Aerial view of vicuña found foraging early in the morning near edge of Salar de Uyuni. They appeared to have come for a drink of brackish water, then moving back toward mud flats of the Salar de Uyuni.

Vicuña wool is prized for its warmth and softness and its fabric was reserved for Inca royalty. In the middle of the 20th Century these graceful high-altitude cameloids were almost hunted into extinction, but conservation efforts have allowed populations to rebound. Controlled harvesting vicuña wool has recently been legalized in Bolivia and some other Andean countries.