Tapir Extinction in the Atlantic Forests Between the Rio de Contas and the Rio Paraguaçu

Abstract

I regret to report that tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) are extinct in the Atlantic Forest remnants between the Rio de Contas and the Rio Paraguaçu, in Bahia State, Brazil, with the only memory of their existence being two place names on the map – a town named Poço d’Anta between Jequié and Jaguaquara and a rural area west of Taperoá called Cabeça d’Anta. Over the past seven years I have worked explored what is left of the Atlantic Forest surrounding the coastal town of Ituberá, in a region of southern Bahia known as the Costa do Dendê (Palm Oil Coast). The focus of my dissertation research is to try to identify the factors that determine the distribution and relative abundance of medium and large mammals in this agro-forestry landscape in order to understand how human resource use affect the long-term persistence of these species. Early on in the study I found out that tapirs were extinct, but the when and why of this extinction only became clear after studying historical documents and interviewing old farmers who lived before the large-scale deforestation and landscape-transforming events of the 1950/60s.