Helping Melancia: A young tapir's journey to recovery
News
The devastating manmade fires in Brazil's Pantanal region have wreaked havoc on the habitats of countless wild animals like Melancia, a young tapir. With your wonderful support, she’s preparing to return to her wild home very soon.
Image credit: Onçafari
Found in critical condition with severe burns on her paws, Melancia's injuries were so severe that they exposed her bones and severely limited her movements. But thanks to the wonderful support of animal lovers like you, she’s becoming stronger and healthier every day.
Young Melancia was found without her mother, which made her recovery process even more challenging. With your support, she and another tapir Valente who shares a similar fate, are receiving innovative treatment with tilapia skin, a technique used on severe burns.
While Valente is close to returning to his natural habitat, Melancia will need more time to fully recover. She will need to learn essential survival behaviours before being reintroduced into the wild.
How you’re helping wildlife in Brazil
Tapirs like Melancia are essential to the ecosystem, spreading seeds that help forests thrive. But the survival of tapirs and other wildlife in the region is under huge threat, with the factory farming activities of meat-producing giants like JBS destroying their habitats.
Fires are being deliberately started to grow soy and corn in wildlife habitats like Melancia’s home. Then, these corporations purchase these crops to feed the animals on their factory farms a cheap and inadequate diet to make them reach slaughter weight.
And it’s not just wildlife who are hurt because of this. Many traditional communities who depend on these forests for their livelihoods are also deeply affected by these fires and are struggling to survive.
But with your help, World Animal Protection is supporting Onçafari in the rehabilitation of Melancia, Valente and more animals like them. You’re helping provide nutritious food, and veterinary care, as well as helping with logistics. With your support, together, we are tackling the root cause of this problem and are able to monitor the recovery of affected wild animals until they return to the wild.
Thanks to your amazing support, these sweet tapirs will soon make it back to the wild, where they belong.
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