The Boom Road continues to be a hazard for Belize's national animal, the tapir. This was demonstrated last night when a light pickup truck knocked down a young male Tapir crossing the Boom Road. The driver - a policeman in his private vehicle - says the Tapir came running out of the bushes and he couldn't avoid a collision. As these pictures show, the front end of his pickup was substantially damaged. But while the pickup can be repaired, the young tapir cannot: the impact left him with a broken back and leg. A resident of the area had to do the humane thing and put him down.
It's a sad scene, to see the carcass of the national animal being hauled across the pavement like that - and the Belize Zoo has been monitoring these accidents since 2008. The Zoo's Education Director Celso Poot says it's the second time this has happened in two weeks:
Voice of: Celso Poot - Education Director, Belize Zoo
"The crew from the zoo retrieved the body and brought it out to where we have a site where we collect the skeletal for education purposes from dead animals. The Burrell Boom seemed to be a hotspot for Tapir vehicle collision, the Burrell Boom road. The area seemed to have a high density of tapirs and in the past 2 weeks have recorded 2 mortalities. What I noticed in the area recently is a lot of forest fires, the savannah is burning all areas of Burrell Boom road and that is probably causing these young male Tapir to venture our further in search of food and other resources like water. Tapirs are active mostly at dusk and at dawn, so as night is setting in and early in the morning, that is when they are more active and you find out that that is when you have most of the collisions as well."
"One of the thing is that the Tapir camouflage very well with the road from the Boom and most of the Boom road, is not lit. So, my advice would be for drivers to be aware that tapirs use the Boom road, they cross the Boom road, not only tapirs, I actually saw a jaguar on the Boom road myself and so wildlife use this area - is drive within the prescribed speed limit and be alert that wildlife are using the area to cross from one side of the road to the other."
Poot stresses that this is a high density area for the tapir's and they do regularly cross the highway.
Notably, from 2008 to 2012 - 5 to 6 tapir deaths were seen; in 2015 there was only one, in 2016 there were none, and now there have already been two in 2017.
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