Thirteen tapirs lounge in the bushes of Ticuantepe Zoo, in eastern Nicaragua, their bellies plump with leaves and fruit — blissfully unaware of the peril faced by their kind.
The largest land mammals in Central America, the brown, pig-like animals with sloping snouts came into the world in captivity, in an enclosure a short distance from the country's Masaya Volcano, under a scheme to save their endangered species.
Human encroachment and climate change have decimated the woodland habitat of the Baird's tapir, one of five species left in the world, and, along with human and feline predators, have helped wipe out 16 other tapir species.
The Baird's tapir, considered at risk of extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the “most threatened” quadruped in Nicaragua, said Eduardo Sacasa, a wildlife expert.
