Almendra, a young tapir, is fed with a bottle at the Joya Grande zoo in the mountainous north of Honduras, which the government confiscated from drug traffickers six years ago.

Now it forms part of a project to rescue the threatened Central American tapirs.

The species has been driven out of its natural habitat throughout Central America by deforestation, while its trusting, amiable nature makes it susceptible to hunters.

The conservation project aims to protect several other species as well in an area covering 220 hectares of forest and grasslands.

After its seizure from the Los Cachiros drug cartel, the park was entrusted in 2014 to the Noah's Ark company run by the vet Maria Diaz.

She told AFP her aim is to boost the number of tapirs - a slow-moving animal related to horses, donkeys, and zebras but which looks more like pigs with a shiny black coat - with the eventual goal of a "controlled" release into the wild.

AFP