MEERKATS IN MOOLMANSHOEK
Having never been to the Ficksburg area, I decided to join Bev’s hike to the Sphinx Trail on the Moolmanshoek Private Game Reserve.
On our arrival at the reserve on Friday evening the 5th of June, we were greeted by Nick, who I presume manages the Out Reach and Leadership Programs plus all the hiking visitors.
He informed us that the hiker’s house was presently being occupied by the students of the Meerkat Project, and directed us to an enormous building which would be our weekend accommodation. I would say that it could easily take 60 people, and there were plenty of ablutions. We were only 15, so we had a very comfortable weekend
As I am a huge wild life fan, I had pricked up my ears at the words ‘Meerkat Project” and asked Nick if we would be able to chat to them. He said that we could do so with pleasure. I could not wait to meet them. I just love Meerkats!
I enjoyed our hike on Saturday as it is a beautiful place, but could not get the Meerkats out of my head…..wondering whether I might just get to see them!
On Saturday night after our hike I went to chat to the students….To cut a long story short, they organized for me to join the “morning watch” on Sunday, as long as the weather was fine.
The morning dawned…….I had been awake since 04h00……and was very disappointed that the sky was cloudy……..Meerkats only emerge from their burrows when the sunrays hit the ground. By 06h45 the clouds shifted and it looked like we would have a better chance now of seeing the little creatures, so Charlie Lewis, Nicol who is 11years old and myself set off on foot to meet Sheldon at his house.
We walked for about 10 to 15 minutes in the direction of the main burrow, when Sheldon spotted a little head that had popped up from one of the burrows.
Sheldon is a tracker from Zimbabwe, and was working for a film company that made wildlife documentaries. Sheldon did the tracking for them. He became interested in Meerkats after doing a documentary with a well known Meerkat expert called Wendy (I could not get her surname), and he was asked to stay and work with her at Moolmanshoek. I believe she left the project in August last year and Moolmanshoek asked Sheldon to stay on and educate people on the life of the Meerkat, from what he had learned from the two years that he had worked with Wendy. He takes guests and Zoology students out regularly.
He has to go out every morning and afternoon in order to keep track of their whereabouts. They have a main burrow and a number of other burrows that they use. They will only forage for food near to a burrow in order to escape becoming the next meal for a predator..The Meerkats have a very thin skin, and are not able to keep their body temperature up. They will only come out of the burrow once they have sun to warm themselves.
They eat insects, black crickets, scorpions and a favourite treat is ant eggs.
Sometimes Sheldon collects scorpions from under rocks in the surrounding mountains, and feeds them to his Meerkats as a treat.
The Meerkats are quite comfortable with people around, and they are quite inquisitive, and ventured quite close to us. We sat on the ground whilst the three little creatures played around.
Unfortunately the clouds came over and the three headed ‘indoors’.
We had to wait quite a while for the sun to come out, and in that time learned some interesting facts from Sheldon.
They breed between September and March producing 2 to 5 babies. The colony has a dominant male and a dominant female, they are the only ones who breed.
They can produce four litters of babies each season. The gestation period is 75 days.
The babies are looked after by all the adult females in the group, who take turns to forage, babysit and stand guard….as the sentinel. She has to warn of any danger . Meerkats can live to about 10 years of age.
Should the dominant male die, a male from another colony must join the group, to avoid inbreeding.
Should the dominant female die, as happened in this colony in December, one of the females will become the dominant female.
The Meerkat will sometimes have to go without foraging for days on end if the weather is rainy or windy or just plain cold. They will only be able to get what they can inside the burrow.
The burrows can be 1.5 to1.8 metres below the surface and is made up of many tunnels. Meerkats do dig their own burrows, but more often than not they will take over a ground squirrel’s burrow, and even a yellow mongoose.
Whilst they are foraging one of the Meerkats stands guard as a sentinel, they take turns throughout the day. They seem to have three communicative sounds.
They have different calls for ground and overhead predators ie eagles or jakkals. The sound that we heard is their normal communication with one another .
The babies have to be 10 months old before they may stand guard.
I did not anticipate such an interesting and informative Sunday, and feel very privileged to have been able to witness the three hours in the lives of the Meerkat
Wendy Palm.