Skip to main content
Llama wrangler Shannon Joy eagerly touts the beasts’ transcendent qualities with near religious fervor.
“I call them Santa Claus for adults, but watch out! They’re really addictive animals. You can’t have just one.”
She’d been wandering through a self-described sulky and aimless adolescence before accompanying her mother Lori Gregory on a llama shopping trip to a county fair 20-some years ago. Instantly smitten by the patently huggable creatures, the family would eventually help raise a small herd across 2.5 acres of Tigard scrubland.
Gregory, the “original llama mama,” and Joy now oversee nearly a dozen creatures at Ridgefield, Washington’s Mountain Peaks Therapy Llamas & Alpaca Farm, but that early unblinking enthusiasm has never dimmed.
“Llamas really are curious animals,” Joy says. “They get a lot of positive stimulation by going off the farm and seeing new people and new faces.”
Joy’s therapy llamas Beni and Prince have been enjoying outings to Portland International Airport this winter.
The Port of Portland first called upon Joy’s services a few years ago for an airport employee celebration to mark the opening of Concourse E, and the llamas instantly became the most popular staple of every internal event. It was only a matter of time before someone broached the potential benefits of spreading the llamas’ powers of pacification among airport visitors overstressed by Yuletide travel.
“It was a particularly great way to spread cheer and help passengers de-stress during the busy holiday travel season,” agrees Port of Portland media relations manager Allison Ferre. “The llamas and alpacas deliver instant joy and will be back in 2024 as part of the ongoing therapy animal program at a more regular cadence.”
The llamas have been strolling PDX this month (an encounter that might prove especially soothing in the wake of the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines incident in which a door plug blew off midflight). Seeing a llama walking down an airport concourse provides a positive surprise for passengers.
“Travelers don’t expect anything,” Joy says. “Everyone has that resting face of ‘let me try to get through to my destination’, and then, all of a sudden, they come across a big fluffy llama that they’re encouraged to hug. There’s this wave of relief. You can see the whole body change.”
The feeling is evidently mutual. Although her herd will likely never board a plane, Joy insists there’s an extra spring to each step once they catch sight of the airport carpet.
“They know where they are, and they’re excited to be strutting those hallways, excited to be Portland legends,” Joy says. “For whatever reason, seeing llamas wandering around PDX makes sense to people.”
See the rest of 2024′s Reasons to Love Portland here!
