Cephalopodcast

April 27 is World Tapir Day. So go hug your nearest perissodactylid.

Today is World Tapir Day. I know, it’s the kind of celebration that can just sneak up on you out of the woods without you even knowing it. Which is the same kind of problem facing these creatures. They are disappearing from the forest without enough people noticing it.

I met a tapir once. It was at the Belize Zoo, and the tapir was kind of famous, if mostly locally. Her name was April. And profits from the sale of merchandise from the first Tapir Day celebration are going towards the Belize Zoo’s tapir conservation and education programs.

So what is a tapir? They are odd-looking herbivorous mammals that inhabit Central and South America and South-East Asia. In Belize they call them mountain cows, which seems apt if not exact. There are four species left in the world and all face threats from shrinking natural range.

As large herbivores, tapirs are invariably the first species affected by human encroachment into their territory, and amongst the last to return to regrowth forest. They require substantial tracts of undisturbed land to maintain a genetically-diverse population. Tapirs inhabit jungles, grasslands, swamps and cloud forests, yet each is threatened by human activity - be that mining, palm oil plantations, roads or settlements. They form an important part of the ecosystem as seed dispersers, and form one of the oldest surviving genera in the animal kingdom.

Despite their size, history and ecological importance, tapirs remain one of the least recognised species of animals. In comparison with other animals, tapirs feature little in the collective consciousness and are frequently misidentified by zoo visitors. Even in their home ranges, tapirs receive little attention, with exotic species featuring more prominently in zoos, children’s books and the media.

Resources

• Official World Tapir Day Web Site
• Tapir Day: Facebook Group
• Tapir Day forums: Help Name the Tapir Day mascot
• Tapir Day: eStore and Tshirts. Proceeds benefit the Belize Zoo.
• Teacher’s Guide to Tapirs: Tapirs of the World (PDF)
• The Belize Zoo also has a podcast.
• Flickr: skoop102’s all Tapir photoset, including cross-stitch and gingerbread tapir cookies.
• The Tapir Blog
• TAPIRS: The Tapir Preservation Fund (TPF) Blog
• The Tapir Gallery

Tapir Books

• The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest (Paperback) by Elizabeth Royte.
• Jungle Song (Hardcover) by Miriam Moss (Author), Adrienne Kennaway (Illustrator). A story set in a South American tropical rain forest for PreSchool-Grade 3.