PAMPA GALERAS, Peru (AP) -- Hundreds of villagers march side by side along the wind-blasted Andean plain, closing in on their prey: herds of nervous, fast-moving vicunas -- the smaller, wilder cousins of llamas and alpacas.
Chanting and shaking a rope with colorful streamers, they encircle the shaggy-coated animals and push them into a corral in a ritual that was known to the ancient Inca, but nearly abandoned in the 20th century.
Dancers gyrate, making tinny sounds by clapping unscrewed scissors.
For decades, poachers seeking the world's most valuable wool simply shot vicunas rather than struggle to trap the elusive animals that can run 30 miles (50 kilometers) an hour, and by 1964, their numbers had dwindled to just 12,000.
Today, these vicunas are captured, shorn and released once a year in Peru's national chaccu, a roundup that is both a renewed expression of indigenous culture and a triumph for an international campaign to save the once-endangered animals.
Community members conduct smaller-scale chaccus throughout the May to September dry season, but the national chaccu is coupled with a three-day cultural festival.
"The vicunas are no longer in danger of extinction, and we are protecting them and reinforcing their presence," said Wilder Trejo, president of the National Council of South American Camelids.
Hundreds of thousands of the animals once ranged throughout the Andes mountains from Ecuador to Argentina. They were considered sacred by the Inca Empire, which fell after the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in 1532.
Famed for its smoothness, warmth and light weight, the vicuna wool is untangled and sold by the Lucanas peasant community to exporters for $285 a pound, said Miguel Penafiel, president of the hilly community in Ayacucho state, 370 miles (410 kilometers) southeast of Lima.
While market prices vary, vicuna fiber is the most expensive wool in the world, far more pricey than cashmere, which sells for $32 a pound, said Antonio Brack, a leading Peruvian ecologist.
For centuries, hunters killed the elusive animal for its wool and leather rather than shear it live. The species had been driven to the brink by 1964, when Peru established the Pampa Galeras National Reserve -- today the species' principal sanctuary.
Peru's vicuna populations have risen to around 200,000, aided by a combination of conservation measures, regulations and economic incentives for highland villagers to shear wool without killing the animals and regulating markets for the product.
International trafficking of the wool was severely restricted for several years; the United States lifted a ban on vicuna wool imports only four years ago.
In this month's 14th annual chaccu in Pampa Galeras, villagers joined with a few tourists from as far as Germany to walk four miles (6.5 kilometers) along the windy pampa, some 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) above sea level, slowly driving about 1,500 vicunas into a corral.
The vicunas were sheared beneath a cloudless sky, under a cliff where a rainbow-colored wiphala flag -- the symbol of Andean indigenous peoples -- rippled in a forceful gale.
A Peruvian dressed as an Inca king held the first bundle of cinnamon-colored wool above his head as several hundred spectators applauded.
During the year, the 800 people in Lucanas protect some 7,500 almond-eyed vicunas on the Pampa Galeras, where the animals feed on tufts of feather grass.
The peasants mostly grow potatoes and corn. While no individual receives money from the selling of the wool, the funds are invested in town services, like education and health care, said Penafiel.
He said in 2005 the community sold 1,870 pounds (850 kilograms) of vicuna wool, providing the town with more than $625 per capita for its residents, a significant sum in a country where more than half of the 27 million inhabitants live on less than $2 a day.
According to Penafiel, while the ritual does have historic roots, the practice "is very important and beneficial for our community" because the expensive wool is a "renewable" resource.
Allison Caine, 21, a Maine native and junior at Bates College, who is writing her senior thesis on the vicuna, traveled to Pampa Galeras from Quito, Ecuador, where she is studying abroad.
"I didn't think it was going to be so ceremonial," she said of the chaccu. "I just thought they would just round up the vicunas and shear them and I would have to dig for that cultural aspect."
For three days, villagers dance and listen to music in Lucanas' central square, battling near-freezing temperatures with strong aguardiente, a sugar liquor.
The women compete for the honor of best "queso fresco," a salty, white cheese common in Peru's Andes.