Nature is a very tough place

After spending the whole sunday morning at church and at home having a nice family barbecue i again arrived to late to see all the meerkats i only saw 8 of them, so still no sight of Cindi but hoping she was there i went back home.

This morning i got there and like normal the meerkats slept late and we waited till about 08H30 for them to wake up. My hopes were up when i saw the first meerkats face, witch looked like Cindi, but i soon realized it was on of the 3 masketeers when she emerged completely, and i lost more hope as more meerkats emerged and still no Cindi. She has always been the first one up and she would usually fine comb the whole area for about 15 min before any one else would wake up, so she was quit a prominent figure in my life. She was also The only other mature female in the group that could help Liefie to feed the baby's. Now, with Liefie pregnant again, i don't know who is going to help when the new baby's arrive, we just hope Molly is mature enough.

The circle of life proceeds. I think God just reminded me this morning that i'm not here to intervene in nature but only to observe, because only when we take these animals out of nature can we interfere in their lives, but in nature we have to let nature take it's cause.

If animals don't die or leave their herds or family groups, their numbers would soon be more than what nature can produce food for them.

I am still not sure if she is dead or that she hasn't just took of after a boyfriend and is most likely starting her own family somewhere. I will definitely do more investigation and keep you guy's up to date.

Seperation anxiety

The morning was extra crisp, with snow on the mountains and clear blue sky's except for a long thin misty cloud to the east over the Swartberg mountains. I reached the the burrows precisely as the sun raised his bald head over the horizon (can you hear the harmonica playing the good the bad and the ugly in the background) and guess who is waiting for me at burrows, "Cindy" and it is freezing to say the least. Normally she would only wake up about an hour after sunrise. She directly had me worried, either she was sick or she went to sleep to early last night or maybe she had a boyfriend but something was wrong because she seamed a bit restless. She was only out for two or three minutes before she took off to the other side of the burrows and then of on her own as if to go and forage, not waiting for the rest of the family to wake up. She settled on an earth mount about a hundred meters away and for an hour just sat there staring into the distance. By then i knew something must have happened last night because the rest of the family did not spend the night with Cindi at the main barrows, but three hundred meters away in the northern most burrows of the territory. For some unexplained reason they got separated last night and spend the night in separate burrows. the memory of losing one of my meerkat's only two weeks ago are still fresh so I spend the rest of the morning walking up and down their territory but could not find Cindi again, I eventually decided to call it a day and to let nature take it's cause and come back later in the day to see if she has found her way back to the family. Because of other responsibility's i only got to the burrows as the sun was setting and only got a glimpse of two or three meerkats as they were entering the burrows for night, unfortunately not in time to see if Cindi have rejoined the group. We will have to wait till tomorrow to see if she has made it back.

THE DESERT, SNOW and MEERKATS.

What does these three things have in common. One word "Oudtshoorn"

Oudtshoorn is the only place in South Africa, or the world where you will be in the desert,watching meerkats and snow at the same time. It doesn't seem right but it does make a pretty picture especially if you ad a nice looking young lady in the picture.

Again the weather man was wrooooong!!!!!!! he predicted rain for this morning and there were only two clouds in the sky, and i could only see one of them, the other one was in durban. An absolutely beautiful morning.

The meerkats were up and ready for breakfast by 8H00, they even had their hair combed.

They all seem to to be over the loss of their gang member, for i noticed for the first couple of days after it dissipeared they all seamed to hesitate around the burrows every morning as if they were waiting for her to join them. but this morning the all just left to go and forage without hesitation.

Ok, ok ! So i lied about the clouds a little, but there couldn't have been more than three.

Well, and then life go's on. One learn when working with animals that sometimes, most times you out live your animals and sometimes they die long before their time. But never does it get any easier. So losing one of the baby meerkat's was tough but their is still 12 others and i assume i will lose some more in the future. Nature is not for sissies, it is a tough world to live in.

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.