Tens Of Thousands Of Llamas And Alpacas Are Freezing To Death In The Andes

Hundreds of thousands of alpacas, llamas, and other highland grazers are getting ill, and many of them are dying, because of unusually low temperatures in Peru’s southern Andes.

In Puno, the hardest hit region in the country, local authorities have reported a particularly intense impact — 55,000 deaths — among the alpaca herds that roam the area’s high mountain planes that often top 13,000 feet (4,000 meters).

William Morales Cáceres, the head of Puno’s agricultural ministry, said a total of 279,000 alpacas had been “impacted” by sickness or death because of the temperatures that have regularly dropped to 9 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 23 degrees Celsius. He said the figure was 30,000 for llamas (that are less common in the area) and 370,000 for sheep.

The animals that graze in the high Andes — particularly in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador — are used to the cold. But this year’s winter has been especially harsh in southern Peru with snow falls continually covering grasslands and freezing creeks.

Morales said that normally hardy highland alpacas, llamas, and, sheep are eating so poorly they have become very vulnerable to catching pneumonia and other infections, as well as to bouts of diarrhea.