Why we love alpacas so much; plans to help keep housing affordable in Steamboat Springs
Hundreds of alpacas and alpaca enthusiasts are expected for the Great Western Alpaca Show in Denver this weekend. On today’s Colorado Edition we hear from an alpaca rancher about why we're collectively so enamored with them. And we hear how state lawmaker
In The NOCO · KUNC
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Show Notes
The first commercially imported alpacas were brought to the U.S. from South America in 1984. Alpacas are famous for their soft, luxurious fleece – as well as for their reputation as perhaps the most adorable creatures on the planet, with their sweet, goofy smiles, calm dispositions, and impossibly long eyelashes.
The U.S. alpaca industry took off exponentially in the early 2000s, but prices collapsed a few years later during the Great Recession, and by 2014 the so-called alpaca bubble had burst. Since then, however, the industry has been slowly coming back – and there’s plenty of love for alpacas here in Colorado. Ranchers raise them and sell their fiber for use in comfy sweaters, socks, even bedding.
You can visit with them up close this weekend at the Great Western Alpaca Show at the National Western complex in Denver. The show is free and open to the public, and runs through Sun. May 1. Fans can watch halter and performance competitions, costume contests, and peruse vendor booths with handcrafted alpaca fashions. And you can commemorate the weekend by hopping into a dedicated alpaca selfie photo booth.
To get a better idea of what the buzz over these fuzzy, gentle creatures is all about, Colorado Edition spoke with Jennifer Hack, the owner and founder of Triple H Ranch in Sedalia, where she’s been raising suri alpaca since 2013.
Later in the episode, KUNC's statehouse reporter Scott Franz takes us to a town on the frontlines of the affordable housing crisis, Steamboat Springs, to get a look at how state lawmakers are trying to help.