummingbirds, as well as 644,423 day-old chickens--valued at US$1.7 million were sent abroad. Even insects such as grasshoppers and...