Tapir Talk Archives

19 June 1997

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    ___  __                   Digest   19 June 1997 - Vol. 1, No. 32
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The Tapir Gallery: http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/
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E-mail: tapir@tapirback.com
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TAPIR TALK   -  19 June 1997   -   Vol. 1, No. 32

Contents of this issue
    1. Tapirs and big cats
    2. More tapirs and big cats




Return-Path: 
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 09:36:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ecotropix@aol.com
To: tapir@tapirback.com
Subject: Re: Tapir Talk Digest - 18 June 1997 - Vol. 1, No. 31

Hi Leo,
How is New Guinea treating you?  Anyway, I know that we've been round and
round on the tapir predation stuff, so won't re-hash any old cans of worms.
 I'm just sending (sorry for the delay) results of Downer's work with Pumas
and T. pinchaque.  Craig examined 11 puma scats, of which 2 (18%) contained
tapir remains.
Best wishes,
Dan Brooks (Ecotropix@aol.com)
IUCN Tapir Action Plan Coordinator/CoEditor

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Return-Path: 
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 11:00:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: LEONARDO SALAS 
Subject: Tapirs and cats.
To: tapir@tapirback.com (Tapir)

Hi there,

This is for Patricia. Thanks a lot for the stories. (Wow!! Sounds like
Morro do Diabo is a very exciting place to do research in). Is this 
your professional research, Ph.D. research, Masters research, or 
undergraduate research? If so, who's your advisor? I wish you the best 
of lucks in your research. And no, I'm from Venezuela (I'm your 
neighbor).

Your reassurance and your stories certainly bought me about jaguars 
and pumas being predators of tapirs. I thought about about it for a 
long time, and also asked myself: if they kill cattle, why not tapirs? 
I also thought: well, cattle do not run through the bush or get in the 
water and dive. These seemed to me very good strategies to avoid 
predation. Then there was the lack of reports (I mean numbers) in the 
literature. There is also another factor to this. After talking to my 
advisor here and to Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, I got the impression that 
cats eating cattle are substantially bigger than cats where there is 
no cattle.

I spent several years in a place in the Venezuelan "Amazon" (southern 
lowland forests) and more than once saw cats, mostly following 
peccaries and curassows (jacu?), or just doing nothing or drinking 
water. Once a puma chased a Yanomamo guy who was assisting a 
researcher friend of mine (a tall German woman, it ran past her toward
the Yanomamo, who defended himself with a club). Another time there 
was a researcher who is not too tall and looks like a little kid, and 
we found tracks of a cat following him everywhere he went. But the 
cats were all very small. As for the pumas, a friend of mine 
confounded one with a dog. I once was taking a pee on the river and a 
puma came to drink water next to me. It was not taller than my knee 
(I'm 5'9" tall - 1.78 m tall). That was the average size of the pumas 
I saw. As for the jaguars, I never had a "close" encounter. They would 
come and visit us at the camp, sing all night long, follow peccaries, 
etc, but I never stumped into one that was, say, 5 m or closer to me. 
My impression was that these were not taller than half-way between my 
knee and my hip. I'd guess 60 to 80 Kg. Tapirs in this place, on the 
other hand, were some times as heavy as 250 kg (or more). There were 
some small too (say 180 Kg.). As you can see, sounds like we're 
talking about a very different place than yours. I'd like to encourage 
you to keep records of how many tapirs you see killed, by whom (pumas 
and jaguars seem to eat their prey differently), and when. Also, try 
to keep track of tapirs dying of some other cause (if you see any) and 
then publish that. I'm a believer that cats eat tapirs, but that is 
mainly because I don't know how else tapirs die.

As important as keeping the record of tapirs killed by cats is the age 
of the tapir killed (or dying of natural cause). Would it be possible 
to take some teeth out of the carcasses of tapirs? The lower jaw bone 
would be even better. The exact age of the tapir may not be known, but 
the animal could be placed in an age category (as Dr. Bodmer did in 
one of his publications) based on dental wear, for instance. I think 
it is important to know if the tapirs killed were old or young 
(or sick?), or healthy adult animals. If you find that tapirs of all 
age classes are killed by cats, then that is a significant finding.

Well Patricia, this is too long already. Again, good luck in your 
research. Here you have a full supporter of your work and an eager 
reader of your stories and reports through the Tapir-Talk. Boa sorte!

Tchau (Chao)
Leo


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