In October 2025, Patricia Medici and her team tried something they hadn’t dared to do in years. They darted three tapirs in the Amazonian rainforest.

“We trusted the equipment, and it worked perfectly. We were able to find all three tapirs again, even though they ran off into the forest after we darted them. Without the transmitter dart, we would have never dared to try that,” Patricia Medici explains.

The three tapirs were fitted with GPS collars so Patricia Medici and her team can track their movements in the Carajás National Forest, Pará State, Brazil, to understand how these “gardeners of the rainforest” move through the area, which is also home to the world's largest iron ore mine.

The research is an important part of the conservation work that Patricia Medici has devoted her professional life to. In 1992, she co-founded the Brazilian non-governmental organization IPÊ (Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas/Institute for Ecological Research), where she oversees the Lowland Tapir Conservation Initiative (LTCI) established in 1996.

Photo credit: Raquel Alves

Stressful without a transmitter dart

Patricia Medici and her team study tapirs across various biomes, selecting the most suitable methods for capturing them in each area based on the local environment. Sometimes they use box traps and pitfalls, but often they prefer to locate and immobilize the animals.

However, for the last five years, the team has not had access to transmitter darts due to the pandemic and the fact that they went out of production.

“Darting tapirs without the transmitter darts was super stressful because we had to make quick decisions on whether to dart the animals or not. If they were too close to the forest, we couldn’t do it, but if they were maybe 500 meters from the edge of the forest, we would take our chances, but still, there is a risk that it will run off.”

Photo credit: Raquel Alves

Both rugged and light

However, with the new transmitter dart in her arsenal, she can always choose this solution when she wants to be on the safe side. And her experiences with the new dart have been positive.

“I must say, I am in love with the new product. The previous devices we have used in the past had a certain lifetime, but now we can just recharge the battery. Additionally, previous transmitters were more fragile, and we experienced issues where they sometimes stopped working due to the dart's impact on the animal, resulting in the loss of some animals that ran off. But the new transmitters are more rugged, and actually, so far I have reused the same one for all the dartings,” she says.

Patricia Medici also emphasizes TrackDart's weight and construction as notable improvements.

“It's really, really light. The previous models I used were much heavier, so this is super helpful because the more weight you add, the less stable the dart becomes. With a lighter and more stable dart, we can now dart the animals from 25 meters away instead of 15. That’s a great advantage.“

Ready for the next expedition

In March 2026, Patricia Medici and her team will return to the field to study tapirs, this time in the Caatinga of northeastern Brazil, where tapirs were previously believed to be extinct until Patricia Medici discovered them during an expedition in 2023. Now, the team is returning to study the tapirs and how they survive in this extremely dry environment.

And this time, the TrackDart will be part of the equipment.

“We’ll probably use traps in Caatinga, but we’ll have the rifle with us. I always make jokes with my team that when we are in the field, wherever we go, we have the rifle and we have the darts ready to go, because who knows when you will see a tapir, so we're always ready for catching.”

Photo credit: Lucas Ninno

Photo credit: Raquel Alves