A Tapir Gallery Online Reprint

TPF News header
Vol. 4, No. 9 ~ September 2001                         A publication of the Tapir Preservation Fund ~ Astoria, Oregon, USA


The attack and aftermath

There is nothing I can say that hasn’t been said many times by now. It was shocking and terrible. I appreciate the letters and thoughts you sent from this and other parts of the world. It felt good to be in touch with people who were also feeling the pain and sharing it. We need each other. Those of you in the areas of the disaster have been especially on my mind this week.

On a personal level, it’s hard to sit at the computer and try to put together a newsletter at this time. Something Sharon Matola wrote - and I know others echo - made about the most sense to me of anything I’ve heard this week. She said, “[This disaster] makes it all that much more important that those people doing good things continue to keep doing good things.” I’m glad I can count so many people who are doing good things among my friends and acquaintances. All of you reading - all of the people in the field and taking care of animals. All positive, and all caring.

I wanted to share an extraordinary letter that Kate sent this week. In a normal week it would have been fun, but not extraordinary. Kate wrote, “My net friend Elizabeth . . . sends me this story:”

“My mom got an e-saver to DC in June and we went to the zoo . . . we hung out by the tapir enclosure at the front gate. He was up front & center. Usually he lurks by the back, but not that day. It was hot and muggy and eventually he got into his tub of water. So freaking cute and funny. He sat there waving his lip at us. Cracked me right up. . . . I had no idea tapirs were so cute. I had no idea they could wave their lip so energetically.”

What makes this story extraordinary is that Elizabeth works in the segment of the Pentagon that isn’t there any more. She works on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the terrorists picked Tuesday to attack. Because she doesn't work Tuesdays, she was with us this week to be able to relate her story about the tapirs at the DC Zoo.


Tapirs sighted in Houston

This month we heard from Houston-based tapir enthusiast and Club Tapir supporter, Dennis Milam. He offered pictures for the web site; we look forward to receiving them and having time to put them online. Dennis has sent one picture so far - a sign at the Houston Zoo that he photographed. Oh, if every zoo had such good sense! Dennis, thank you for brightening our day with this.


Houston Zoo sign with tapir
The Houston Zoo boosts tapir visibility with this high-powered sign at the entrance to the ungulate area. (Photo by Dennis Milam.)


Status of tapirs on IUCN’s Red List

NOTE: The following article by Alan Shoemaker, Patrícia Medici, and Sheryl Todd is an excerpt. It will be published in its entirety in the next issue of Species, the official publication of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

Current status of all tapir species:

Baird’s tapir (Tapirus bairdii) - EN [Endangered]
Asian tapir (Tapirus indicus) - VU [Vulnerable]
Lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris) - LR/nt [Lower Risk] move to VU [Vulnerable]
Mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque) - EN [Endangered]

This year's Red List submission by the Tapir Specialist Group (TSG) to IUCN was a rewarding task for TSG's expanded membership. We received record input and made significant strides in evaluating the status of tapirs.

We propose moving Tapirus terrestris from LR/nt to VU. The species is VU in Bolivia and northern Venezuela. In Guyana and French Guiana, tapirs are not protected; in French Guiana, where they are sold in markets and restaurants, they are prey to a developing bush-meat industry.

The worldwide population of T. bairdii is probably less than 5,000. There appear to be at least 2,500 in Mexico and Guatemala, although a planned road through Guatemala could be a threat.

The total population of T. indicus may be over 3,000. In Sumatra, all forest outside conservation areas may be lost over the next few decades, and potentially by 2005 (Science Magazine). Myanmar's protected areas make up only 3.2% of land area, and most tapir habitat lies outside these protected areas. In peninsular Malaysia, camera trapping shows that tapirs are among the most abundant large mammals; Malaysia's stable economy and 45% forest coverage may help them remain so.

Our Red List suggestions for the mountain tapir (T. pinchaque) note escalation of pressure from hunting, cattle culture, and fragmentation. A mining project and reports of mountain tapir killings in northern Peru indicate problems for the tiny remnant population thought to exist there.

Tapirs thrive in some disturbed forests, and decline in others. They do not fare well in the presence of hunting, and this may be the deciding factor in whether they can adjust to human activity.


A note from Anders

“The tapir [in my nature sanctuary] is alive and well, and spends most of her time out in the ‘center’ [the sanctuary] in the jungle, but does come back to the village sometimes, which is quite annoying. She has not been in estrous for some five months, and does not attract any more wild males, but does not show any visible signs of being pregnant.

“Recently I heard about two other tapirs held by people in a community 60 kilometers downstream. Asking around, I managed to track the owners, but one had already been sold to some military people who probably ate it, and one had died because it had been wounded while being captured. The owner had tried to disinfect the wound with a plant medicine, but the tapir had licked the wound and died, poisoned by the plant.

“I now also have a female spider monkey (which are basically extinct in the area), and I know a place where a male spider monkey has been held by people for years. Unfortunately it is probably not very well psychologically. I also have hope of finding a couple of "paujil," a quite rare bird. And people seem to be interested in what we are doing, that is most important.”

For those who have not followed the story, Anders Siren has founded a private sanctuary in the lowland jungles of Ecuador. A tapir that had grown up in a village was becoming too large and troublesome. In order to protect this tapir from hunters, he tagged her and created a safe place in the jungle. With luck and financial aid, this will grow to protect other animals. The tapir is free, but returns to where she is fed. It is hoped that she’s pregnant by one of the wild males in the area.


Sally’s Spanish sand tapir

On September 5, Sally Woodcock wrote from England, “I have just come back from holiday cycling from France to Spain in the Pyrenees. . . . . As you will see from the attached photos, I spent a happy hour or so making a sand tapir (not madly anatomically correct, but the sand wasn't too good for modelling). [Comment: We think it looks very correct.] A few curious Spaniards came along after I had left it to see what it was! Unfortunately we only had a kids’ camera with us as we didn't want to take a good one on our bikes, so the pictures aren't great as it was hard to see what was in the frame."

The pictures are good enough for us - and we notice that Sally even included the Tapir Gallery's URL in her sculpture! You can believe we were tickled to think she’d remembered us while on the Spanish beach. Sally said, “Although short-lived (it had been washed away by the tide when we went past later) I hoped it was a brief advert for the website!” And one to remember, too. Thanks, Sally!


Tapir made of sand

Tapir made of sand



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




Club Tapir winners for August 2001

1st place: First International Tapir Symposium, 2001

The Symposium has won first place again this month, and will receive $304 from Club Tapir. This amount will be added to the $1443 already in the fund, which includes a combination of Club Tapir contributions and some of your donations that were earmarked directly for the Symposium fund. Our new fund total is $1,747. With this money, we will help bring together participants from tapir range countries. Costs for some key people will be high because of round trip airfare from places such as Asia and South America. Every bit we can raise will help. Over 60 abstracts of papers and posters have been received from around the world, and final decisions about who can receive funding assistance will be made later this month. All interested participants have been busy searching for complete or partial funding from other sources, but everyone reports that money has been difficult to obtain.

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


2nd place: Sharon Matola and the tapirs of Belize

This month, Sharon Matola will receive $76, which is 20% of Club Tapir’s total donation of $380 this month. Sharon’s battle for the tapirs of Belize - a battle to keep a poorly-conceived dam from being built - has been going on for many months. As we write this, the decision of whether the dam will be built is still pending, but it’s getting close. It could go either way, and the fight has been very difficult. Besides Baird’s tapirs (now listed as fully Endangered on IUCN’s Red List), other endangered species make this area their home and breeding ground. These include Morelet’s crocodile and the scarlet macaw along with - among many others - jaguars, ocelots, margays, Neotropical otters, pumas, black howler monkeys, spider monkeys, white-lipped and collared peccaries. A study by Canadian consultants Agra-CI Power found that electricity imports from Mexico would be cheaper than building this dam. The Belize electricity utility's own data indicates that bagasse-fueled cogeneration plants are a commercially viable generating option for Belize's sugar and citrus growers. But in spite of these findings, the dam may be built - an act that would destroy the unique properties of the Macal River Valley which support endangered wildlife.



Club Tapir Donor List for June, 2001

Masayuki Adachi, Japan
Christopher Anderson, USA
Michelle and Scott Babcock, USA
Jo Ann and Cemil Bayrakci, USA
Rana Bayrakci, USA
Karin Bronnenberg, USA
Alex Cárdenas, Panamá
Oliver Cartwright, England
Gary Davis, USA
Nicola DeBolt, USA
Irma & Guenter Drewnitzki, Germany
Ellen Dwight & Ken Aron, USA
Michelle Farthing, USA
Kevin Flesher, USA
Heidi Frohring, USA
Shannon Hiemstra, USA
Peter Hnath, USA
Peter Jackson, USA
Audrey Jakab & Alejandro Berlin, USA
Sally & Harvey James, England
Kathy Knight, England
Carol Langford, USA
Dean Leverett, England
Rob Lyman & Christine Kim, USA
Patricia Medici, Brazil
Dennis Milam, USA
James Nelson, USA
James Norton, USA
Judith Norton, USA
Verena Pipper, Germany
Justine Powell, Australia
Carol Reid, Canada
Mark A. Reid, Canada
Fred & Kathy Rodriguez, USA
Ayéssa Rourke, USA
James B. Satko, 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
Jenifer Van Vleck, USA
Kate Wilson, USA
Sally Woodcock, England
Woodland Park Zoo Asian Forest Volunteers, USA
Laura Zeigen & Alan Bernstein, USA


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


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