Hip Hip Hooray for the tapirs today!
27 April 2017
An animal that many people think is a hippopotamus or an anteater but is actually more closely related to horses and rhinos.
They have a trunk with which they pick up food and they also use it as a snorkel, but it's still not an elephant.
I'm talking, of course, about one of the coolest animals in the world, the tapir!
Today is World Tapir Day, a day to celebrate all tapirs and recognise the threats that unfortunately exist to them and the environment they live in.
Tapirs are quite large animals. They can grow to almost two metres in length, weigh up to 250kg and have a withers height of one metre. Their long, slender, rather compact body is great for getting around in dense forests and they actually create their own paths to get to water and food. They may not look very agile but they can get around quite quickly in dense thickets which is great when you have a cougar or jaguar hot on your heels. They are really hard to spot because during the day they lie hidden and snooze so sweetly and as soon as it starts to get dark their waking hours begin. They stick to areas where there is a lot of water because if there is one thing they love it is swimming!
Tapirs are often called the gardeners of the forest. Now, our gardeners may not usually poop out seeds when they're planting, but that's exactly what tapirs do. Half of the food they eat is fruit of various kinds. The seeds then go into the poo, which they deposit here and there over large areas and in this way they ensure that they grow a variety of new fruits.
We, along with many other zoos, are involved in a project to preserve the tapir and prevent it from disappearing completely. On the one hand, they are working with a number of different organisations in places where tapirs live in the wild, but they are also running breeding programmes in zoos with tapirs that have lived in zoos for several generations. The aim is to have a gene bank of endangered species, with healthy populations that have a wide genetic range so that there is a reserve in case the worst happens, that all tapirs become extinct from the wild.
What is it that makes it necessary to have conservation projects on the tapir? There are several reasons why the tapir is endangered. Among other things, they are hunted for their meat and skin, but above all they are threatened by humans clearing the rainforest they live in and taking over their territories to obtain land for livestock and agriculture.
Now you might be sitting there feeling generally bored and powerless, but you know what? You are not! Because as tragic as it is that we are contributing to the endangerment of the tapir, it actually means that we can help reduce those threats. There are so many things you can do for both endangered animals and the environment they live in, but to keep you from drowning in advice, we'll stick to a few.
The main reason for deforestation in these areas is to make way for sugar and soya plantations. Most of the soya that is grown is used to feed animals, so when we eat meat, drink milk and eat eggs we are contributing to this. So here are some tips on how to think about it.
Eat less meat, it's good for you, for the environment and also for the animals because when you eat less meat you can spend your money on better meat instead, i.e. Swedish organic meat and don't waste food. When you throw away food, you contribute to all this unnecessarily. If you promise to do this, I will come back with more tips in the future.