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A mother mountain tapir
with her baby

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Enlarge picture

This faithful rendering of a mother mountain tapir and her baby were once in the Tapir Gallery Gift Shop. The art and printing were both done in Colombia as part of a project to enlighten the local population about this highly endangered species. Since the mountain tapirs are rarely seen except by poachers, many of the local inhabitants have never observed one. With the distribution of these posters and a Spanish-language brochure describing the animal and its habitat, more people came to know and care about the tapirs, and local pressure was put on some of the poachers to stop their illegal activities.

The above picture was scanned from the brochure. On the actual poster, the picture is identical, but the red and black colors of the type at the bottom are reversed. The poster also includes, at the bottom, pictures of a tapir's trail through the forest, drawings of footprints and a diagram naming the plants shown in the artwork. We are grateful to Dr. Jaime Cavelier and Diego Lizcano for making these unique posters available to The Tapir Gallery!