According to the Chinese calendar, 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, during which time great peace shall ostensibly reign throughout the land. A notion that seems highly suspect in view of the devastation brought about by a plague of earthquakes and the tsunami in Japan. However, from the fiber perspective the year of the rabbit begins with a papal decree in 600 A.D. and eventually tumbles into hundreds of French monasteries, where the Angora rabbit made its first leap into domestication.

This issue also offers a special focus on rare breeds as we visit the SVF Foundation in Newport, Rhode Island. SVF is dedicated to saving endangered breeds of livestock through cryopreservation - a very fancy way of saying that they’re lined-up in the barn to help keep the sperm banks full and the genetics pure. 

If you’ve ever wondered why we talk about getting “caught red-handed”, or why red is often associated with sin, look no further than the side of a cactus leaf in Mexico where the teeny cochineal, a little speck of a bug, has been squirting carminic acid for centuries.

Baa Baa Test Tube, Have You Any Wool?

Life in Newport, Rhode Island has historically been for the well-heeled elite. Today, the local buzz is about the rare breeds with four feet and a tail that come to stay at the SVF Foundation, donate some sperm or have a baby or two, and then leave.  Why?  Because many of America's livestock breeds are endangered and the CVM (California Variegated Mutant)/Romeldale is the rarest sheep in America.

Cochineal - The Bug That Colored The World

Piracy and passion is only a small chapter in the history of cochineal.  A tiny speck of a bug that exudes carminic acid, the cochineal literally changed the color of the landscape when the Spanish started stuffing it in the galleons and those who were caught "red-handed" could be punished by death.

Hare Today, Hare Tomorrow

In the 1950s, small farmers in both northern and southern China began raising Angora rabbits - many of which were imported from Germany. Not surprisingly, China is now the world's leading producer of Angora and the majority of rabbits are still raised "at home". The Angora rabbit is a little animal with a very big history.