Cheshire Tapir at WPZ

Seattle, Washington ~ November 5, 2014 Malayan Tapir at Woodland Park Zoo
Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle has two viewing windows so you can see both of their Malayan tapirs at one time. The glass makes it possible to get very close to the tapirs, but it also creates some havoc with photos. Here you see the amazing Cheshire Tapir (fade in, fade out like the Cheshire Cat) with raindrops, November leaves, and part of my Natural History Museum sweatshirt. Photo by Sheryl Todd.
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Reflections in a Tapir's Eye

Seattle, Washington ~ May 5, 2008

Woodland Park Zoo

Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus)

I'm posting these photos today to take part in James's Weekend Reflections, but I've been meaning to post them for some time. It's not often that you get to see a tapir eye this closely. The glass-fronted enclosure allows you to see the tapirs very close much of the time. The white blobs on the right side of the second photo are unfocused reflections of a "T is for Tapir" t-shirt, white on black, although the tapir on the shirt is a different species (Baird's tapir) from the one in the photos above (Malayan tapir).

I also find it so strange and somehow both comforting and frightening to look at an animal's eye this closely. How can we think of harming, neglecting, killing, or eradicating an animal who looks out of something that reminds us so much of our own eyes? We are kindred. How can we think otherwise?

Please e-mail your photos and text if you would like to see them on this blog.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.
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Tapir salad and slide shows

Hi All,

I've added another tapir slide show to the site - this time it's on the Malayan tapir pictures page:

http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/asian/pix-liv/

The photo above does not move, so don't worry about it, it's just a teaser for the slide show. This pic was sent by Heidi Frohring, who many of you will remember was a totally one-of-a-kind tapir keeper at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. She named this photo "Tapir Salad." There are many of her photos in the slide show/album. As of today, I don't have them all labelled. I've spent the day working on some stuff for the gift shop. I'm starting to use slide shows there, too. It's loads of fun. We're going to sort the animals regionally in addition to the other ways we have them sorted, and I've started with the Galapagos page (which has relatively few animals on it). It's not done yet as of this moment, but you can look at.

~ Sheryl

Reflections

http://groups.google.com/group/tapirs/browse_thread/thread/16fd73198b59b647

It's World Tapir Day!

This is Bintang, one of the Malayan tapirs born at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle during the time Heidi Frohring was their keeper and best friend. Heidi sent me this photo in December 2000. You can just see Heidi behind the tapir and its wreath made of foliage. She found many creative ways to use plants and other tapir food to keep the animals interested and occupied. Over the years she sent wonderful photos, creative pictures with heart. Someone else must have taken this photo, since Heidi is in it. (If you took the photo, please let me know and I'll give photo credit.) It embodies the same spirit as many of Heidi's own photos. The tapirs become real to us through their expressive faces and gestures, or the photos captured them in lighting or a moment that is memorable and touches something within us. We relate and we care.

SEND YOUR WORLD TAPIR DAY PHOTOS AND WE WILL POST THEM!

Personally, I'm celebrating World Tapir Day not so differently from other days. Making blog posts, working on the web site, sending animal toys and gifts to people who order them online, e-mailing others involved in the tapir world. Also typically, I'm wearing a tapir t-shirt and (since this is the Pacific Northwest, after all) wearing a tapir sweatshirt over that. Next week I'll be visiting Seattle to celebrate my birthday and to meet Wilson Novarino, a tapir conservationist, researcher, and educator from Sumatra, Indonesia. The Tapir Preservation Fund has helped in a small way to support his work since we met online nearly a decade ago. I'm certainly looking forward to meeting in person, and of course, to renew acquaintances with the wonderful staff and the tapirs at Woodland Park Zoo. I have a few friends in that city as well. It will be fun. I'll be sure, as always, to wear tapirs and take my camera!

Whatever you are doing today, the FIRST ANNUAL WORLD TAPIR DAY, please think of these animals and look forward to a world in which more people will know of them through your efforts and to care about their conservation. Wear a shirt from the Tapir Gift Shop or CafePress (search for the word "tapir"). Or make your own wearable tapir art. Talk to people when your shirt becomes a conversation piece! I recently bought myself a mouse pad of the mountain tapir on the tapir items page, and immediately Lee asked to have it, as he has also fallen under the spell of the tapir. Anthony Long, who came up with the original idea for World Tapir Day, has provided tapir items you can buy in his World Tapir Day Store on CafePress. Proceeds from your purchase will go to tapir conservation projects, and this year's funded project will be April and the other Baird's tapirs at the Belize Zoo. During the summer months, tourism slows down and it's always a struggle to get enough money to feed the animals. If we all pitch in, we can help ease the burden this year. Sharon (the zoo's founder and director) is an amazing person who has done so much to create a climate of conservation awareness in Belize and an awareness among locals and tourists of Belize's wild animals. She's created many conservation models in Belize that really work and have been an inspiration to others in the field. Let's help her feed the tapirs this year!

Fortunately these days when you google tapirs, you come up with a lot of material. Try it, it's fun! Meanwhile, here are just a few links relevant to this post:

The Official World Tapir Day Website
Anthony's Tapir Blog
April's recent birthday party
Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle

Heidi Frohring Memorial Web Site (letter from Jeff)

From: Jeff Mihalyo
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 1:59 PM
Subject: Heidi Frohring memorial web site.

Hello all,

I hope this message finds you well.

This past spring Heidi has been in my thoughts as she would have been 40 years old on April 6th. May first also marks the 2nd year of her passing. In March I had performed an online search to see if there was any reference to her still out there and discovered much of it disappearing. So I copied what I could find and put it all into one site. Picture and text can be enjoyed at

http://www.mihalyo.com/heidi

This was an emotional process for me as I pored overhundreds of photographs and selected these to represent the part of her life that I shared with her. If any of you have some good photographs or stories, please send them along and I'll add them. I know some of you have good ones. This site is part of my fine art site, and therefore should remain live indefinitely. I also registered it with search engines so that others out there can findit as well. Please forward as you see fit... I'm sure many of the address I have for her friends have expired by now.

Best regards

-Jeff

-- Jeff Mihalyo --

Fine Art
http://www.mihalyo.com/

Commercial Art
http://www.mihalyostudios.com/

Remembering Heidi and her tapir photos

Heidi Frohring, a friend and the tapir keeper at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, passed away May 1, 2005. Yesterday I came across a folder of 96 of the photos she'd sent me over the past few years. Most of them are of the tapirs at the Woodland Park Zoo. One or two are of tapirs elsewshere, a few are of her human friends, there are couple of Heidi, a few are of other animals, and one is of flowers. Putting them online properly takes such a long time, and I wanted to get them up quickly so everyone could enjoy them. Click on either photo above and you'll find a list of picture links. Click on each link separately to see the photo. There is also a zip file with all of the photos that you can download near the top of the picture list.

I love Heidi's photos. Like her, they are creative, interesting, and bursting with character. They also give a sense of how much she loved her tapirs.