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Tapirs:
Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan
Published 1997
Status and Action Plan of Baird's Tapir
(Tapirus bairdi)
continued from Previous Page
Mexico
Status
Reports of the extinction or probable extinction of the tapir in Mexico (Thornback and Jenkins 1982, IUCN 1994) have been greatly exaggerated. Baird's tapir populations in this country may be the largest or one of the largest for the species. March (1994) summarized some of the main records of Baird's tapir in Mexico. From 1885 to 1993, 36 sites of occurrence were documented in Mexico. Chiapas accounted for 44.4% (16) of these sites, 16.6% (6) were in Veracruz, 13.8% (5) were in Quintana Roo, and the rest 25.2% (9) were in Oaxaca, Campeche, and Tabasco. It should be noted that only 61% of these occurrences were documented since 1980 (March 1994).
Habitat: From a study using AVHRR satellite images it was determined that in 1986 there were as much as 81,000km2 of evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, potential tapir habitat, left in Southern Mexico (Cuarón 1991). Additionally there were some 33,000km2 of secondary vegetation, some of which may be used by tapirs, particularly in areas within or adjacent to the main forested tract.
Deforestation rates however were very high in some areas of southern Mexico, particularly from the 1970s to the mid-1980s (see Mexico - threats section below), and tapirs have declined since then in most areas.
The main regions where tapir populations remain in Mexico are the forests in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (c. 5000km2 including Los Chimalapas, Oaxaca; Selva de El Ocote, Chiapas; and Uxpanapa, Veracruz), the Sierra Madre de Chiapas (c. 3000km2), the Selva Lacandona (c. 5000km2 in Chiapas), and the southern and eastern Yucatan peninsula (c. 20,000km2 in Campeche and Quintana Roo). The Selva Lacandona and the forests in the southern Yucatan peninsula are continuous through the forests in El Peten, Guatemala.
Additional areas where tapirs are still potentially present include: Veinte Cerros, Oaxaca (M.A. Martínez-Morales pers. comm.); Cordón Nudo diamante and adjacent areas, northeastern Chiapas; Parque Nacional Lagunas de Montebello,Chiapas; Volcán Tacaná, Chiapas; Volcán Santa Marta and Volcán San Martín, in the Los Tuxtlas region of Veracruz; Uxpanapa, eastern Veracruz; Región de la Sierra (Parque Estatal La Sierra including Sierras El Madrigal, Poaná, and Tacotalpa), Tabasco; flooded forests (Tintales) near Rio San Pedro (Municipio de Balancán and Tenosique), Tabasco; Centla region, Tabasco and adjacent Campeche; and probably Los Peténes region, Campeche (March 1994, Cuarón 1991, 1996). In all of these areas suitable tapir habitat of one kind or another, and/or tapir presence has been reported by local people. Some of these places are adjacent to areas where tapir presence has been verified, so presumably they are still found there.
Populations: Assuming that tapir densities were similar in Mexico to those reported by Fragoso (1991a) and Williams (1984), and that they are found evenly in the main habitat areas, then the tapir population in Mexico would be expected to be around 1650-7920 tapirs. These animals would be distributed as follows: 250-1200 tapirs in the Tehuantepec forests, 150-720 in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, 250-1200 in the Selva Lacandona, and 1000-4800 in the Mexican portion of the Yucatan peninsula. It should be noted that these figures are very rough approximations. As long as there are no proper population estimates from Mexico, it is recommended as a precautionary principle that the lower, more conservative estimates are used for conservation planning.
There is still some (very fragile) connectivity between the forests in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and those in Tehuantepec, so potentially tapirs in those regions constitute a metapopulation. The same can be said for the tapirs in the Selva Lacandona and the Mexican Yucatan peninsula together with El Peten, Guatemala and some areas of Belize.
Reserves: Important protected areas for the tapir in Mexico include: Reserva Forestal y Faunica Selva de El Ocote in western Chiapas; Reserva de la Biósfera Montes Azules, Reserva de la Biósfera Lacantún, Monumento Natural Bonampak, Monumento Natural Yaxchilán, and Area de Protección de Flora y Fauna Silvestres Chan Kin, all in the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas; Reserva de la Biósfera El Trifuno and Reserva Ecológica La Sepultura, in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas; Reserva de la Biósfera Calakmul in Campeche; and Reserva de la Biósfera Sian Ka'an in Quintana Roo. Together these protected areas account for more than 19,000km2.
In Oaxaca, Los Chimalapas has been proposed for a protected area (Reserva Campesina) but its legal status is uncertain. We know of no proposal for a protected area in the Uxpanapa region, Veracruz, but it is clearly of great importance to establish one to protect the remaining forests in that region. In Tabasco (and elsewhere in southern Mexico) the Reserva de la Biósfera Pantanos de Centla and Parque Estatal La Sierra may also be significant pending whether tapirs are present.
Conservation laws and education
Baird's tapir is protected under Mexican law, and the species cannot be hunted legally. However, the laws are not actively enforced (March in litt.). The species is included in the official Mexican list of endangered species (SEDESOL 1994). Every year the Mexican government publishes a document (Calendario Cinegético) in which hunting seasons and quotas are established, and banned species are mentioned. The tapir has been banned from hunting at least since 1954 (Leopold 1959), although it was possible to obtain Special Permits for the 1971-1972 hunting season (Alcérreca Aguirre et al. 1988).
Environmental education has been an official part of the national curriculum since 1987 (L. Barraza pers. comm.). The number of environmental education programs in southern Mexico has increased dramatically in the last ten years. Most of them may not be specific for the tapir, but most target tropical forests and other tapir habitats. There is an active Association of Environmental Educators in southern Mexico (Asociación de Educadores Ambientales del Sureste). A photographic poster depicting the Mesoamerican tapir at Zoológico Regional Miguel Alvarez del Toro (ZOOMAT) carries an important conservation message in Chiapas. Additionally, an educational program in Campeche has been developed to help conserve this species.
Captive breeding
As of 1991, there was a female at ZOOMAT (Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas), a male at Zoológico Zacango (Toluca), two of unknown sex at Zoológico Cholul (near Merida, Yucatan), and one male at Zoológico de Morelia (Michoacan). Unfortunately at that time no cooperative breeding programs between these institutions had been established despite several attempts.
Threats
Forest loss: The main threats for tapirs in Mexico result from habitat loss. Specific reasons causing the tapir habitat destruction vary among different regions, but a dominant trend has been the transformation of former forested areas into pasture land for cattle ranching. For example, expanding cattle ranching and fires are the major threats to tapirs in the Sierra Madre of Chiapas (Naranjo in litt.). Large development projects promoting cattle ranching, large-scale agriculture (e.g. rice), and sometimes inducing colonization, have had a great impact on the areas of tapir habitat in southern Mexico. In the area studied by Cuarón (1991) where a complex combination of factors acted upon tropical forests (including large development projects, spontaneous and forced immigration because of natural catastrophes, and social stress in other areas), former (1974) tropical forests had been converted by 1986 into secondary vegetation (45%), pasture land (41.6%), bare soils (6.7%), agriculture (3.7%), wetlands (2.6%), or were covered by water (0.3%).
In a 850km2 area in Los Tuxtlas region, Veracruz, where the tapir may be extinct now (March 1994), 84% of the original forests had been lost by 1986 (Dirzo and García 1992). Between 1967 and 1986, 173.5km2 of forest, or 56% of the 1967 forests were lost. This was equivalent to a loss of 10.9km2/yr (4.2%) of forests between 1967 and 1976, and of 7.5km2/yr (4.3%) of forests between 1976 and 1986 (Dirzo and García 1992). If the same trends continue, it is estimated that only 73.6km2 of forest would remain in that region by the year 2000 (Dirzo and García 1992).
In a 25,000km2 area comprising portions of tapir habitat in northeastern Chiapas (including the northern Selva Lacandona), eastern Tabasco, and southwestern Campeche, approximately 5100km2, or 60% of the tropical moist forests in the region were lost between 1974 and 1986 (Cuarón 1991). This is equivalent to a loss of 426km2 a year, or 7.7% a year in that region. If the same trends continue in this area, there would remain only about 1000km2 of tropical moist forests by the year 2000, and some 240km2 by 2020 (Cuarón 1991). Note that the estimates in Cuarón (1991) relate only to forest loss, and that most deforestation estimates in the literature relate to net deforestation or net loss (i.e., the difference of forest area lost and gained).
Forest loss has been less intensive in the Yucatan peninsula (with the exception of the state of Yucatan). Current work by Cuarón and others is refining and updating these estimates in southern Mexico and adjacent areas. Population density is low in southern Quintana Roo with perhaps less than 25 individuals in the area of Sian Ka'an reserve. The low numbers can be attributed primarily to logging and rubber tapping (Jorgenson in litt.).
Exploitation: Hunting remains a problem in the Reserva de la Biósfera Calakmul, Campeche, both within the reserve and along the periphery (March 1994). In other areas however, human exploitation appears not to be heavy at present. Two hunting studies, one in the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas (March 1987) and the other in Quintana Roo (Jorgenson 1995), did not report tapir hunting in those study areas. In the Quintana Roo study area, tapirs are difficult to locate for hunters because they occupy seasonally flooded forests away from the village and people did not consider tapir meat to be tasty; tapirs had not been hunted for at least ten years (Jorgenson 1995).
The species is not important in the live wild mammal trade and the skin trade in southern Mexico (Cuarón 1996, In review). A few animals have been captured for zoos since the mid-1980s. At least two animals were captured in the southern Yucatan peninsula (probably in what is today Reserva de la Biósfera Calakmul) and were taken to Zoológico Cholul near Mérida, Yucatan. Personnel from ZOOMAT and other departments from the Instituto de Historia Natural, Chiapas, attempted capturing tapirs in La Sepultura region in order to obtain animals to enhance the captive breeding program at that zoo. Unfortunately some animals died in the process. The capture of live tapirs in Mexico is not currently an issue of grave conservation concern, but needs to be properly regulated (Cuarón 1996, In review).