In all my years of watching telly, I have never watched a programme where I can say that I have enjoyed as much as I do with Meerkat Manor. I cannot wait for the next 2 episodes to be shown the following week that's how much I enjoy this programme.
I have laughed and cried (more like sobbed), I have sat on the edge of my seat, I have yelled at the telly, jumped towards the telly wanting to smack someone. I have experienced every emotion with this programme. This is just to show anyone who reads this that you will experience the same if you watch this.
I will begin by introducing this programme briefly as it is now in the 2nd season.
A group of researchers from Cambridge university have been studying a group of approxiamtely 40 meerkats in the Kalahari desert in South Africa for 10 years. They have followed their every move every single day and have fibre optic cameras to go down into the meerkat burrows and boltholes.
Each of these 40 or so meerkats have been named. Even when a new litter of pups are born, each pup gets a name. The group of meerkats that have been followed by these researchers are named the Whiskers group.
The dominant kat in each gang/group is female with a dominant male who is the only male kat allowed to mate with the female.
The meerkat is a 30 cm furry little rodent who are very territorial creatures. The meerkat live in the Kalahari desert and will fight to the death. They are very patriotic towards their fellow group members. The lady kat usually has 2 litters a year giving birth to about 4 or 5 pups each litter. If another female kat in the group give birth to pups, the dominant female will either kill the pups or allow the pups into the group. Sometimes the dominant female will evict the other female from the group should she become pregnant leaving the kat to fend for herself. This is distastrous for the evicted female as she is entirely on her own to defend herself from predators. The eviction could last for the rest of the female kats life or the dominant female will allow her back into the group after a period of time. This depends entirely on the mood of the dominant kat.
These furry creatures go out every day to forage for food as they do not store fat and it is vital for them to eat every single day to survive. They live on insects, worms and lizards. Watching them eat is interesting because they eat these "meals" alive. One can see the scorpion or skink still wriggling in their mouths LOL. If they catch a millipede they start eating this worm from behind and you can see the half eaten worm trying to escape from the kat.
The meerkat is prey for the eagles and snakes in the desert. There are also other meerkat groups in the Kalahari that have been named, the Lazuli and the Commandos. These are the Whiskers rivals who also have burrows and boltholes they protect. Each group of meerkat has a territory of about 3kms squared.
Enough of the introduction. I will continue with the "soapie" in the blogs to follow.
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