IS THE ALPACA GENE POOL IN THE UNITED STATES OF SUFFICIENT SIZE TO SUSTAIN IMPROVEMENT?
During the closure debate, the ARI board majority worked hard to maintain the argument that the gene pool was too small for the registry to close. The “Ship of Fools” article and the Collectable Llama promotional materials, both suggest that closure of the registry was detrimental to the gene pool by arguing that what we need, to sustain improvement, is more genetics, i.e., imports. This argument was advanced by Eric Hoffman, in his position as ARI president during the closure debate, as justification for leaving the registry open. The ARI never presented any credible evidence to support their position. They could not find one population geneticist to support their claim that the gene pool, at the time the registry closed, was insufficient in any respect. On the other hand, the proponents of closure had no trouble-finding experts to support their contention that the gene pool was indeed adequate to sustain the continued improvement of the breed. Here is what some of the experts had to
