Noriega’s Mountain Hideaway in Panama Used as Refuge for Endangered Tapirs

A few tapirs still chomp on bananas and lounge under shade trees at a mountain retreat in western Panama that once belonged to Gen. Manuel Noriega.

But life is not so easy for most tapirs--pig-like jungle beasts that were among the former dictator’s favorite pets.

“They are definitely endangered. Their habitat is being destroyed through deforestation and they’re being hunted,” said Juan Carlos Navarro, executive director of Panama’s Nature Conservation Assn.

More than 125,000 acres of Panamanian rain forest disappear each year, reducing the tapirs’ natural habitat and making them an easier target for game hunters.

These threats have prompted zoologists to pay closer attention to the bulky creatures, which look like the offspring of a pig and an anteater but are more closely related to horses and rhinoceroses.

Zoologists from the United States and Central America are stepping up visits to Noriega’s 65-acre estate outside David, the capital of Chiriqui province, to deliver medicine and teach tapir care. They hope to propagate Panama’s captive tapir population, the largest in Central America, so that some may one day be exported to U.S. and Central American zoos.

“Never before has anyone paid so much attention to them,” said Raul Montenegro, who is responsible for looking after the five tapirs on Noriega’s estate.

Montenegro, president of Chiriqui’s Environmental Protection Assn., said zoologists from as far away as San Diego make regular visits to the mountain retreat.

Tapirs are found in tropical America, Malaysia and Sumatra. Adult males weigh up to 700 pounds. They are excellent swimmers and head for the nearest river or lake when stalked by jaguars, their No. 1 enemy in the wild.

The Central American variety, which roams rain forests from southern Mexico to Panama, is the national animal of Belize.

Despite a usually timid nature and a fondness for napping, tapirs can become ferocious when disturbed--a trait that earned them the nickname “machos del monte,” or “strong men of the mountains,” in Panama.

During Noriega’s six-year stint as Panama’s military dictator, he flew tapirs, llamas and other exotic animals to his mountain hideaway. After the U.S. invasion that overthrew him, many of his animals were stolen or were moved to nature reserves. But the tapirs, too bulky to steal, remained at the estate.

Montenegro said he is optimistic that efforts to protect the animals will succeed, but he warned that reproduction in captivity, the goal at Noriega’s estate, has not been easy.