Wingham Wildlife Park Fears for Kent Wildlife park's missing meerkat

Bad news this time round. A member of the public witnessed the Meerkat being fatally hit by a car, near Sandwich on Sunday 9th January. He didn't think much of it at the time and put the body in a dog waste bin. It wasn't until the witness heard of the theft that he contacted the park and told them where to find it. A microchip later confirmed that it was indeed the missing one from Wingham
BBC News - Body of stolen meerkat found in bin in Sandwich
 
Nisha said:
Bad news this time round. A member of the public witnessed the Meerkat being fatally hit by a car, near Sandwich on Sunday 9th January. He didn't think much of it at the time and put the body in a dog waste bin. It wasn't until the witness heard of the theft that he contacted the park and told them where to find it. A microchip later confirmed that it was indeed the missing one from Wingham
BBC News - Body of stolen meerkat found in bin in Sandwich
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Sad news, but how can somebody 'not think much of it'? - Surely it's not like the person happens across dead meerkats in the middle of the road on a reguar basis?
 
they may not have been aware it was a meerkat. Your average person isn't too clued up on animals. They may have just thought it was a ferret or something like that.

I liked the newspaper headline, but it would have been even better if it had just said "Body of stolen meerkat found in Sandwich"
 
Chlidonias said:
t
I liked the newspaper headline, but it would have been even better if it had just said "Body of stolen meerkat found in Sandwich"
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The story as a whole, very sad indeed.

But that last comment is why this site needs a facebook 'like' button. :D
 
I should add (due to the Twycross thread's recent turn) that I wasn't making light of the death of the meerkat, and apologies to anyone who may think otherwise and is offended ;)
 
Chlidonias said:
I should add (due to the Twycross thread's recent turn) that I wasn't making light of the death of the meerkat, and apologies to anyone who may think otherwise and is offended ;)
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Good point Chlidonias. I get what you are saying about not been too clued up, but with a certain advert on non-stop I wager that everybody over 5 knows what a meerkat is :o
 
Funnily enough in the summer I took a friend's child to Yorkshire Wildlife Park, she was telling her mother about the meerkats & her mum said "What does a meerkat look like?" - they don't watch much telly!
 
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Javan Rhino said:
Good point Chlidonias. I get what you are saying about not been too clued up, but with a certain advert on non-stop I wager that everybody over 5 knows what a meerkat is
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knows what a meerkat is certainly, but can they actually identify one by sight in real life? Think how many people would call a leopard a cheetah or even a tiger. What I was thinking of too was that the meerkat was hit by a car; it may have been in a bit of a mess after that. Further to which the person in question probably wasn't really expecting to see a meerkat running across the road in England

(:) throughout above paragraph)
 
Chlidonias said:
knows what a meerkat is certainly, but can they actually identify one by sight in real life? Think how many people would call a leopard a cheetah or even a tiger. What I was thinking of too was that the meerkat was hit by a car; it may have been in a bit of a mess after that. Further to which the person in question probably wasn't really expecting to see a meerkat running across the road in England

(:) throughout above paragraph)
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Must admit, I never thought of that :o. Nonetheless, it is a shame :(
 
There is a picture on the parks facebook page which shows the meerkat in the dog waste bin. From Wingham Wildlife Park fb page:

We have some very sad news about the Meerkat which was stolen from the park at the end of December 2010, which is that he was hit by a car in Sandwich and his body retieved by two of our keepers today. If the job of picking up one of our beloved animals in such a situation wasn't bad enough it was made worse after the Meerkat had simply been left in a bin for dog waste.
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DISTRESSING PHOTO:
This photo shows the condition in which we had to recover our Meerkat from - It was a tough thing for our keepers to get called out to.

Facebook
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the facebook quotes from the park definitely make it sound like they are blaming the person who deposited the meerkat in the bin, which is a bit harsh in my opinion if he wasn't even aware it was a meerkat. They should be thanking the person because at the very least it meant they knew what had happened to it.
 
Why in the world would you upload that photo to your organizations facebook page, it serves no purpose at all and just insites comments that are pretty unjust
 
torie said:
Why in the world would you upload that photo to your organizations facebook page, it serves no purpose at all and just insites comments that are pretty unjust
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from their facebook page giving an explanation:
We thought about whether we should publish the photos from our report in to where and how he was found and decided that if people see the heart ache which the person who stole the animal has caused, it will spur anyone who has any information about it to contact us or the police. Especially after having caused this anguish we are determined to ensure that the person(s) don't get away with doing this.
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Having re-read the BBC article it isn't actually clear who put the meerkat's body in the bin. It reads "The caller said he saw the meerkat being run over by a car in St Bart's Road on Sunday and dumped in the bin." Nisha (post #2) interpreted this as the caller putting the meerkat in the bin but it sounds more like he observed the car's driver putting the body in the bin. My thoughts in posts #4 and #9 still stand (i.e. the driver of the car may have just thought it was a ferret or something) although the facebook posters obviously think the car's driver was the thief who then somehow positioned the meerkat in the road in order to run it over so he could dump the body in the bin
 
From parks facebook page:

I can confirm that the Police have made some progress with the theft of one of our Meerkats sending us this confirmation yesterday:

"two suspects have been arrested/interviewed and bailed to return to Dover Police station in relation to this incident."

This is great news for us and we are now awaiting the outcome of this... development, and will keep you posted as we learn more from Kent Police.
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