{"id":219044,"date":"2025-10-17T05:36:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T05:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/219044\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T05:36:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T05:36:19","slug":"wainui-the-alpaca-leaves-behind-legacy-as-oldest-of-his-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/219044\/","title":{"rendered":"Wainui the alpaca leaves behind legacy as oldest of his species"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Record-breaking alpaca Hawthornden Wainui has left behind a legacy following his tragic death.<\/p>\n<p>The beloved pet, who lived in New Zealand with his loving owners Vicki and Alex Cordier, passed away on 26 September at the age of 27 years 267 days, making him the oldest alpaca in captivity ever.<\/p>\n<p>Vicki and Alex said: \u201cOur dearest Wainui. Forever you will have a special place in our hearts. A friend of many in New Zealand and around the world. Rest in peace our amazing alpaca!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wainui had been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.guinnessworldrecords.com\/news\/2025\/7\/worlds-oldest-alpaca-reaches-grand-old-age-of-27-thanks-to-pampered-lifestyle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">named the oldest living alpaca in captivity<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n<p>Alpacas usually live around 15-20 years, and Vicki figured it was his relaxed and pampered lifestyle that kept him around for so long.<\/p>\n<p>Wainui was born on an alpaca farm named Hawthornden on 2 January 1998.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.guinnessworldrecords.com\/news\/animals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read more stories about amazing record-breaking animals here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He then came to New Zealand with his mother and lived in Wainui Bay \u2013 hence his name.<\/p>\n<p>He moved to Vicki\u2019s farm in 2002, and spent his golden years eating as much as he wanted and wandering around the paddock until it was time to head inside for another snack.<\/p>\n<p>And if his dinner was ever late, Vicki said she\u2019d be guaranteed to find him standing there waiting for it when she arrived.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/wainui-obit-getting-a-kiss-from-vicki.jpg\" alt=\"Wainui getting a kiss from Vicki\" width=\"684\" height=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Vicki told us earlier this year: \u201cWainui is a very calm alpaca, he\u2019s always got on well with all the other alpacas in our herd.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow though, he lives in the daytime in his own paddock with Barney the goat watching over him, and Squeak the sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wainui was so popular on the farm he even had his own fan club.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/wainui-obit-in-the-field.jpg\" alt=\"Wainui out in the field\" width=\"684\" height=\"450\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Vicki and Alex say they\u2019ll forever cherish their \u201cWainui memorabilia\u201d, including his Guinness World Records certificate and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.guinnessworldrecords.com\/products\/books\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2026 edition<\/a> of the book that he appeared in.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019d also like to thank Wainui\u2019s vets for helping give him such a long and wonderful life.<\/p>\n<p>Rest in peace, Wainui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Record-breaking alpaca Hawthornden Wainui has left behind a legacy following his tragic death. The beloved pet, who lived&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,24789,105539,105541,105538,105542,105537,66,105540,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-219044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-guinness-world-records","11":"tag-hawthornden-wainui","12":"tag-how-long-to-alpacas-live","13":"tag-oldeast-living-alpaca-in-captivity","14":"tag-oldest-alpaca-ever","15":"tag-oldest-alpaca-in-captivity-ever","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-wainui-the-alpaca","18":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}