Ticos call it a danta, indigenous Panamanians a moli, Belizeans a mountain cow, Colombians an anta and the ancient Maya a tzimin, but all nations now call the sturdy tapir an endangered species that world experts seek to save from extinction.
Probing with their intellect, much the way a tapir would with its stumpy, inquisitive proboscis, some 80 zoo directors, field biologists, university researchers and students from 22 countries gathered in San José Nov. 3-8 for the world's first Tapir Symposium a forum for experts to compare their limited notes and plan strategies to preserve these forest herbivores.
Tapir
The tapir is the largest land mammal in Central and South America, yet very little is known about it, U.S. veterinarian Sonia Hernández told The Tico Times this week during a symposium coffee break. "For years we've been trying to organize by e-mail those on three continents who work with tapirs. The symposium is a way for us to solidify our relationships."
Three of the world's four tapir species live in Latin America, including the Baird's Tapir (Tapirus bairdii), which is found from southern Mexico to Colombia. Weighing in at as much as 700 lbs., the Baird's is the largest in the Americas, and the reason experts chose Costa Rica for their first gathering. The Mountain Tapir (Tapirus pinchaque) lives in the Andean highlands of Colombia, Ecuador and possibly Perú, and the Lowland or Brazilian Tapir (Tapirus terrestris) frequents the wet jungles of Brazil and South America.
The fourth and largest variety, the Asian or Malayan Tapir (Tapirus indicus), can weigh as much as 800 lbs. and lives in Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Costa Rica's extensive system of parks and reserves, which comprises roughly 25 percent of national territory, helps tapirs flourish here in relative safety in a variety of habitats nationwide, from the high-altitude scrub of Chirripó National Park to the drenching rainforests of the Northern and Southern zones and the dry-tropical northwest province of Guanacaste.
Tapirs have splayed feet with four toes on each front foot and three toes on each hind foot, making them excellent climbers and swimmers. According to information on the symposium Web site, they also have the ability to walk, submerged, along river or lake bottoms. Their size and ferocity when defending their young make tapirs too big a match for the jaguars their only natural predator that inhabit the same rainforests here, but this ancient relative of the horse and rhinoceros is endangered worldwide by careless hunting and reckless destruction of its primary and secondary rainforest habitat.
"Tapirs are more adaptable than we once thought, but they need some basic conditions to thrive," Hernández said. "We’re going to be managing these animals in smaller and smaller areas that are often surrounded by livestock, so they’ll be particularly susceptible to new ailments." Texas biologist Charles Foerster has spent the last seven years studying Corcovado National Park’s 200-300-member tapir population up-close.
"Tapirs are just great animals," he said. "Each has a different personality, and the babies are really irresistible watching them grow up is amazing." Baby tapirs’ only defense is the fawnlike white spots that dot their tawny fur, which help them blend into the rainforest floor. They lose the spots as they mature. The species long gestation period 13 months makes it harder for tapirs to rebound from careless hunting.
It may also explain why tapir moms are so fiercely protective. Foerster says an angry she-danta is capable of killing a good-sized dog, using its sharp fangs to bite and gash.
"The tapir is the biggest package of meat out there, but their reproductive rate is so slow that in Panama researchers estimate that if 5 percent or more are taken by hunters, the overall population begins to decline," explained Lewis Greene, of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Brooklyn, New York, which owns four zoos and a marine aquarium.
According to Foerster and Greene, the tapir’s primary forest function is that of seed disperser. "Their digestive system is even worse than a horse’s," Foerster said. "Everything they eat goes right through them, and they can eat up to 43 kilos of plants on a good night’s feeding and can range about two kilometers." To keep these prehistoric seed dispersers proliferating, symposium participants will return home with their new shared knowledge and begin drafting a "Tapir Action Plan" of their recommendations for preservation.
Experts criticized the existing plan, penned in 1997, as out-of date and lacking information. While here, the generally young, fit and eager group ventured out Nov. 6 for field trips to the La Marina Zoo, near the northern hub city of Ciudad Quesada, and to Carara National Park near the central Pacific beach community of Jacó to experience Costa Rica’s biodiversity.
La Marina is home to the world’s largest population of domestically bred tapirs eight in all. Zoo owner Juan José Rojas spoke with The Tico Times about his plans to supply dantas to zoos worldwide. Participants left the country Nov. 8 with a better understanding of their favorite animal and their fellow researchers. "The symposium has been amazing," Foerster said, expressing the feelings of many.
"I never thought it would ever attract this many, but people just came out of the woodwork." The symposium’s main sponsors include the San Diego and Los Angeles Zoos in California, the Houston Zoo in Texas, the Disney Wildlife and Conservation Funds and the Tapir Preservation Fund.
Ecotourism and Nature 
