The Tapir Blog

“Shine up your schnozzle, ’cause it’s World Tapir Day”.

Cute Overload, the online world’s temple of cuteness has posted about World Tapir Day.

Today is World Tapir Day. I spent much of the day at the Adelaide Zoo, visiting my local tapirs.

As you can see, Sulung and Mia got into the spirit by celebrating in the typical tapir manner. To be fair to them, it was a bloody cold day with lots of rain. Staying flat to the ground under the tree was probably the best way of enjoying it.

Happy World Tapir Day to you all, wherever you may be. Hope you helped to spread the message about tapir conservation. 2009 World Tapir Day, here we come. If you’d like to be involved, please visit the World Tapir Day website.

23 April was April the Tapir’s 25th birthday. As the first reports of the party at the Belize Zoo in her honour come in, it’s a good time to remind people that April is one the reasons that World Tapir Day exists. All profits that World Tapir Day is raising are going toward the Belize Zoo’s tapir conservation projects. Help celebrate her birthday and help raise funds to protect her fellow tapirs!

Looking for a way to become involved with World Tapir Day? Support the occasion by purchasing merchandise to raise funds for tapir conservation projects! All profits raised are to go to the Belize Zoo, home of April the Tapir, to support their conservation projects. There’s a range of items available with both the official World Tapir Day logo and the mascot (below).

Click here to visit the World Tapir Day store on CafePress, or click here to read more details about the fundraising effort on theofficial World Tapir Day site.

Splash Damage to Unleash Unprecedented Levels of Snortling with Tapir Wars

Added on 1 April, 2008 - 11:10

A new era has dawned… and it snuffles.

London, England – April 1, 2008 - Splash Damage is set to put gamers in command of nature’s cutest, most vicious animals with Tapir Wars™, the first-ever perissodactyl multiplayer combat game. Building on Splash Damage’s previous titles and introducing never-before-seen gameplay mechanics and never-thought-possible immersion, Tapir Wars will be a paradigm shift for the entire shooter genre that is going to shock and awe players all around the world.

“Combat has never been this hairy!” said Paul Wedgwood, owner of Splash Damage. “Tapir Wars signals a new era in odd-toed ungulate gameplay and will truly tap into the casual gaming market. We couldn’t be more excited!”

Powered by Splash Damage’s new Leaf-to-Leaf™ networking middleware, Tapir Wars takes grazing jungle warfare to the next level with its ground-breaking 128 versus 4 player herd-based gameplay. Take command of Tapirmobiles™ and Tapirplanes™ and lay waste to enemy tapirs instantly from miles across the map without any warning whatsoever, while per-tapir hit detection allows Tapir Wars to render Read the rest of this post »

Far be it for me to want to give you false expectations of multiple posts a day, today is an exception - due primarily to the photos below. Suraya was born recently at the Wildlife Reservation in Sungai Dusun in Malaysia and has just had her first public audience.

And some people wonder why we are so enthusiastic about World Tapir Day, and are wanting to raise as much money as possible to help support tapir conservation projects…

In what strikes me as being both good and bad, the Star Online reports on a study about Asian Tapir behaviour. Good that the study is happening, but bad that it took two months for a tapir to be collared. Or is that good, in that it shows how wiley they are? Perhilitan wildlife officer Mohd Rauf Abd Kadir, quoted in the article, said that although tapirs were not considered to be an endangered species, they are protected under the Protection of Wild Life Act. “There are an estimated 1,100 to 1,500 tapirs in the peninsula but their numbers could dwindle if they are left unmonitored.”

Regardless of whether the estimate is accurate, I’d personally call 1100-1500 tapirs “endangered”.

The full text of the article (edit - there’s a different article from Singapore’s Strait Times here):

KUALA KUBU BARU: After two months, a tapir was finally trapped by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) to be the subject of a study on the mammal’s habitat and behaviour.

Read the rest of this post »

Perhaps better suited to an April Fools Day post (even if it isn’t), today’s reference to tapirs in global culture comes from an unlikely source: a 1970 Porsche prototype called the Tapiro (’tapiro’ being the Italian for ‘tapir’). The Porsche Tapiro Concept was designed by Ital Design’s Giorgetto Giugiaro. It was rear wheel-driven with mid-mounted 2.4-liter flat-six cylinder engine. The engine was courtesy of the Porsche 914/6, as was the chassis and many of the mechanical components. There were gull-wing doors to both the cockpit and the engine bay. Despite appearances to the contrary, the car did not come with an extra from One Million B.C. …

The Porsche Tapiro suffered a quick demise and descent into obscurity - shortly after its unveiling, it was destroyed in a terrorist bomb blast. Its styling did, however, live on in a number of other Giugiaro-designed cars.

Although not tapir-related in the slightest, it shows what can be done… assumng that it comes off. The Australian Government has pledged to spend AUD 200 million (around USD 180 million at the moment) on establishing reserves for endangered Australian fauna (video and transcript available). Assuming the proposal does come to fruitition, it offers the rest of the world something to aim for.

After all, how does one put a monetary price on the survival of a species?

Let’s hope that countries that have native tapir populations realise the same.

Are you a Facebook user? If so, join the World Tapir Day group on Facebook and help promote it to another audience. Make sure that you also invite your friends to join as well. Raising World Tapir Day’s profile will only help tapir conservation.