Information
Although
there are tons of chinchillas living in pet stores,
zoos and people's homes many people still don't know
what a chinchilla is. The fact is that they are rodents.
The world Cinchilla means "little chinta" given to them
by Indians in their area. They are originally from the
South American countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile
and Peru and live in the high altitudes of the Andes
Mountains. They were brought to the United States in
1918 at M.F. Chapman was on a working trip to Chile
and saw his first chinchilla. He gathered a part of
20 men with him and they went to work catching as many
of these creatures as possible. But they were near extinction
at the time because of excessive trapping for their
pelts. They caught 11 Chinchillas over 3 years. It took
12 months to bring these down the mountains of Chile
and all of the them survived the temperature changes.
By the mid 60's there were thousands of chins in the
United States and Canada.
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