Orana Wildlife Park MEDIA RELEASE – For Immediate Release

Meerkat Mania at Orana Wildlife Park

Five ‘super-friendly’, young, male meerkats are the latest addition to Orana Wildlife Park. They were transferred from Wellington Zoo on Tuesday as part of the zoo-based breeding programme for the species. The meerkats have settled in well and visitors can now view them.

Animal Collection Manager, Ian Adams, says: “It is nice to have a new addition to our animal family. Meerkats are immensely popular with visitors. I am sure this group will be particularly appealing as they are a very outgoing animals and are currently busy scent marking their new home to define their territory. They are super-friendly meerkats and were confident enough to immediately interact with their new keepers!

We now hold two groups of these endearing animals making nine meerkats in total. This transfer was an important part of succession planning as our resident group of four meerkats are aging animals. Four of the new animals were born at Wellington Zoo (three are brothers, one is a half brother) and are all one year old. The other unrelated meerkat is three years old and was born at London Zoo. He was transferred to Wellington Zoo two years ago.”

Meerkats are classified as ‘Least Concern’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). However, whilst they are not endangered, habitat loss could change their status. Wildlife parks and zoos therefore fulfil an important conservation advocacy role whilst maintaining a managed back up population of the species.

“We consider conservation to be everyone’s responsibility! People can help our conservation work by thinking globally and acting locally. For example you can plant native trees or purchase sustainable products”, concludes Ian.

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About Meerkats:
• Meerkats are highly social members of the mongoose family. They live in large family groups of up to thirty animals and do most things communally, including hunting, raising the young and taking turns at guard duty. While hunting, they post a lookout for predators.
• Meerkats are very robust creatures, it is thought that they can withstand some snake venoms that are strong enough to kill humans!
• They are expert and energetic diggers – their burrows may go nearly 3.5 metres deep.
• They communicate with one another using a series of peeps. They have acute eyesight and a highly developed sense of smell.
• Meerkats will eat any small live prey they can catch including snakes, lizards, insects and centipedes.
• Although they are fiercely territorial, they often live harmoniously with ground squirrels in the same burrows.

About Orana Wildlife Park
Orana Wildlife Park is NZ’s only open range zoo and is home to over 400 animals from more than 70 different species. The Park is owned and operated by Orana Wildlife Trust, a registered charitable trust, which also runs Natureland Zoo in Nelson. The Trust also owned Southern Encounter Aquarium & Kiwi House (Cathedral Square) until February 2011 when it was closed indefinitely after a devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Christchurch. The Trust is committed to the conservation of wildlife diversity on this planet. Our aims, along with being dedicated to the conservation of endangered species and the welfare of our animals, are to provide education, recreation and enjoyment to the public and to support research relating to endangered animals. The Trust is a member of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), the Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia (ZAA) and ZAA NZ.

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