All four tapir species are threatened or endangered, with road mortality, habitat loss, and hunting creating welfare challenges across their ranges in Central and South America and Southeast Asia.
Tapirs killed in vehicle collisions die through traumatic injury — road mortality is an acutely welfare-relevant cause of death affecting a species with significant cognitive complexity. Tapirs are shy, intelligent mammals that use complex memory of fruit trees and water sources in their range — individuals have rich environmental knowledge that is lost with their death. Orphaned tapir calves whose mothers are killed by vehicles or hunters require years of specialized care before independence. Hunting pressure in some range areas creates chronic stress and population fragmentation that isolates individuals from conspecifics needed for reproduction. Wildlife crossing infrastructure in key highway corridors has demonstrated effectiveness for tapir passage in Brazil, addressing both mortality and population connectivity.