Cheeky Wandering Tapir Gets Stranded In Melaka Hotel Parking Lot On New Year’s Day

By Syakir Roslan  •  03 Jan 2023 in News

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Happy new year dear readers! Did you go anywhere exciting for the holidays? I know that this endangered four-legged critter certainly did.

This past Sunday (1 Jan), a curious tapir was sighted wandering around the fifth floor of the Estadia Hotel’s parking lot in Bandar Hilir, Melaka.

It took over five hours for responders from the Fire and Rescue Services Department and the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) officials to catch the female tapir.

According to NST, Perhilitan director Mohd Firdaus Mahmood stated that they had been tracking the animal for about two weeks after receiving several complaints but couldn’t pinpoint its exact location.

“We suspect that the animal got lost after coming out from the jungle to forage for food where it ended up wandering into the hotel grounds all the way up to the fifth floor by using the staircase on the side of the hotel building,” said Firdaus.

A total of ten Perhilitan members were dispatched to calm down and capture the stranded tapir. Three tranquilizer darts were fired to incapacitate the animal which weighed approximately 250kg.

Thankfully, the tapir was successfully transported out of the parking lot and only suffered minor injuries to its legs. Currently, it’s being treated at the Malacca Zoo before being sent off to the National Wildlife Rescue Centre (NWRC) in Sungkai, Perak.

General manager of Hatten Hotels Worldwide which owns the Estadia hotel, Datuk Chuck Kassim, said that this incident “was truly a New Year’s surprise for all of us at the Hatten Group”.