World Tapir Day!!!

Danielle Moreira

Do you know that on April 27 we celebrate the World Tapir Day? Yeah! The World Tapir Day was created to raise awareness about the species of tapir (Yes! Some people do not know that they exist) and that they are interesting, different, and very dear animals! In addition, one of the goals of the World Tapir Day is to raise funds to purchase land to protect i from human disturbance. Do you want to know more? Access the site of the World Tapir Day.

As we said before, there are 5 species of tapirs in the world – 4 in America and 1 in Asia. Four species are threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the newly discovered, Tapirus kabomani, does not have enough data to assess its situation. Therefore nothing more convenient than calling the public’s attention to these species and the key ecological functions they perform in the forests. After all, they are part of an important group to the ecosystem – seed dispersal – and they are still part of one of the oldest surviving genera in the animal kingdom!

Well, but let’s talk about the World Tapir Day! To celebrate that day, the Pró-Tapir team joined the Zoo Park of the Mountain, a private zoo in the city of Marechal Floriano, Espírito Santo state, Brazil. The event happened on the weekend of April 30th and May 1st, 2016.

So, to everything does well, we planned the event a week and a half in advance. The organization was totally focused for the kids, which as the gardeners of the forest (the tapirs), the children are the main dispersers of attitude among their families.

The result could not have been different – a total success! We talked about tapirs for the visitors, and we played games and raffle giveaways. Also, we promoted our tapir conservation project, the Pró-Tapir! Would you like to see some pictures? So give a sneak peek at our Facebook page.

Nothing gives more pleasure than disseminate this idea!