In March 2009, we received a male Malayan tapir from the Nihondaira Zoo in Shizuoka City and a female from the Yokohama Zoo in October of the same year, and began breeding them. The two animals were well matched, and after confirming mating, the long-awaited baby was born after a gestation period of approximately 400 days.

■The birth of a friendly couple?
　Malayan tapirs are naturally solitary animals, but the two were often seen bathing together and chasing each other. Sometimes the male chased the female too persistently, or the female would pee on him and he would come back to the bedroom with a dirty face.
　On April 24, 2010, a female was restless as she wandered around after going out to the exercise yard, and a male chased after her. They excitedly and violently chirped at each other, and then we saw them mating for the first time.

■Expectant Pregnancy and Birth
We have confirmed mating several times since then, but it is hard to tell from the outside whether or not she is pregnant. The gestation period of Malayan tapirs is about 400 days. For the sake of breeding management, we would like to find out if they are pregnant as soon as possible, but we cannot test them as easily as we can with humans.
　Although they generally have a docile image and are relatively friendly to humans, they weigh more than 300 kg and have sharp teeth even though they are herbivores. They also move surprisingly fast, so if they were to lunge forward and bite you, you would have no choice but to kill them.
　Male baku are so accustomed to humans that they will usually lie down when you brush their bodies, allowing you to draw blood and trim their hooves. Even so, there have been many times when they have stood up suddenly, causing the staff to cringe. The female, on the other hand, is very timid and runs away when the staff approaches her. We could not even touch her and could not determine whether she was pregnant or not. Thus began our long days of training with Baku.

　Little by little, we tried to shorten the distance between us and Baku, and repeated touching him a little, only to have him run away and chase us. Thanks to our efforts, six months after the start of training, we finally succeeded in brushing Baku. When the brush felt good, the female Baku closed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, showing a more expressive side than the male.
　Training continued, and we were able to get to the point where we could apply the echo device to her abdomen, but she immediately moved, and unfortunately we were unable to obtain enough images to confirm pregnancy. However, seeing the female's belly growing steadily, we were confident that she was pregnant.
　On June 23, 2011, one of our staff members touched her udder during brushing and saw that she was producing milk, so we decided that delivery was imminent and prepared for it by spreading a lot of hay in the bedroom. Two days later, on the morning of June 25, we looked into the bedroom and saw a striped baby next to its mother.

■ Baby's Playground Debut
After giving birth, mothers are desperate to protect their babies. Any human who approaches the bedroom will be intimidated and will have to pee on her. The mothers become so agitated when staff enter the bedrooms that they are unable to clean the rooms and can only throw food into the room.
　The day after the baby was born, we were able to confirm that it was nursing, and it began sucking on the hay and vegetables fed to it by its mother, growing up quickly. However, since we did not yet know the sex of the baby, it was necessary to remove the baby from its mother.
　At 18 days old, it was the baby's debut day on the playground. First, we took only the mother outside to determine the baby's sex and weigh it. The sex was female and the weight was 15.45 kg. At that time, the baby made a single "beep. At that moment, the mother in the playground started to get very excited, and we hurriedly returned her baby to her mother. A staff member, who was watching from nearby, immediately opened the bedroom door, and the parent and child were accommodated in the bedroom anyway. The excited mother soon calmed down, probably because she felt safe in the bedroom. Fortunately, the baby was not seriously injured, so after about 10 minutes had passed, we released them back into the exercise area. This time, both babies were calm and we were able to let them out into the exercise area for about 40 minutes that day.

　The baby then grew day by day, and at about two months of age, the area around the body turned white and the patterns on the face and legs began to fade. Also, after four months of age, the baby began eating more fruit and grass on the playground than mother's milk, and began to take to the water just like its mother.
　This winter, they will change to a complete black-and-white pattern like their parents and grow to about half the size of their parents.　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　(Tatsuhiro Motomasa)