Most people have no idea what a tapir is, in fact I bet you were surprised to see a picture of one on this site. Well, not having an identity happens to be one of the biggest threats to the species.
So what are tapirs?

Tapirs are mammals in the perosydactle family. Perosydactlyes are composed of the horses rhinocerus and tapirs of the world. They are odd toes ungulates. Tapirs are some of the oldest mamals on the planets, they have been around for around 30 million years. Today they are the largest mammals to live in central and South America. An adult Baird's tapir can grow up to be over 550 pounds.

Why are tapirs endangered?

Being the largest animal in the enivironment, tapirs have rarely been seen as prey. It is true that a jaguar might try to catch one every now and again, but in general, tapirs have lived peacefully for most of the their existence. Living in atropical forest as a large mammal does however pose some problems. Tropical forest do not provide much access to grazing, therefore tapir have had to adapt to the their environment by having a slow reproductive cycle and taking large tracts of land for their territory. Low population numbers made them vulnerable to hunting. With the advent of modern weapons and increase of habitat destruction, tapir numbers plummeted world wide. Today all four species are endangered, and unless humans can find a way to reverse the damage we have done, tapirs are likey to join the dodo bird.

What do we plan to do about it

Rafiki is a part of of a world effort to create awareness for the species. The major alliance is with the Tapir Specialist Group.