Meerkat Exhibits

[snowleopard]

There are plenty of meerkat exhibits all across AZA-accredited zoos in the United States, and most of us take for granted that our local zoo will have some kind of enclosure containing the lovable, active little critters. It is interesting to study the 60 best zoos in the nation (according to the book “America’s Best Zoos”) to locate all of the notable meerkat habitats. Animal collections change all the time but as far as I can ascertain there are 47 out of the 60 zoos with meerkats, and the 13 zoos that currently do not have any are: Maryland, Bronx, Roger Williams Park, Montgomery, Jacksonville, North Carolina, Audubon, San Antonio, Fort Wayne, Binder Park, Cincinnati, Columbus and Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Having seen 57 out of the 60 best American zoos in the past few years I feel as if I’ve seen enough meerkats to last a lifetime, but nevertheless I feel an urge to narrow the list down to my 5 favourite exhibits. Without a doubt Nashville is #1 for me, as the habitat there is surely the largest in the nation, well-planted, and it even includes pop-up bubbles for humans. Houston has an excellent meerkat exhibit as part of its award-winning Natural Encounters area; Sedgwick County has two meerkat enclosures adjacent to each other in the Pride of the Plains section of the zoo; Caldwell has meerkats in an exhibit that once held blue monkeys and black-backed jackals!; and Riverbanks has a very grassy meerkat enclosure that has an African elephant exhibit in the background. In my opinion those are the 5 best, although there are many other excellent exhibits for meerkats and other than the one found in Nashville it is a tough choice narrowing down such a list. Honourable mention goes to El Paso, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Dallas and many others.

1- Nashville Zoo:

http://www.zoochat.com/1129/meerkat-exhibit-181304/

2- Houston Zoo:

http://www.zoochat.com/572/natural-encounters-meerkat-exhibit-183765/

3- Sedgwick County Zoo:

http://www.zoochat.com/610/pride-plains-meerkat-exhibit-164023/

4- Caldwell Zoo:

http://www.zoochat.com/552/meerkat-exhibit-196536/

5- Riverbanks Zoo:

http://www.zoochat.com/601/meerkat-exhibit-180178/

 

[elefante]

Disney does have a great meerkat exhibit. I like the gerenuk and marabou stork exhibit behind it. It seem to remember Henry Doorly having meerkats in their Kingdoms of the Night exhibit, which seems strange.

 

[KCZooFan]

Disney does have a great meerkat exhibit. I like the gerenuk and marabou stork exhibit behind it. It seem to remember Henry Doorly having meerkats in their Kingdoms of the Night exhibit, which seems strange.

Henry Doorly Zoo's meerkats have been in the Desert Dome since its openeing, once year prior to the opening of KotN

 

[elefante]

Henry Doorly Zoo's meerkats have been in the Desert Dome since its openeing, once year prior to the opening of KotN

I do remember seeing them in the Desert Dome but I could have sworn I saw them in Kingdoms of the Night as well. Maybe it was something similar.

 

[FSBlue]

Jacksonville had a Meerkat exhibit at one point. It was located where the Komodo Dragons are now. It was nothing special, but it is a shame they had to leave.

 

[IanRRobinson]

The UK being a much smaller place than the US or Canada, I suspect that our meerkat density per square mile now rivals anywhere in Africa. They are charming and engaging animals, but they have been utterly done to death here. Even farm parks now keep them.

Personally I'd love to see a UK zoo decide that its social, fossorial carnivore would be either grison species, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[elefante]

Even farm parks now keep them.

Personally I'd love to see a UK zoo decide that its social, fossorial carnivore would be either grison species, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

A little clarification as to what farm parks and grison means for those of us on this side of the Pond please?

 

[zoogiraffe]

Even farm parks now keep them.

Personally I'd love to see a UK zoo decide that its social, fossorial carnivore would be either grison species, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

A little clarification as to what farm parks and grison means for those of us on this side of the Pond please?

A farm park is a place that keeps mostly domestic animals!

As for a Grison its the same in American English as it is in TRUE English,here is a zootierlist link to save you from having to do a search for yourself,so you can see what a Grison is ZootierlisteHomepage

 

[cloudedleopard]

Yes! They have farm parks in Ohio. One is called Lake Farmpark in Kirtland, near Cleveland. The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton, Ohio also has meerkats. Columbus doesn't have meerkats. They were cut out from the original plan for Heart of Africa.