Thanks to the efforts to bring this magnificent animal back to the forests of Rio de Janeiro, today we have 12 tapirs living in the wild, four of which were born in the wild.
Last Thursday, the Refauna and ANThology project teams recorded another baby tapir. Tapirs were extinct in the state of Rio de Janeiro and have been reintroduced since 2017 in the Três Picos State Park and Guapiaçu Ecological Reserve, in Cachoeiras de Macacu. Thanks to the efforts to bring this magnificent animal back to the forests of Rio de Janeiro, we now have 12 tapirs living in the wild, four of which were born in the wild.
The baby was recorded walking with its mother on video, during camera trap monitoring in an area that was reforested in 2013 by the Guapiaçu Project. It is the second baby born this year, and should be between 4 and 5 months old. One of the aspects that makes reintroducing tapirs challenging is the slow reproduction of these animals. Gestation lasts 13 months, for the birth of a single baby, which after being born accompanies its mother for about a year and a half. That is why each birth is celebrated by the team, and the survival of these cubs is our greatest reward and an indication of the success of the reintroduction work.
The happiness with the birth of another baby tapir was accompanied by much apprehension. The camera traps recorded two armed hunters walking along the trail in the same place and on the same day that the baby tapir passed by its mother. Unfortunately, images of hunters have become increasingly common in our monitoring. This is a reflection of the policy of relaxing firearms licenses, which has increased the number of CAC registrations by 474% in recent years, according to the Public Security Yearbook. One of the problems with the significant increase in access to firearms is that it puts our fauna, including endangered species, and the team that is constantly in the field at risk. It is sad for those who work to conserve biodiversity, but we continue in this fight, rooting for the safety of this baby tapir and all the wild animals that enrich our forests.
The reintroduction of tapirs is an initiative of Refauna and Projeto ANTologia, with funding from Furnas, a partnership with the Guapiaçu Ecological Reserve and support from the Cachoeiras de Macacu Education Department.
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