Tapirs Helping Tapirs
Aurora
Aurora won’t sleep in her bed tonight and I can’t sleep at all so here we are in the Wortham World of Primates, the baby orangutan dozing under a blanket on my chest. My mind is south of here at an event called “Tapirs Supporting Tapirs” that should just be wrapping up in São Paulo, Brazil. It’s fitting. Tapirs Supporting Tapirs wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for “Pongos Helping Pongos”. This project was born eight years ago when primate keepers dreamed up the idea of putting paintings created by the orangutans in our care into a gallery and selling them to raise funds to help orangutans who live on the other side of the globe in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. We probably would never have thought to do it if not for the big sister of the orangutan currently nestled right here, her little hands moving as if she’s dreaming, Luna bela. Aurora isn’t old enough yet to paint or to draw chalk murals on the walls of her room, or to entertain guests by wrapping herself in a sheet and then opening her arms, whipping the sheet away to reveal herself dramatically again and again (I’m a butterfly! I’m a chrysalis! I’m a butterfly! I’m a chrysalis!) as her sister Luna did. But Aurora reminds me very much of her, good natured yet spunky, ticklish on her ridiculous pink and mauve cow-print belly, and lady-like enough to burp like a sailor and look cute doing it.
Luna
But I digress. Over the years, the Primate staff held four gallery events, as well as numerous smaller endeavors that involved hundreds if not thousands of participants and supporters. Art created by Luna and her fellow Houston Zoo orangutans was displayed and sold, raising awareness and a considerable amount of money, primarily for the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project based in a village called Sukau in Malaysia. Thinking someone else might be able to use our simple idea, I presented “Pongos Helping Pongos” at the Zoos and Aquariums Committing to Conservation conference, offering from the podium help to anyone who wanted to use art created by zoo animals to support conservation.
And Patrícia Medici took me up on it! Pati, a charismatic Brazilian conservationist, had the idea to organize an event where paintings created by tapirs living in zoos in the U.S. would be displayed and sold in São Paulo to benefit the Lowland Tapir Initiative. The event, later christened “Tapirs Supporting Tapirs” would increase appreciation of the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris), an IUCN Red List Vulnerable species, which many Brazilians regard as common, unintelligent, and uninteresting animals. The event would also raise awareness of the human activities, such as hunting for meat and habitat encroachment for farming and grazing that negatively affect wild lowland tapir populations.
Tapir painting by Brookfield Zoo tapirs
So we contacted the Large Mammal staff at the Houston Zoo as well as our colleagues at several other institutions that provide support for Pati’s research. So many were willing to help out that we actually had to narrow it down so that Pati wouldn’t be overwhelmed trying to get all the paintings back to Brazil. We sent art supplies all over the country to Brevard Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, John Ball Zoo, San Diego Zoo, and Woodland Park Zoo and walked them over to our own Houston Zoo tapir keepers. Some of these zoos had previously painted with their tapirs but some might never have done so if not for this project; that would have been a shame because, from what I can see, they get a kick out of it. And look what we got back: Pictures of paintings here. Twenty-nine beautiful paintings for the event!
When Pati started planning and set a date, it was amazing to watch it all happen! She picked the São Paulo Zoo as a venue. She got great artists like Ronald Rosa Obra and Desenho Luccas Longo involved.
She got a lot of attention from the media. You can friend it, follow it, and otherwise check it out. It’s all in Portuguese but still fun to watch:
I can’t wait to hear how it turned out! I’d go to the computer right now but, though my mind is in São Paulo, my lap is here at Wortham World Of Primates and, at the moment, it’s occupied by a baby orangutan who’s just trying to get some shut-eye.
Written by Amanda Daly, Houston Zoo Natural Encounters Supervisor
