About Tapirs - Tapir Specialist Group

What are tapirs?
Tapirs are large herbivorous mammals, with
short prehensile snouts, which are used to
grab leaves and used as a snorkel when
swimming. The four species of tapir live in
the jungles and forest regions of South and
Central America and Southeast Asia and are
all listed as either vulnerable or endangered.
The tapir’s closest relatives include horses
and rhinoceroses. Tapirs are disappearing
from the wild in large part due to hunting
pressure, habitat destruction and
fragmentation, and encroachment into
protected park areas by subsistence
farmers and illegal logging operations.
Why are tapirs important?
Tapirs play a critical role in shaping and
maintaining the biological diversity of
tropical ecosystems. The tapir is one of the
first species in its habitat to be adversely
affected by human disturbance because of
their size, and because of their sensitivity
to habitat changes. Local extinction or
population decrease may trigger adverse
effects in the habitat, causing disruptions of
some key ecological processes (e.g. seed
dispersal, nutrient recycling), and eventually
compromising the long-term integrity and
biodiversity of the ecosystem.
How are tapirs doing?
Where are they particularly
endangered?
Where are they doing okay?
Tapirs are becoming rare in their occurrence
areas--the forests of Central and South
America, and Southeast Asia--mostly due
to habitat destruction and poaching. The
IUCN Red Book lists the four species of
tapirs as either vulnerable or endangered.
The Mountain tapir, T. pinchaque, is one of
the most endangered large mammals in the
world.The Baird’s tapir, T. bairdii, is the largest
land mammal in the Neotropics and also
endangered. The Malayan tapir, T. indicus,
is the only Old World extant species and is
also endangered in Sumatra and mainland
Malaysia. The lowland tapir, T. terrestris, is
now either completely absent or its distribution
is extremely fragmented across much of its
historic range, with the northern Amazon and
the remaining Pantanal (Bolivia, Brazil and
Paraguay) becoming important strongholds
as southern, eastern and northwestern
populations decline rapidly.
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