Meerkats

This past Friday I took a visit to the Fellow Earthlings Wildlife Center in Morongo Valley, CA. There are only 9 animals that currently call the center home: one small very tame rooster, one giant dog, and seven incredibly cute meerkats. Here are some pictures from our trip.


This is a meerkat. Again, cute. Their habit of standing allows them to have a better view of possible predators, especially over the tall grasses of the Kalahari.

Up-close view of a meerkat's face. Still pretty cute. The dark color around their eyes allows them to stare right into the sun to see predators. They can also send extra blood to their ears, causing their ears to swell and keep dirt out when they dig, which they do pretty much all of the time.

This is my hand with a little mealworm in it. That's what they eat for the most part. However, it turns out that zoos feed them something called Nebraska Meat mix (or something like that) which is ground up meat from various animals. Meerkats in most zoos live 5-6 years. Meerkats at the center live over 12 years. Its pretty sad.

Pete and Lauri feeding meerkats. They look really friendly, but this pair went inside of a box and stayed there once we ran out of worms for them. This was in the first enclosure. One of the first that they built. The box that they went into is heated to help them during cold nights, but also serves as a refuge from weather and predators as well as a quick way to evacuate them in a fire or flood - the center has had a good deal of the former.

I'm not sure what to say about this picture except that its funny. Meerkats love the sun and spend a lot of time warming themselves in the sun. They have dark skin under their fur which allows them to absorb more heat and keep warm during cold desert nights.

Another good picture of a meerkat sunning. I was really worried that these meerkats would not do the standing since they are in captivity and really have no need to fear predators. However, Pam, who runs the center, does a really good job keeping them in as natural of an environment as possible.

Here's me with a meerkat. They actually don't like to be petted too much, but they'll let you pick them up if you've got a gloveful of worms. Over my right shoulder is the world's largest dog. I thought that he ("Jake") was a lab, but he's not. Unfortunately, I forgot what he really is. What he is thought, is a great dog.

Here's my lovely wife with a meerkat. Despite what Pete told her, they did not go crazy and jump on her face and scratch her. They could easily scratch the hell out of you because they have really long nails for digging and they are pretty strong for their size.

This is Cogburn. He looks small like a chicken, but he's a rooster. You can kind of see his gigantic claws just below my left wrist. You wouldn't know it by his peaceful nature, but Cogburn was raised for cockfighting. Pam bought him for $2 from a sketchy character and ended his fighting career.

My favorite picture from the weekend. This was a really great experience and a wonderful gift from a pretty good wife. Although they are very cute, these animals are not good pets as they like to dig and are very territorial. You need to have a license to keep them, and that license is very very very difficult to get. I recommend this experience to anyone. I will be going back again sometime in the next year. For more info, visit the center's website that I linked to at the top of the page. Or you could just type in meerkats.com