Chinchilla

Chinchilla is a small rodent (Chinchilla lanigera in its domesticated form) native to the high Andes of Chile, farmed for its extremely dense, soft fur, among the densest of any mammal. Wild chinchilla populations were hunted to the brink of extinction for the fur trade by the early twentieth century, prompting a shift to farmed production; the American mining engineer Mathias Chapman is credited with bringing a small breeding population out of Chile in the 1920s to establish fur farming in the United States. Chinchilla farms have since spread to Europe and other regions, breeding the animals in cages for pelts used in fur garments, while domesticated chinchillas are also widely kept as pets. Because each animal yields relatively little usable fur, a single fur garment traditionally requires pelts from a large number of farmed chinchillas.