Author: Evi

Privacy Policy update

All of us are sent messages about data protection and privacy these days, by any website we’ve ever registered with. kalahari-meerkats.com is no exception…
Our website’s aim is to share information about the meerkats and the KMP project with the public, and definitely not to collect loads of personal information of our website visitors or do fancy analytics of what you do on our site. But some of our services – e.g. registering as a Friend, enquiring about a visit or similar – require that you share a bit of data with us. And we want to make sure that you know what types of data we collect, what we do with it and why.
The background of this may be the new European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU-GDPR), taking effect on 25 May, 2018, that intends to protect citizens of EU countries from excessive or unwanted data collection – but it is important to us that all of our website visitors feel safe with what we, as a small society and research project, do with data you share with us.
We thus ask you to please carefully review our privacy policy on our website. There you can find out what personal data we collect and for which purposes it is processed. The website may ask you for your confirmation that you agree to this policy, on your next visit or while you contact us via a web form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

2018-02 February LH Table

The February Life History files have been uploaded.

Here are the most important events:

  • Van Helsing’s dominant female Egg was seen mating with Paprika’s Angel Shuffle (VVHM075) – who is her son! He must have been away for too long for her to recognise him? The Paprika group disintegrated, however, with all females absent for several months.
  • There were several abortions (including Swift) or litters lost this month, and several groups show signs of TB, maybe all due to the bad foraging conditions during the drought. There has been some rain though, with meerkats gaining weight.

Click here to download the LH Table.

Friends will find “The Meerkatter” issue here (login needed).

2018-01 January LH Table

The January Life History files have been uploaded.

Here are the most important events:

  • The KMP now employs a local tracker, Karel, who managed to track a new group the north-eastern corner of the reserve – and it includes two dispersed Baobab females, Tayl Baez (VBBF117) and Kamala (VBBF116), with wild males and young. The group is named Elrond’s Council, and is being habituated.
  • Ubuntu’s dominant female Minusch lost dominance during a group split in which she gave birth. The leader of the other splinter group, Daisy (being heavier), overthrew her when they reunited.
  • One of the wild males at Ubuntu was seen being attacked by an African Wild Cat – an extraordinary observation! He survived with broken legs (but the February report will tell you he survived).
  • Baobab again lost their dominant pair, Duchess Koloratura and Willy, due to illness.
  • There has been some rain, finally – much helping the very skinny meerkats!

Click here to download the LH Table.

Friends will find “The Meerkatter” issue here (login needed).

2017-12 December LH Table

The December Life History files have been uploaded.

Here are the most important events:

  • There are 20 females pregnant at the end of the month – peak breeding season! Unfortunately, several groups lost their young pups however – Jaxx, for example, lost 5 of their 6 new pups.
  • 2 come, 2 go… There are two new dispersal groups on the mark sheet: Freetails (formerly Lazuli 3) consisting of 3 Lazuli evictees with a changing company of males. And Run Amuk consist of Jaxx’ long-term No. 2 Jazzy Jeff with two Jaxx females. At the same time however, the TB-or-not-TB group was lost after the only collared female was found dead, while the Yetis group dwindled possibly due to TB.

Click here to download the LH Table.

Friends will find “The Meerkatter” August issue here (login needed).