The Alpaca Chronicles takes the reader on a journey that began forty million years ago. You will experience the North American home of the original camelids and walk with them along the length of the Pacific coast to the Bering land bridge, into Asia, or trek south through Panama to the grass pampas of the Southern hemisphere, where these even-toed refugees from North America became guanacos and vicuñas.

Discover how they made peace with their natural enemy, man, and how both prospered as a result. Learn why alpacas and llamas were the only mammals over a hundred pounds to be domesticated in the Americas, North or South.

Meet the first animal breeder, an Englishman named Robert Bakewell, and discover the history of animal breeding. Find out how Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel’s work created the basis for all of the natural sciences in what became known as the modern synthesis.

Learn how alpacas made their way back to North America after a twelve-thousand-year absence. Then discover the industry that grew around the gentle, doe-eyed alpacas beginning in 1984.

Who was responsible for creating the Alpaca Registry? Who was AOBA’s first president? How did the Alpaca Registry finally free itself from the International Lama Registry? How did AOBA grow to become a marketing juggernaut, and why did alpaca owners fight to close the Alpaca Registry?

The Alpaca Chronicles is a history of the alpaca, animal breeding, and the North American alpaca community. The story is told from first-person accounts, by the author, industry records, and from the mouths of the participants—blow by blow, the facts, the politics, and the delightful details.