Tito the chinchilla represents a milestone for Gold Fields in Chile

One short journey for a chinchilla named Tito represents a giant leap for JSE-listed Gold Fields. 

Gold Fields CEO Mike Fraser told Daily Maverick on the sidelines of the African Mining Indaba in Cape Town that the company had finally managed a tangible result from “Operation Chinchilla” – a rodent translocation project that has run into millions of dollars and been a massive headache for the humans involved.

“We captured one chinchilla in November and relocated it and it’s being monitored and it’s doing fine,” Fraser said. 

The furball has been named “Tito” and may soon be joined by some friends. 

To recap: Gold Fields launched Operation Chinchilla in 2020 to translocate a colony of the highly endangered critters to make way for its Salares Norte gold mine in Chile. This was part and parcel of its environmental permit.

And what a long, strange trip it’s been.

The project got off to a stumbling start. The Chilean regulator halted it when two of the first four captured chinchillas died. Two were successfully moved to their new home just a few kilometres away. One suffered an injured leg and was flown to Santiago for treatment, underscoring the depth of Gold Fields’ concerns.

Gold Fields was allowed to proceed with the construction of the mine, which poured its first gold in March of last year. But future expansions may have to be reconfigured to accommodate the animals, which are estimated to number perhaps as many as 30.

The rodent roundup was given the green light to begin again last year, and more than four years after it began, Tito is only the third chinchilla to have been successfully live-captured and moved a few kilometres to a new home – effectively a rocky outcrop. 

In fairness to Gold Fields, it is trying to do right by the chinchillas, a species almost hunted to extinction in the 20th century for its coveted fur.

Fraser said the project now cost millions of dollars a year. Gold Fields revealed in late 2024 that it had almost 80 staff dedicated to it. Other than lab rats, there is no population of rodents on the planet that has been subjected to such scrutiny.

Read more: Loaded for Bear: Gold Fields now has almost 80 staff overseeing its chinchilla relocation project 

But one of the strangest animal relocation projects in history has now had a rare success and reached a new milestone. Stay tuned folks: Operation Chinchilla is far from over. DM