Well it is very quiet in tourism. Got some bad news, one of the baby's has vanished, she did not come back to the burrows last night. I knew it was supposed to happen someday but it's never nice to lose any animal. We are currently busy with a research project on aartvark. The goal is to see if we can habituate an aartvark and see if we can get it to allow us to walk with it. talk soon

Looks like it is Canadian travel season, the last couple of days was all Canadians, and how blessed can i be with all these lovely, pleasant people. The morning was very crisp, I would say between 0-5º cel, mutch colder than yesterday. we got there at sunrise (07H51) and as the sun creped out over the mountain i turned around from taking the above picture to see Cindy watching me, very unnatural because they usually only get up when the sun has heated up the entrance to the burrows. But then she dissipear down a hole only to emerge an hour later, very peculiar. But what a beautiful morning, God painted the sky in the most beautiful golden color. And again i was fortunate to have that painting in my office.

3 day's of snow,4 day's without internet. AND what does scientists know about global warming, i think they all sniff polar ice, it is getting colder and colder every year. I think it is one big climate shift that is taking place. The meerkat's were very miserable, and if people from Alaska (in the picture above) dress up this warm you can just Imagen how cold it was. I could be more expressive but i'm afraid preschool kids might read this.

Now when it is this cold the meerkat still come out, but not because they want to, it is just because they are driven by hunger. You see meerkats don't store body fat or store food, so they have to eat every day.

Well while its quiet let me give you a rundown of the whole setup.

I took over the meerkat site on the 6th of November 2009. On my arrival i had only 6 meerkats at the burrows. The dominant female, i called Liefie, one mature subordinate female i later named Cindy, a juvenile meerkat i called Molly and three approximately 10-15 month old baby's, i called the three musketeers because at this age they are still very difficult to identify.

No prominent males in sight. on 8 November 2009 i saw a male meerkat sleeping in a small abandoned mongoose burrow about 800m from the main meerkat burrow system. On the 9th of November i saw the same male about 100m from the main burrows. The next morning after the girls and the baby's have left to forage i heard warning calls coming from the main burrows, and later on discovered that it was the same male meerkat that now has moved in with the girls, and because he was new and not at all habituated it would take him a couple of months before he would start getting use to humans. Because of his complaining every time we got near the burrows i named him Moner. Approximately 11 weeks later on the 25 of January 2010 Lifie gave birth to six meerkat baby's, all of witch are still surviving and are now 19 weeks old.

Well it is good to be on line again after 4 days.

had a couple of good rainy days, I can hear the grass growing. doing tours in cold overcast rainy weather?????At least it rained. Moner started acting very strange the other morning, he went cent marking all the holes close to where we were standing. I must say he is getting very relaxed around people.

By the end of this mornings tour i had three very cold customers, so if you are coming to sunny SA, remember it does get cold here in the winter, so bring warm clothes.

Poor Molly was in big trouble this morning, it was the first time i saw Moner so upset. Because of the cold Molly was cuddling with liefie in stead of doing sentry duty and moner through his toys. He had every body running around like a drill Sargent.

But all in all it was a good morning, God knew i needed the mony for the forcast said very heavy rain for the morning and the moment we got into our cars after the tour it started raining.

This website is a work in progress so please be patient, we hope to have it perfect in a couple of days.

Quiete day but eventualy got a photo of the whole familie together.