[UPDATED] A baby Malayan tapir was born in Scotland, and you can vote for his name!

[UPDATE 13/2/2019: Well, you ‘COULD’VE’ voted. They’ve closed the poll, a day after we published this article! But if you’re only finding out about this, read on for some context. At time of update we’re not sure which name took the #1 spot, but we’re guessing it’s the one that rhymes with “Amagadddddddd!!!!!”.]

Recently, the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland has announced the birth of a Malaysian tapir to his parents, Mowgli and Sayang. The little tapir is the eighth baby tapir ever born in the zoo since 2007, and is also the fourth child of Mowgli and Sayang, aged 10 and 16.

The great tapir of this story is… The Edinburgh Zoo now allows the public to choose the name of the baby tapir, and the exciting part of this is that the names you can choose from include Malay names! So if you wanna vote for your favorite name, read on. But before that, you should know…

The tapir is among the most endangered species that’s protected in Malaysia

In case you didn’t know, tapir Malaysia is the largest tapir species in the world and the only tapir species from Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia, as well as parts of Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand. According to reports from the last two years, the estimates of the wild tapir population in Peninsular Malaysia range from 1,100 to 1,500 and this number is still expected to decline by the International Environmental Conservation Union (IUCN).

Today, Malaysian tapir species face several types of threats, and the largest of them is deforestation for the cultivation of oil palm plantations. In addition, Malaysian tapirs are also victims of illegal hunting and road accidents.

However, there are currently several efforts to rescue and treat these tapirs in Malaysia, including the Malaysian Tapir Conservation Project conducted on the Dusun River with the Copenhagen Zoo.

“Since the center has become a conservation reserve for tapirs in 2004, 62 tapirs have been taken care of and treated.

However, some of them were released into the original habitat and now there are 12 left that need to be treated and stored for tapir breeding purposes.”- Head of Dusun River Conservation Center, Alfie Syahril Anewar Ahmad, was quoted in a Harian Metro interview from 2017 (translated from BM)

However, Malaysia is not the only country to hold such tapir conservation projects, and the newborn baby tapir at the Edinburgh Zoo is also the result of a European breeding program aimed at protecting these species from extinction. 

So if you wanna know how to choose the baby’s name…

Vote for your favorite name for tapir baby!

Thankfully the zoo is smart enough to list down six names for bebe tapir instead of letting the public decide from scratch, because we all know what happened the last time someone did that…

Juuuussssst to letchu know, Bintang was in the lead yesterday at but after Soscili published their article, Megat went from #4 to #1 with a whopping 2,703 votes! If you wanna join in the fun, you can just click here or on the photo below:

[This story is a translation. For the original in BM, go to our sister site Soscili.my]