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New Research on Malaysia’s Odd, Elusive Tapir

Ponderous, powerful herbivores, weighing about 650 pounds, tapirs have faces like anteaters, with a incessantly sniffing mobile snout. In dim rain forests, smell and hearing are the important senses.
Ponderous, powerful herbivores, weighing about 650 pounds, tapirs have faces like anteaters, with a incessantly sniffing mobile snout. In dim rain forests, smell and hearing are the important senses. The animals have black and white shape-disrupting camouflage and make a whistling noise, sounding almost more bird than mammal. The Malay tapir, the largest of the world’s four tapir species, remained largely invisible to science until recently. The other three species of these odd, endearing animals all live in South America. There was just one scientific study from the 1970s on the Malay tapir. Then, in 2002, the Malay Tapir Conservation Project was created, supported largely by the Copenhagen Zoo, and field biologists began filling in another blank page in zoology. Great swaths of the rain forest in Malaysia and Sumatra had been destroyed for palm oil plantations and through illegal logging, and scientists had begun to worry that the tapir could slip silently toward extinction. A conservation center was set up within the Sungai Dusun Wildlife Reserve, an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur, and researchers like Carl Traeholt, a Danish-Malaysian biologist, began to gather data on tapir numbers and on the animals themselves.
Dr. Traeholt is the Malayan tapir coordinator for the enterprise rental car insurance agreement international Tapir Specialist Group, which is concerned with all four tapir species. For the past cheap car insurance comparisons healthcare insurance domain five years, he has used cameras with motion sensors to photograph tapirs as they move through the forest at night to feed multiple drivers multiple cars colorado auto insurance on fruits, leaves and soft twigs. sell life insurance policy An important early breakthrough was the realization that the patterns of cost dental health insurance low wrinkles on tapirs’ necks can identify individuals. The photographs showed that tapirs normally have a small caritan health insurance home range, aetna health care insurance but will travel up to three miles auto insurance cheaper in a night car insurance - comparisons to reach salty mineral deposits, presumably to consume minerals like renters insurance austin calcium or iron. is medicare insurance One of the sites studied was the Krau Wildlife Reserve north of Kuala Lumpur. fake national insurance cards “At some of these salt licks in Krau, tapirs are the most common animal on cameras, but it’s all the same group insurance medicare individuals coming back,” Dr. Traeholt said. The results showed that caravan insurance with claims cystic fibrosis travel insurance for a population of 800 loan against life insurance policy to 1,000 individuals for an area the size of Krau, and 15,000 to 20,000 in Malaysia, were outlandishly optimistic. “This was way off reality. Otherwise camping world rv insurance we would have bradford and bingley car insurance a traffic jam of texas teachers car insurance tapirs in Krau,” Dr. Traeholt said. There were health insurance no waiting period actually just 40 dual car insurance or so individuals in Krau, which would mean life insurance comparison about 1,500 to rental car insurance fl 2,000 in Malaysia, he said. There does geico offer accident forgiveness on their car insurance are term insurance calculator perhaps 300 in Thailand; an unknown, unstudied population car insurance for banned drivers in Myanmar; and an unknown but decreasing number on Sumatra. A best guess, he said, holiday car breakdown insurance is 4,000 individuals in Southeast aviation renters insurance Asia, a figure similar to the number online auto insurance quote ontario of wild tigers. The Malaysian research cheap car insurance for young people team last year healthnet dental insurance attached a new kind of radio collar to a tapir in Krau. Half the reserve has coverage from a local telephone tower, and once within its range the new collar can transmit safeguard vision insurance its data via phone signal to the tapir team’s computer. Tapirs are patchily distributed in what connecticut flood insurance quote seems like homogenous forest. And the scientists want to know car insurance medical why. The collection of data from long term care insurance basics the collar, which occurs every five car insurance mortgage minutes, should security mutual life insurance company help answer their online travel insurance company online car insurance policy questions. Dr. Traeholt was recently joined by Boyd Simpson, a behavioral ecologist with nj auto insurance reviews experience in conservation projects in Australia and mcclartys insurance coleraine Asia, who is doing research on the Malay tapir for his doctorate. The hsb engineering insurance limited tenant insurance ottawa two biologists met while working rate car insurance companies in Cambodia. Mr. Simpson health insurance for children in arizona is to take charge of a new phase of the tapir research in Taman Negara, the largest national park parrot insurance in Malaysia. This is an extension of the Krau research, and a comparison of findings between the two sites should long term care insurance agent prove fruitful. “If sightings are the same in the two areas we can extrapolate motorcycle storage insurance over the whole country,” Dr. Traeholt said. “But if they are different, we anthem medicare insurance will have to go from area to area to find the health insurance long stay travel density of the population.” Mr. Simpson said that the big dealing with auto insurance adjusters difference in the insurance card template park research “is we’re planning to reintroduce captive animals from Sungai Dusun.” Before any reintroductions, texas geico car insurance the team will check whether there is motorcycle insurance quote uk an established animal that may “boot the newcomer out,” he oak lawn car insurance said. Though not federal long term health care insurance online homeowners insurance rates allied insurance company aggressive, car cheap insurance very tapirs will defend their own patches, and they sectional title insurance broker have budget basics car insurance deposit insurance and credit guarantee corporation of india large candle makers insurance canine teeth, an oddity for plant eaters. That they use kilimanjaro insurance them coach insurance is health insurance for men clear from the nicks and print fake health insurance cards scars on their ears. They are thought to be more combative during the mating caremark insurance ca emotional health season, probably in April and May, Dr. Traeholt said, because there are more rental car insurance and mexico photos of two adult tapirs together during those months. Mr. Simpson looks virginia title insurance forward to medicare coinsurance reference sheet seeing what www car insurance co uk makes health insurance with dental,vision plans tapirs tick. “They are funny-looking creatures, really intriguing,” he said. The physiological car insurance online brokers need for minerals virginia boat insurance is especially cheap student car insurance insurance auto auctions interesting. He plans to look at horse insurance companies the mandated auto insurance chemical composition racq home insurance of salt licks and try to work out why certain licks are best homeowners insurance preferred. It may ohio car insurance liability be that tapirs consume lots of plant toxins and therefore need to ellenco pet insurance ingest kaolin-type clays to absorb health insurance for overseas travel denticare insurance aerobic instructor insurance the toxins. electric car insurance Whether they drink travel insurance uk water, lick rocks or eat mud around the licks is unknown, but age travel insurance infrared cameras are to auto insurance oakland ca be set up at licks to record their behavior. With its local field officer, medical insurance software Mohamed classic car insurance ni Sanusi bin Mohamed, the dental health insurance student plans research pickup insurance group hiked through movers insurance the forest to check camera traps gary insurance nc auto insurance and to place new ones along tapir disability insurance awareness month trails. health insurance naturopathic Dr. Traeholt, adept at ohio motorcycle insurance locating tapir prints in indiana state farm auto insurance pleasure only b class code the jungle, nboa marine insurance explained that trails and travel insurance credit tracks were important signs, but matsen insurance brokers tapir dung was almost never found. They defecate in water, possibly to avoid leaving a calling card for car insurance 21s care insurance long tennessee term car insurance software predators, will often stay close to water and can cheap car insurance quote lady swim. Though Malay tapirs are listed as endangered, best car insurance uk Dr. Traeholt is confident their habitat in Malaysia and Thailand is now stable. He acknowledged minnesota long term care insurance quotes that low numbers in some locations leave them vulnerable. Even in Krau, poaching insurance leaflet could wipe out the viability of the entire population by quad bike insurance removing just 20 to 25 animals. The animal’s salt lick habit could be an Achilles’ heel: travel insurance zimbabwe it makes them predictable and mga car insurance phenix vulnerable nicotine life insurance to poaching. Just a single calf — cute, with white stripes — car group insurance uk is born after 13 reprint car insurance card months’ gestation, so flattened tapir populations average renters insurance would rebound angelica auto insurance slowly. Whether there is just one Malay tapir species or different subspecies, as is the case for tigers, is state childrens health insurance not known. Genetic analysis home insurance ny using tissue samples from Thailand, Malaysia markel boat insurance and Sumatra medical insurance carriers has just begun. Dr. Traeholt said he thought small fragmented populations in parts of Thailand could contractor public liability insurance be north carolina farm insurance companies managed and Terms for filing a car insurance claim invigorated by introducing cheapest pet insurance animals, homeowners insurance no credit check consumer reports july pet insurance but it would be important to renters insurance miami florida recognize genetic variations and identify any subspecies before mixing animals from different areas. Dr. Bengt Holst, scientific director of the Copenhagen Zoo, which has a history of collaboration with the Malaysian wildlife define comprehensive car insurance roofers public liability insurance authorities, said researchers planned immediate car insurance quote to car insurance accident claims develop conservation priorities for the Malay tapir by discovering its habitat needs, social structures and action auto insurance car cheapest insurance quote mortgage behavior. By transforming it into a high-profile research species, he hopes researchers will be attracted to Malaysia modified car insurance new york and the species described travel insurance south america from canadian auto insurance quote online all angles — physiology, behavior, genetics and ecology. Tapir conservation would also put many other lower-profile species regence blue shield insurance under its umbrella of protection. For now, Dr. Traeholt hopes to boat towing insurance create a conservation plan backed by ecology. And so car insurance 4 this unique animal will avoid do i need mortgage insurance becoming either forgotten or extinct.

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