More tapircraft

I wholly endorse the crafting of tapirs, in any form you care to choose. I've crafted a few myself.  But this one takes the cake (or mango, if you will.)  I found this via the World Tapir Day's Facebook page and had to borrow a couple of photos for the blog here.

WTD said "Katie Shea Stevens made a life size tapir out of paper mache for the Belize Zoo. Don't forget that April 27th is World Tapir Day, and the Belize Zoo will be having special activities for it. The paper mache tapir is currently on display at the zoo."

I'm a bit adverse to the use of the word "awesome" but this truly is. Love it.

Who could resist this face?

Paper mache tapir is a Baird's tapir native to Central America and northern South America.  Like the other three tapir species, Baird's tapir is endangered.  In Belize, Baird's tapir are called "mountain cow" and are the country's national animal.  Hence the Belize Zoo's enthusiasm for paper mache tapirs.

Nice rump.

The full set of photos can be found here. I think this effort would make Belize Zoo tapir April happy, she looks quite pleased here:

[source]

Plus WTD is always celebrated on April's birthday, April 27th.  Yes, there will be cake.

Mango milkshake

I rustled up this pillowcase this weekend, as I'd made a few tapir embroideries, but not one for myself yet.

minus mandrills

This blog is always minus mandrills...actually I don't like primates much at all really. Anyway, last weekend we journeyed to Adelaide for a visit to Hubert's daughter and very much enjoyed seeing her. Can't say I really enjoy the outer Northern suburbs of Adelaide, but that's by the by. One of the joyous things about Adelaide is that their zoo has not one, but two species of tapir! This of course, probably does not excite you, as you have have to be a tapir lover, and I'm guessing that the mandrill fanclub has more members than the tapir lovers, but I am not bothered by this. I was excited. And that's all that counts.


The tapirs remained indifferent to my presence, the Malayan ones (above) content to stay dozing under their fig tree. The Brazilian tapirs only perked up when a keeper bought them some leafy matter to munch on.

before

after

But nevertheless, I had seen real live tapirs! Cheers all round.

PS. the other big attraction at the Adelaide Zoo are the giant pandas, Wang Wang and Funi. They are very cute. But they don't have proboscises. Proboscides?!

tapircraft

Once upon a time, the lovely Ruth drew a tapir, and it was cute. So Steph offered to embroider it for her. And some time around Easter, a tapir pillowcase was born. And Ruth was pleased. And Steph was happy.