Hot in the cold

This is a short video clip filmed at Purace National Park. This is a volcanic area inhabited by the mountain tapir and other big mammals like the andean bear and some deer species. It’s nice to put your hands inside this hot water when there is really cold around. But you have to be careful because of the sulfurous gases. I liked the sound around, specially the bird singing.

Mountain Tapir's Paradise

I found this picture taken in 2004 in Puracé National Park, Colombia, during a field journey studying mountain tapir habitat. It's pretty incredible how much biodiversity is contained in that small plot of paramo habitat. I think is a 5x5 meters plot, but the biodiversity is countless.

A short video clip of Poncho

I found in my files a short video of Poncho, the mountain tapir from Huila region. Altough of poor quality this video clip, taken in 2005, is very cute. We hope Poncho is going well. I'm trying to know how is everything with him. However, People in charge of this tapir had been a little reserved and give little details about the project that is being performed with Poncho.

No more stripes

I finally found a recent picture of the young mountain tapir rescued from the traffic at Huila region in Colombia. It was taken by Edna Fernanda Jimenez, the veterinarian in charge of this tapir. Now the tapir is an adult male that losses all the stripes that are used for camouflage when young. I still don’t know what’s going on with this animal, which was the first mountain tapir rescued from the traffic in decades here in Colombia. It is know that in some places along mountain tapir range people held mountain tapirs in their farms. Usually, a mother is hunted and her calf is captured and kept in the farm as a domestic animal, eating kitchen waste. I think that once the animal is big enough it’s probably killed for its meat. It’s urgently needed a national program focused on the rescue and research on mountain tapirs, probably the most endangered big mammal along Latin America.

Near a Mountain Tapir

Since I began my work with tapir conservation seven years ago, I always wanted a picture side by side with a tapir, no matter if at some zoo or if in the wild. It finally came to pass in 2005 when a baby mountain tapir was rescued from the traffic by the environmental authorities in the south of my country. I traveled several miles to a place were the animal was kept in a small enclosure, near the town of Pitalito, in the Huila province of Colombia. I took lots of pictures, but I liked this one. I don’t know what exactly has happen with this tapir, but the last news were that it was going to be released and radio-tracked near or inside an Andean national park. Recently I saw a picture taken by a veterinarian. It shows the baby tapir, not so baby now, but a young adult. It has lost their stripes almost completely. I will try to get some of those recent pictures.