A Tapir Gallery Online Reprint

TPF News header
Vol. 4, No. 1 ~ January 2001                         A publication of the Tapir Preservation Fund ~ Palisade, Colorado, USA


Volume four is here!

Your generous support and contributions, and your interest, have kept us going. We move into a new year and a new volume. Let’s all work to make this truly "2001: The Year of the Tapir."

Two Club Tapir winners each month!

This month we started our new program of distributing Club Tapir funds to two winners each month in an 80%/20% split. See the Club Tapir flyer winner’s box for details. Remember, you can vote once for each $5 you send in. We’re halfway to our original goal of $1,000 per month, and we appreciate every donation that’s sent in, whether it’s $5 or $100. We’ll do our best to grow Club Tapir in 2001 so that we can help support more projects than ever.

Black and white . . . and white?

Last moth we showed you Kaimu, a male Asian tapir born at the Chiba Zoo in Japan on September 4, 2000. When Kaimu was little, he looked like a typical "watermelon," but as he began to grow out of his natal coat, he developed white markings on his neck. The tapir’s keeper, Masayuki Adachi, will continue to observe and photograph Kaimu as he grows, and offered to report the results to us with pictures. Neither of Kaimu’s parents has these markings, but we’ve seen them before on both adult and young Asian tapirs.

Kaimu, Chiba Zoo, Japan
"Kaimu." Photo © Copyright 2000, Chiba Zoo.

The reason the markings seemed familiar is that a few months ago tapir enthusiast and supporter Carol Langford mentioned a tapir she’d seen at the zoo in Rotterdam and she sent photos. When she first mentioned seeing the white-marked tapirs, we remembered photographing one in Rotterdam in the early 1970s that also had white markings on its head. The one we saw was an older animal, while the two pictured at left are very young. At least one parent of the youngster in Rotterdam also has white markings.

Tapirs at Rotterdam, by Carol Langford Tapir at Rotterdam, by Carol Langford
Asian tapirs with white markings at Blijdordp Zoo, Rotterdam.
Photo © Copyright 2000, Carol Langford.


Creative presents

We rattled and shook the box, but had no clue what it might be. When we took off the Priority Mail outer box, there were a number of wrapped presents inside. But, we still couldn’t guess what they were. When we began opening them, a theme emerged. Envelopes, mailing labels, salmon-colored paper, and even some stamps. Voila! Supplies for printing and mailing Club Tapir! Michelle and Scott Babcock, your creative thoughtfulness put big smiles on our faces . . . thank you! And, you know these gifts will be used!

Paul Beckham challenges us again!

Sometime around New Year’s Day, Paul Beckham phoned. Though he’s still battling cancer, he sounded good, and was positive as always. He offered us a new challenge. He’ll donate $500 for Emilio Constantino’s work in Colombia if tapir supporters will meet the challenge and also raise $500.

One of Emilio’s goals is assessing where the various tapir species live in Colombia so that a plan can be worked out to protect them. Believe it or not, we still don’t know the boundaries of the mountain tapir’s range in Colombia, or which parts of the range still include tapirs. This also holds true for one or more subspecies of lowland tapir in Colombia. Baird’s tapir also survives here in small numbers at the southernmost extent of its range. Most tapir areas are under at least one type of threat, and Emilio’s work will help local conservationists as well as the IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group plan for their conservation. Emilio works with individual land owners through the Private Nature Reserves of the Civilian Society to set aside and connect tracts of habitat. In order to include tapirs effectively in this program, he needs to know where they are. Donations will be used mainly for expeditions into the rugged jungle and for materials to map areas where tapirs are found.

Paul’s challenge to raise funds for Patrícia Medici ended successfully, thanks to your generosity. We raised $300 in cash and $1419 in equipment or funds donated to buy equipment. In December, Paul sent us a check for $1125, which has been transferred to Patrícia’s account for her January field work and capture round.

2001 Tapir Symposium

A new deadline of January 10th was set by the planning committee for the final invitation and announcement, printed materials, and call for papers. As the end of December approached, we realized just how much was still to be done. If you’re on our e-mail lists, you’ll be notified as soon as the announcement is ready.

Word from Lisa Morehead

Believe it or not, it’s been over two years since Lisa was badly mauled by an Asian tapir and nearly lost her life. Many of you helped raise funds to tell Lisa we cared. Over the holidays we heard from her twice. She sent e-mail, and then a nice Christmas card. She noted that she’s been married for a year now to the man (Vic Roberts) she was engaged to at the time of the accident. She has several more surgeries coming up soon, but as always sounded hopeful. She even looks forward to returning to the occupation she loves - taking care of animals.

The next three months

When an organization becomes a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, the IRS designates an "advance ruling period," which we completed on December 31. In the next three months we’ll submit forms showing that we are a publicly supported organization. When this is done, TPF will have permanent nonprofit status. Your donations have been and will continue to be tax deductible, but this means we’ll be spending more time before the end of March tending to accounting rather than to tapirs until the forms are done, which can’t be soon enough - we prefer tapirs to accounting. (And, it’s hard to do base 10 math with 14 toes.)

Symposium fundraising on eBay

Balsa wood tapirs from Peru
Two balsa wood tapirs from Peru will be auctioned on eBay.

If you use the Web, log into eBay about the 15th of each month. We’ll be auctioning unique and special tapir items between now and the Tapir Symposium in November in order to raise funds to bring researchers to the conference. Our first items will go online in mid January. A large and small balsa wood lowland tapir were bought in Peru by Ian Rose, founder of the Oriente Fund, and donated to TPF. "Oriente" is the name of the region in the eastern (Amazonian) part of Ecuador and Peru. You can see Ian’s web site dedicated to this area, its people, and wildlife habitat, at www.orientefund.org, and you can connect to eBay at www.ebay.com. When you get to eBay, use the search feature to find "TPF Fundraiser." Ian donated one each of the large and small size tapir shown above. These are the only two we have.

Tapir Specialist Group News

As of the first week in January, the IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group (TSG) has a new Chair. Patrícia Medici (you all know her by now!) will take over for Sharon Matola, who has stepped down after ten years in order to pursue conservation priorities in Belize. Sheryl Todd, TPF’s President, will continue to serve in her current capacity as Deputy Chair of the Tapir Specialist Group. It’s going to be a busy and promising year, and we’ll keep you posted as events unfold. Among other activities, the TSG will be instrumental in carrying out conservation decisions made at the First International Tapir Symposium in Costa Rica.

Very special KNITTED tapirs . . .

. . . depicting all four species should be online in the Tapir Gallery Gift Shop by the time you receive this. Check ‘em out at www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/gifts.htm. If they’re not posted by the time you read this, please check back in a few days. These unique items were made by ungulate specialist Brent Huffman of Canada. We also have a new sweatshirt in white with our popular "Living in Harmony on Planet Earth" design on the front.


Editors:
Sheryl Todd, tapir@tapirback.com
Kate Wilson, kmwilson@mindspring.com



Club Tapir winners for December, 2000

1st place: Jeremy Holden, Sumatra, Indonesia

Our total Club Tapir donation this month is $600 (a new record). Since we’re now selecting two winners each month, the project receiving the most votes will get 80%, and the project with the second most votes will get 20%. With the largest number of votes this month, Jeremy’s share of the donation is $480. He’s been a Club Tapir recipient in the past, and TPF has also purchased a notebook computer for him. When he wrote on November 28, he told us, "[the laptop] has really changed my life here." Jeremy has been compiling several years’ worth of data and photos on Asian tapirs in Sumatra, writing articles, and identifying individual animals from their pictures. The latter project will help his team determine the number of tapirs left in the vicinity of Kerinci Seblat National park - an area in extreme jeopardy of losing much of its wildlife to human activities.

Recently Jeremy told us about an opportunity to go to Cambodia, where he will inquire about tapir populations that might remain in that country. The current range of the Asian tapir is one of the many mysteries about this neglected animal.

2nd place: Sharon Matola, Macal River Valley, Belize

Sharon will receive $120 from Club Tapir this month. It will help in the battle against the Chalillo Dam, which threatens wildlife in Belize’s Macal River Valley, a critical area for Baird’s tapir as well as for scarlet macaws. The current amount boosts our total contribution to her work to $2593. The fight has been extremely difficult. Although success seems near at one moment and then appears to slip away, our support has helped Sharon gain more and more international attention for the effort. She’s gained help from Washington DC's Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), IUCN, Conservation International, Harrison Ford, a high-visibility in-flight magazine, and very recently she has attracted the attention of the New York Times.

Sharon will use our donations to help pay expenses for a town meeting to discuss the effects of the proposed dam on a village that would be adversely affected. The NDRC's report calls the dam plan "ecologically disastrous [and] economically senseless." Contact: NRDC, 40 W. 20th Street, New York, NY 10011, Web: www.nrdc.org, E-mail: naturesvoice@nrdc.org.

Club Tapir Donor List for December, 2000

Masayuki Adachi, Japan
Michelle & Scott Babcock, USA
D.A. Ball, USA
Jo Ann & Cemil Bayrakci, USA
Corinna Bechko, USA
Alex Cárdenas, Panamá
Oliver Cartwright, England
Sharon Danielsen, USA
Gary Davis, USA
Irma and Guenter Drewnitzki, Germany
Karin Drewnitzki, USA/Germany
Rachel T. Emmer, USA
Kevin Flesher, USA
Heidi Frohring, USA
Della M. Garell, USA
Alice Gilley, USA
Greater Cleveland Chapter, AAZK, USA
Werner Haberl, Austria
Chrissi Hadley, USA
Shannon Hiemstra, USA
Brian Hunt, USA
Stephan Hunziker, Switzerland
Akira Ito, Japan
Ann Iverson-Dawson, USA
Audrey Jakab, USA
Sally & Harvey James, England
Gernot R. Janda, Austria
Kathy Knight, England
Carol Langford, USA
Charlotte Lee, USA
Rob Lyman & Christine Kim, USA
Patricia Medici, Brazil
Mickaël Michault, France
Denis Milam, USA
Derek Mix, USA
James Nelson, USA
James Norton, USA
Judith Norton, USA
James Powell, USA
Justine Powell, Australia
Carol Reid, Canada
Mark A. Reid, Canada
Ayéssa Rourke, USA
Peggy Shaver, USA
Toshio Shiraishi, Japan
Wendy Skriver, USA
Timothy Somers, USA
Michael Souza, USA
Lauren Svitil, USA
Alex & Susan Sze, USA
Gary & Beth Todd, USA
E.V. Todd, USA
Ted and Lois Todd, USA
Marguerite H. Tucker, USA
Jill Wheeler, USA
Kate Wilson, USA
Woodland Park Zoo, Asian Forest Volunteers, USA
Chantal Wright, USA


All tapirs are endangered species.
Saving tapirs helps save the rainforest.


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