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In early August, we told you about the poor tapir that was knocked down and killed in Ladyville and then later dismembered. Well, today Dr. Omar Figueroa, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Forestry expressed his distaste for such a cruel and inhumane act and underscored how important it is to protect our wildlife.

Hon. Omar Figueroa - Minister of State, Environment
"For a country like Belize that is known across the planet for the way we protect and we manage our natural resources and our environment, to have something like this happen is a serious black eye that we as a country, as a people, as a government cannot allow, cannot allow these kinds of incidents to happen. Clearly, if someone went out there and dismembered, remove the leg, my guess is as good as yours to what they intend to do with that. It is usually I think, if we look around our country, talk to Belizeans, usually I haven't met many Belizeans that even those that love game meat that actually looked at the tapir as a source of protein. We need to be careful moving forward, tapir is our national animal, we need to do a lot of education, a lot of outreach to ensure that this doesn't happen again. I certainly would not like to see us move to become a country where we don't cherish our wildlife, we have pumas and jaguars and tapirs are dismembered and are killed on a regular basis. We need to understand that a big attraction we have in this country is our really healthy natural environment; jaguars, pumas, tapirs and a lot of tourists actually get attracted to Belize because of that healthy environment that we have."