Editing Llama (section)

=== Spanish Empire ===
[[File:Guanacos-llamas-el-primero-imagen-en-europa-1553.jpg|thumb|left|The first image of llamas in Europe, 1553]]
One of the main uses for llamas at the time of the [[Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire|Spanish conquest]] was to bring down ore from the mines in the mountains.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/show/episode2.html|work=PBS|title=Guns, Germs & Steel. The Show: Episode Two|date=12 April 2007|author=Jared Diamond}}</ref> Gregory de Bolivar estimated that in his day, as many as 300,000 were employed in the [[transport]] of produce from the [[Potosí]] mines alone, but since the introduction of [[horse]]s, [[mule]]s, and [[donkey]]s, the importance of the llama as a beast of burden has greatly diminished.<ref>
{{cite web
 |url=https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/llamas.html
 |work=PBS
 |title=Guns, Germs & Steel. The story of&nbsp;... Llamas
 |date=12 April 2007
|author=Jared Diamond}}</ref>

According to [[Juan Ignacio Molina]], the Dutch captain [[Joris van Spilbergen]] observed the use of [[chilihueque|hueques]] (possibly a llama type) by native [[Mapuche]]s of [[Mocha Island]] as [[plough|plow animals]] in 1614.<ref>{{cite book|author=Juan Bautista Ignacio Molina|title=The geographical, natural and civil history of Chili, tr. by an American gentleman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F4oIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA15|access-date=22 August 2011|year=1808|pages=15–16|volume =II}}</ref>

In Chile [[chilihueque|hueque]], populations declined towards extinction in the 16th and 17th century being replaced by European livestock.<ref name=bona/> The causes of its extinction are not clear.<ref name=bona>{{cite journal |last1=Bonacic |first1=Cristián |title=Características biológicas y productivas de los camélidos sudamericanos |journal=Avances en Ciencias Veterinarias |date=1991 |volume=6 |issue=2 |doi=10.5354/0716-260x.1991.4642|doi-access=|language=es}}</ref> However, it is known that the introduction of sheep caused some competition among both domestic species.<ref name=Torrejonetal2004/> Anecdotal evidence of the mid-17th century shows that both species coexisted and suggests that there were many more sheep than hueques.<ref name=Torrejonetal2004/> The decline of hueques reached a point in the late 18th century when only the Mapuche from [[Mariquina, Chile|Mariquina]] and Huequén next to [[Angol]] raised the animal.<ref name=Torrejonetal2004>{{cite journal |last1=Torrejón |first1=Fernando |last2=Cisternas |first2=Marco|last3=Araneda |first3=Alberto |date=2004 |title=Efectos ambientales de la colonización española desde el río Maullín al archipiélago de Chiloé, sur de Chile |trans-title=Environmental effects of the spanish colonization from de Maullín river to the Chiloé archipelago, southern Chile |url=http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0716-078X2004000400009&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en |journal=[[Revista Chilena de Historia Natural]] |volume=77 |issue=4 |pages=661–677 |doi=10.4067/S0716-078X2004000400009 |language=es |doi-access=free }}</ref>
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