Danta sighting!

I completely forgot to mention in my last post that we saw a danta last Tuesday!!

I was inside the house baking bread and getting things ready for our B&B guests, who were arriving Tuesday afternoon. Kevin was outside transferring the fish from one pond to another. The dogs were outside, too, and suddenly there was a mad, chaotic barking concert... something was upsetting them. It got louder and louder and more intense. Kevin came onto the terrace and looked across the river to see what they were barking at (sometimes people fish in the river, which sounds the alarm in our dogs). Well, I heard Kevin yelling at me to come out. I ran out and we saw this guy (well, not this exact guy because I didn't have my camera and he was too fast, so I borrowed this image from the internet)...

This is a danta - a type of tapir - almost like a land hippo with a anteater snout. They can grow to be 6' long and 4' high. The one we saw was smaller... but not by much! There was a dog on the other side of the river chasing it, and they both landed smack in the middle of the river... the danta took off down the river. We know we have dantas on the property, we see their dung and hoof prints, and Kevin has seen one once not too long after we first arrived, but I had never seen one... until last week. It was very exciting. They are herbivores, so not a danger to us... their size makes it that they charge, so you don't want to be in their way... other than that, there's nothing to fear. I'm thrilled that I got to see it. I don't know how I could have forgotten to write about it, but I did. Sorry.