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These gentle, prehistoric looking animals are tapirs.
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They're descendants of mammals that roam the earth for more than 20 million years.
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Worldwide, only four species remain.
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In Costa Rica lives one of the rarest, the Central American tapir.
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Local biologist Esteban Brenesmara is fighting to ensure they forever remain a part of his country's forest.
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Hi there.
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Hi.
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You must be Ray.
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Yes, I am.
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Welcome to the Tapir Valley.
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It's an honor having you here.
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I want to meet the tapirs and learn about the trees that mean everything about this magical place that you've been working on.
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Well, I love talking about tapirs and they're my favorite animals, so I'm always happy to show them to everyone visiting the valley.
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Tapir Valley Nature Reserve lies between Tenorio Volcano National Park and the forested slopes of Mira Vayas Volcano, forming a critical link for wildlife moving through northern Costa Rica.
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What is so interesting about this species?
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Tapirs.
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They're one of the cutest, but also one of the most weird looking animals in the world.
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Aside from elephants, they're the only animals that can use there's now to grab food from northern Argentina to central Mexico.
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There's no other land mammal that's bigger than them.
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Weighting around £500.
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Tapirs will eat around 70 lbs of vegetation, fruits, roots and leaves in one day, £70 a day.
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No wonder they're so big.
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The Central American Tapir are listed as endangered and we have less than 5000 individuals living in the wild.
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The main threat tapirs face is habitat loss.
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Other threats that they face is poaching, getting hit by cars in the road, and they are now getting exposed to diseases that comes related to cattle ranching expansion.
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At this over 250 acre private reserve, a small community of tapirs have found a foothold in Tapir Valley.
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We have around 11 to 12 resident tapirs that they come and go.
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We have 6 that are the core.
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Tapirs spend most of their lives alone.
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But when romance enters the picture, well, the drama can rival one of Latin America's famous telenovelas.
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Females are the ones owning the territory.
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Mamita is like the queen of the valley.
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She's been at least 18 years in the valley.
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We have Paco and Lola.
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That's a new romance in the valley.
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Paco used to be Lunita Ping's boyfriend, but all of a sudden Lunita was kicked to the other side of the valley.
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Then we have Gaia, who's the youngest of the valley and the smallest.
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Then we have a Miguel Felipe who lives down in the valley and he's kind of always afraid of Mamita.
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Then we have Julian, Marco Julian, who's probably my favorite 1.
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He is like the spoiled children of Mamita.
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And they all have their own telenovela.
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They have their own dramas.
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They fight.
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They are together, then they fight again.
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This special place has not always been called Tapir Valley.
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It is so beautiful.
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And I want to introduce you to a good friend of mine.
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Hello.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Hi, Donald.
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Hi, Donald.
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Welcome to Tapir Valley.
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This is your valley, and this is your nursery.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Wow.
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Restoring local wildlife habitat has always been a dream of naturalist Donald Varela.
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When this degraded cattle ranch went up for sale in 2004, he seized the opportunity.
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Donald planted native trees, allowing the forest to rewild naturally.
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Before long, the valley had earned a new name.
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We had seen footprints in the back, but I'd never seen a tapir in my life.
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And we saw two tapirs just crossing on the path that we were walking by.
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It was the most amazing moment in my life.
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I guess that inspired me to start working to also save tapirs.
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Donald didn't bring the tapirs back.
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He brought back the forest and the tapirs followed.
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Tapirs love sapote like guava trees, a lot of the ficus trees, a lot of the Inga trees, and especially the Hikarodanto tree.
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Hikarolanto, it can only be found in Costa Rica and that's it.
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Nowhere else in the world Hikarolantos are listed as endangered.
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So these are the trees we have here and the nursery that we have been able to germinate and reproduce from the rainforest.
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Oh wow.
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And this is the Hikarodanto.
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This is the seed.
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Look how beautiful this is.
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Donald cultivates Hikarodantos because not only are they the tapir's favorite food, the tapirs can help save this tree from extinction.
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Hikarolanto.
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They 100% rely on tapirs to be dispersed.
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Tapirs are the only animal capable of chewing through the hard crust and then swallowing the seeds.
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And then they are deposited in these beds full of nutrients and they start growing.
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Wow the soil looks so rich and healthy.
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I hereby plant this Hikaro Danta tree for all of the future tapers to eat and for the symbiotic relationship to go on.
