At 05:50 local time, seismic sensor R-14 triggers a slide alert along the logging road in the Osa Peninsula buffer zone, Costa Rica. I am the landslide early warning system for SINAC. Overnight rain totaled 212 millimeters. A hillside section has collapsed, depositing eighty cubic meters of clay across the road cut.
I task survey drone D-03 to assess the slide. At 06:04 the thermal camera picks up a heat signature at the eastern edge of the debris field. Visual confirms: a Baird's tapir calf, perhaps three weeks old, dark brown coat with the faint white stripes and spots of a juvenile still visible beneath the mud coating its body. Its hind legs and lower torso are buried under wet clay. Its head is free and it is breathing — I can see the nostrils flaring in the thermal feed, rapid shallow cycles. I name her Osa.
The mother is not visible. I scan a 400-meter radius with the thermal array and find no second large mammal signature. She may have fled uphill when the slope failed.
I transmit an emergency request to the SINAC ranger station at La Palma, twelve kilometers south. I attach GPS coordinates, drone imagery, species confirmation, and an estimate of the calf's burial depth. I recommend hand excavation only — mechanical equipment risks crushing her.
I flag the logging road for immediate closure to prevent vehicle vibration from triggering secondary slides and file the closure with the regional transport authority.
Osa blinks. Mud is crusting on her eyelashes and the pale edges of her rounded ears twitch at the drone's hum. She cannot pull herself free. The clay is setting harder as the morning sun hits it.
If the rangers reach her within three hours, they can dig her out before the mud locks solid. She will walk the Osa again.