An Austrian emperor swapped chamois for New Zealand ferns and birds
In 1907 Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria sent New Zealand eight Alpine chamois in exchange for living ferns, rare birds and lizards. After a sea voyage and a rail journey, the goat-antelopes spent four days travelling by horse up to Mount Cook, were set free there, and spread across much of the South Island.
The chamois is a small mountain bovid native to ranges from the Pyrenees and Alps through the Carpathians and Balkans to northeastern Turkey and the Caucasus. Adults stand 70 to 80 centimetres tall, and both sexes carry short horns that hook backwards at the tip. Their coat turns from rich brown in summer to pale grey in winter, set off by white face markings, black stripes below the eyes and a dark line down the back. They can run at 50 kilometres an hour and leap 2 metres straight up or 6 metres across.
Females and young live in herds of 15 to 30, while adult males stay mostly alone. Once young males mature, dominant bulls drive them from the herd, and they roam until they can win breeding status at eight or nine years old. In summer the animals graze alpine meadows above the tree line, at up to at least 3,600 metres, then drop to about 800 metres to winter in pine forests, where they eat bark and needles.
The New Zealand shipment, two bucks and six does, landed at Wellington on 23 January 1907. Their descendants now weigh about a fifth less than European animals of the same age, which hints at scarcer food, and the conservation department actively encourages hunting to protect native alpine plants.
Hunters exploit a quirk: chamois watch for danger from below, so stalking from above works better. The tuft of neck hair, the gamsbart, decorates hats across the Alps. Real chamois leather is prized for polishing without scratches, though most is now made from deer, goat or sheep hides.
Source: Chamois
