A Tapir Gallery Online Reprint

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Vol. 4, No. 6 ~ June 2001                         A publication of the Tapir Preservation Fund ~ Palisade, Colorado, USA


In Memory of Paul Beckham

Last month, with great sadness, we told you that Tapir Preservation Fund supporter and friend of tapirs, Paul Beckham, passed away. TPF's Beckham Endowment, which is invested according to Paul’s wishes, bears his name. Paul and Elaine Beckham also offered several challenge grants to the Club Tapir supporters, matching contributions for tapir projects headed by Patricia Medici and Emilio Constantino. In fact, the last funding challenge Paul issued was for Emilio's work. Paul's wife, Elaine, sent us the matching funds check shortly after his death, and said Paul would have been very pleased to contribute these funds. We'll all miss Paul. He was a kind and generous man, and he gave the Tapir Preservation Fund gifts, incentives, and encouragement we will not forget.

Elaine sends this photo of Paul and the obituary she wrote for him - one that was requested by a Web site in England. She is suggesting that donations be made to the Beckham Endowment of the Tapir Preservation Fund in his name.

Paul Beckham


Paul Miles Beckham, 69, died in his home on Sunday 6th May with his wife Elaine, son Jim Beckham from Dallas, and and mother-in-law Ivy Kilgannon at his bedside.

Paul was born Paul Merritt Grover Jnr in Hartford, Connecticut, on 8th Feb 1932 to Paul M. Grover and Ella Miles Beckham.

He was a 1954 graduate of the U.S. Naval Acadamy at Annapolis. He entered the U S Navy via the Reserves in 1949 and left the navy in 1958 with the rank of LTJG.


This month Emilio used the first of the funds to research the area where a Baird's tapir was seen near the Panama border (the first sighting there in 20 years). We’ll keep you posted about how the rest of the funds are used. Thank you, Paul, and thank you, Elaine. Emilio also sends his very great thanks for the recent funding.


Fencing tapirs out may prove their value to the rainforest

Normally when we think of tapirs and fences, we think of fences used to keep them in. But Charles Foerster has other ideas. One of the discoveries Charles has made during his seven-year study in Costa Rica is that each Baird's tapir consumes an average of 85 pounds of vegetation each day. In order to learn how this feeding behavior affects plant diversity and structure of the rainforest of Corcovado National Park, Charles has designed a new study.

Exclosure plots - built to keep tapirs out while allowing free access by other animals - will allow changes in vegetation growth and species composition to be compared to control plots where tapirs browse freely. An experimental plot has already been constructed and has proven effective in keeping tapirs out. $500 would allow six more exclosures to be built. Initial results of changes in understory vegetation are expected within a few months. However, with limited maintenance, these exclosures can be monitored for many years to study the long-term effects of the removal of tapirs from the area.

Unfortunately, it seems that until an animal's "value" can be proven it is hard to convince the world that it must be protected and saved. Charles hopes this study will provide evidence that tapirs are vital to the health of tropical rainforests and that greater effort should be made for their protection. This is an exciting breakthrough study, and we will be watching his progress with much interest.


Tapir splitter: A real product

But it's not for tapirs. It's for computer files. Tapir Graphics, a company in Sweden with a cool clickable front page makes the downloadable Tapir Splitter, which they describe as "a small utility program that splits up files into smaller ones and back again. Very useful when you want to copy a file to a diskette and the file is too large for one."

Similarly, their TapirEdit is "a small text editor, made to replace Notepad with better functionality."

We haven't tried the software. If any of you have, would you send us a review?


Tapir Symposium: Call for papers

The First International Tapir Symposium, to be held November 3-8, 2001, in San Jose, Costa Rica, is now officially accepting abstracts. See the web site at:

http://www.caligo.com/tapir/

If you cannot access the site, please contact:
Sheryl Todd: tapir@tapirback.com
Patrícia Medici: epmedici@uol.com.br


Donations for TPF President to attend Symposium

This month we received two donations to the fund for November's First International Tapir Symposium in Costa Rica. The donations total $260 and are earmarked by the donors for TPF president Sheryl Todd's plane tickets. Special thanks to E.V. Todd and Jan and Jim Hampson. Your donations mean that now the general budget can spend more to bring attendees from tapir range countries, and we’re very happy about that.


"Playing Favorites at the Zoo"

Philip Lambert Schein sent us a link to the video “In My View: Playing Favorites at the National Zoo.” Apparently it shows how visitors to the National Zoo in Washington, DC, ignore the tapir relative to the panda. You need RealPlayer to see the video, and we don't have it, but here's the URL:

http://stream.realimpact.net/?file=realimpact/hsus/video_features/hsus_feature_in-my-view-zoo.rm


How long do baby tapirs nurse?

Michelle Stancer of the San Diego Zoo has answered Heidi Frohring's question about nursing times for tapir calves. Heidi, a keeper at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, asked in April 27th's edition of Tapir Talk, "What length of time has nursing been observed (per literature up to one year - has anyone observed nursing after this time)?" Michelle answers, "Presently at the SDZOO we have a female calf still nursing at 18 months."

We still don't know how long baby tapirs nurse in the wild. Various authors estimate anywhere from six months to nearly two years. Likewise, we don’t know how long a young tapir typically stays with its mother. Some scientists have estimated it could be longer than two years, although young tapirs are capable of caring for themselves well before that age.


The Porsche tapir . . . surprised?

In 1970, Porsche built a car called the Tapiro. Really.

http://www.flat-6.net/html_cars/914_6_tapiro.html

The description of the Tapiro sort of applies to its namesake as well: "The wedge shape . . . aggressive profile, and the way the in which the windscreen hardly breaks the sharp angle of the nose . . . combine together magnificently. . . . The [components] are all joined by the central spine to form a cohesive whole."

And yes, "Tapiro" is Italian for "Tapir." We ran it through Babelfish to be sure.


From the mailbag

“My daughter is doing her 5th grade rainforest project on the tapir. We love your site and have found it very useful! She is especialy interested in the Baird’s tapir because Baird is our Scottish clan - we are Beards (Bairds) from Aberdeenshire. Do you know why this tapir is named Baird?”
        “Thanks, Deane and Emily (aged 11) Collie-Beard”

Dear Deane and Emily,
        I don't get this question very often, but I do happen to know! In 1865, Theodore Gill was the first person to recognize this animal as a separate species and named it in honor of Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887), Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Baird later became full Secretary of the Smithsonian.




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



Club Tapir winners for May 2001

1st place: Anders Siren and his Nature Sanctuary

This month’s second-place winner is Anders Siren and his private Nature Sanctuary, located in the lower-elevation jungles of Ecuador. It’s not unusual for people living in tapir habitat to raise tame or semi-tame tapirs. What is unusual is for that opportunity to be turned into a fledgling nature sanctuary. Usually the tapir ends up as somebody’s dinner. In this case, Anders worked with local people to protect the tapir, and then found land to create a sanctuary for the tapir and other animals. These may be pets taken locally from the wild that are not able to return, or sometimes animals that wander in and don’t want to leave. The tapir, a female, is a lowland tapir from Amazonian Ecuador. She leaves the premises and returns - and lately has been followed by males eager to breed. Hopefully the area will become a sanctuary for her offspring as well. The presence of a tagged, semi-tame tapir has saved other tapirs from hunters, as they will not risk killing this animal. If they’re not sure whether the animal they are hunting is the tame one, they avoid killing it. In this way a number of tapirs in the area have escaped being eaten.

This month Club Tapir raised $641 for Anders and his project. One hundred and fifty dollars is about the minimum needed per month. That helps to feed the tapir and pay a keeper to guard the area. Using his own money, Anders has made some improvements such as a small hut for storage of food and for the keeper to sleep in.

2nd place: First International Tapir Symposium, 2001

The total amount raised by Club Tapir this month was $802. Our second-place winner is the First Internation Tapir Symposium, 2001, to be held November 3-8 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Our Club Tapir contribution this month is $161, which brings Club Tapir’s total contribution to the symposium so far to $823. These funds will be used to bring conference participants to Costa Rica from tapir range countries and to help pay their expenses for the symposium. Expenses include five nights hotel accommodations; opening night reception and final banquet dinner; session coffee breaks; program and Tapir Symposium Resource Guide; post conference proceedings; transportation to and from airport; a one-day mid-conference field trip (there are two to choose from); buffet breakfasts; tips for bellboys and maids; tips at the airport; taxes and service charge.

See Caligo Ventures’ Web site for details and registration: http://www.caligo.com/tapir/


Club Tapir Donor List for May, 2001

Masayuki Adachi, Japan
Kevin & Janet Anderson, USA
Gilia Angell, USA
Michelle & Scott Babcock, USA
Rana Bayrakci, USA
Corinna Bechko & Gabriel Hardman, USA
Barbara Boon, USA
Alex Cárdenas, Panamá
Oliver Cartwright, England
Steve Cremer, USA
Sean Culpan, Scotland
Sharon Danielsen, USA
John Deal, USA
Nicola DeBolt, USA
Michael Dee, USA
Irma & Guenter Drewnitzki, Germany
Karin Drewnitzki, USA
Ellen Dwight & Ken Aron, USA
Rachel T. Emmer, USA
Michelle Farthing, USA
Kevin Flesher, USA
Heidi Frohring, USA
Della M. Garell, USA
Alice Gilley, USA
Greater Cleveland Chapter, AAZK, USA
Lisa Green, USA
Chrissi Hadley, USA
Shannon Hiemstra, USA
Akira Ito, Japan
Ann Iverson-Dawson, USA
Peter Jackson, USA
Audrey Jakab, USA
Sally & Harvey James, England
Gernot Janda, Austria
Donald Janssen, USA
Kathy Knight, England
Carol Langford, USA
Dean Leverett, England
Rob Lyman & Christine Kim, USA
Chuck Mancuso, USA
Andy Markley, USA
Cindy Marzolf, USA
Patricia Medici, Brazil
Dennis Milam, USA
James Nelson, USA
James Norton, USA
Judith Norton, USA
James Powell, USA
Justine Powell, Australia
Rose M. Ready & Hattiesburg Zoo, USA
Carol Reid, Canada
Mark A. Reid, Canada
Fred & Kathy Rodriguez, USA
Ayéssa Rourke, USA
Hannah & Philip Schein, USA
Peggy Shaver, USA
Wendy Skriver, USA
Timothy Somers, USA
Mike Souza, USA
Tamsin Spargo, England
Michele Stancer, USA
Michele Stansbury, USA
Lauren Svitil, USA
Alex & Susan Sze, USA
Gary & Beth Todd, USA
E.V. Todd, USA
Ted and Lois Todd, USA
Eric Truelson, USA
Elizabeth Weaver, USA
Jill Wheeler, USA
Kate Wilson, USA
Sally Woodcock, England
Woodland Park Zoo Asian Forest Volunteers, USA


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


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