People used to call Mindoro as the "Land of the Tamaraws". About 10,000 heads of these unique pygmy water buffalos were roaming around the island-province of Mindoro in the 1900s. But that was a century ago. Today, the Tamaraws in the province are in danger of extinction, and Mindoro might lose the symbol that it once proudly introduced to the world.
The Tamaraw, scientifically known as Bubalus mindorensis, is endemic to Mindoro. Belonging to the family of buffalos, the same categorical group of the Philippine carabao, the Tamaraw is the largest endangered land animal in the Philippines today. In 1996, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed it as one of the ten most endangered species in the world.
The Tamaraw measures between five to six feet in length and weighs about 300 kilograms. While it shares many similarities with the carabao, the Tamaraw is most known for its horns, with a "V" form, unlike the horns of the carabao, which take a curved shape. The Tamaraw's horns grow about 14 to 20 inches long.
From 10,000 heads in the 1900's, the Tamaraw population went down to 369 heads in the late 1980's. Today, reports say there are as few as 20 heads roaming in the wild.
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