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Anders Gonçalves da Silva

Baird’s Tapir PHVA Workshop Airfare Fund

August 15-19, 2005, Belize Zoo, Belize, Central America

PROJECT COMPLETED AUGUST 10, 2005 -
We raised $400.00 to help send Anders to the Conference in Belize.


Anders in the field. - Click for larger image
After finding a dung sample (see below), Anders takes a geographic point with the GPS. Later he will pinpoint the sample's location on the map and associate a genotype to it. This is done with all samples in order to figure out the degree of relationship among animals, associated to their geographic distance. This in turn gives Anders an idea of how much the animals are actually moving around in the landscape.		 My goal is to attend the Baird’s Tapir PHVA Workshop as the genetics expert. Patrícia Medici, the TSG Chair, would like me to attend because my presence at the workshop would mean having a resident geneticist assisting in the modeling and action planning. Furthermore, it would be a unique opportunity for me to further my training as a modeler in Vortex 9 (I am training to be a modeler for the CBSG Brazil Network), and gain additional experience in the PHVA process as a whole.

Right now, I am looking for funding for my plane ticket from Brazil to Belize, roughly US $1,400.00. Any help will be enormously appreciated and repaid in quadruple with many pictures of the hard working people at Belize and many tapir thank you nudges with their cute trunks.

As of August 2, 2005, $175.00 has been donated. We will continue to update this page. Our thanks to the contributors to this fund!


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The Tapir Preservation Fund is thrilled to have to the opportunity to assist Anders in attending this workshop.
We wish we could fund him 100%, but it is not feasible at this time. Your donations are gratefully appreciated.
In addition, purchases from the Tapir and Friends Wildlife Gift Shop help to fund this and other tapir projects.


During the third week of August the IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group will be hosting the Baird’s Tapir Conservation Workshop: Population and Habitat Viability Assessment (PHVA). This is the third PHVA being hosted by the TSG, the others being of the Malay Tapir and the Mountain Tapir. A PHVA is a process developed by the IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG), and it works by gathering as many people as possible with expertise on a particular species or group of species, with direct interest or being impacted by the species or conservation measures surrounding it, and decision and policy-makers. During a four to five day meeting all points of view are heard, the species status and different actions are evaluated through computer modeling, and a report with detailed actions, timelines and responsibilities is produced soon after. My work is with population and conservation genetics of Lowland Tapirs in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. I work along side Patrícia Medici, and am currently in the lab stages of my research. This stage is very exciting for me, because finally after a year of field sampling I am getting my hands on some good data to analyze. The prospects are quite exciting. I also double as one of the Coordinators for the TSG’s Genetics Committee, and we are now committed to obtaining as much genetic information on all four species to help action for the conservation of tapir genetic diversity. More recently, I began training to become a population modeler for the CBSG Brasil Network, which will eventually give our Network more independence, and we will be able to help organize more PHVAs with Brazilian and South American species. This year was our first, and we have already organized two.

Thank you very much.


In the lab preparing a PCR reaction - Click for larger image In the lab preparing a PCR reaction. In the lab preparing a PCR reaction - Click for larger image In the lab preparing a PCR reaction. Anders overlooking a forest fragment. - Click for larger image
On top of Morro do Diabo, in the Morro do Diabo State Park, Brazil. This is both the highest point and the biggest fragment in the region.


Anders finds tapir dung. - Click for larger image
Anders is excited to find tapir dung! 		Gathering Samples - Click for larger image
Gathering dung samples avoids stressing the animals and provides larger sample sizes in a shorter amount of time. 		Forest fragments in the Pontal Region of Sao Paulo State, Brazil - Click for larger image Location of forest fragments in the Pontal Region of Sao Paulo State, Brazil. Photo is of a mother tapir and her young coming out of a sugar cane plantation (actually they were coming out of one of Patrícia's pitfalls).



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Our thanks to the contributors to Anders' Airfare Fund

Elisabeth Baum
Corinna Bechko
Andy Maerz

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