Where was the first meerkat exhibit and how did the meerkat craze spread?

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
We probably have the greatest collective knowledge of zoo history in the world gathered here on Zoochat.

As I was looking at the umpteenth meerkat exhibit photo I wondered where the meerkat exhibit craze that now has them in so many zoos got started.

Meerkats became popular culture superstars with "Lion King" and "Meerkat Manor", but it seems like meerkats were popular in zoos several years before that.

When I was a kid in the 1970s and early 1980s I have no memory of ever seeing or reading about meerkats in zoos, nor really being familiar with them in general zoology books. It seems like here in the U.S. that the watershed exhibit for them was the San Diego Zoo kopje exhibit from the late 1980s and then they started spreading. I remember seeing them at Woodland Park Zoo in 1989.

Does anybody know where the first meerkat exhibits were and when this species was transformed into a zoo superstar species? Were meerkats considered to be zoo superstar species before they became pop culture superstars?
 
DavidBrown said:
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Meerkats became popular culture superstars with "Lion King" and "Meerkat Manor", but it seems like meerkats were popular in zoos several years before that.

When I was a kid in the 1970s and early 1980s I have no memory of ever seeing or reading about meerkats in zoos, nor really being familiar with them in general zoology books.
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Its an intruging subject and I have mentioned it in a thread before but not as an actual question in the way you are asking.

I think the first time Meerkats became exposed to the public consciousness was with a BBC T.V wildlife film documentary entitled 'Meerkats United' sometime in the 1980's (I cannot remember exactly when it was) and then a subsequent similar film- this was well before 'Lion King' or 'Meerkat Manor'. Among other behaviours these films showed them playing, digging etc and standing upright 'sentry-style' which is the overriding key to their appeal IMO. I am sure a few zoos already displayed them in small mammal houses etc well before that though I can't remember actually seeing any. But those films perhaps represented some sort of threshhold in respect to their exhibition- after the media/film exposure zoos started to deliberately acquire them and made displays in a prominent part of the Zoo where they wouldn't be missed.

Then with each wave of media exposure they became even better known and to subsequent generations of children too. I think the current TV. Market/Meerkat.com insurance adverts stemmed from their already existing popularity, rather than the other way around, but they have also served to make them even more universally popular now, so that virtually all zoos have these type of Meerkat displays now.

To go back to your original question- when were they first displayed- I don't know and someone else can maybe answer that. The interesting thing is that I am pretty sure the displays were mainly the result of the initial media/film exposure- without that its less likely they would have aquired such 'superstar' status perhaps?
 
This is (and other in the series) are the reason for the craze in the UK.....


Simples! :p
 
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I have photos from Basle and Amsterdam taken in 1973.
The first UK exhibits that I remember were at Cotswold and Regents Park. As far as I can remember, the ones at Burford have been in the same enclosure since 1983 at least. At London, I remember an indoor enclosure in the Clore Pavilion; it was not very satisfactory as it had a very artificial fibreglass mound with burrows in the corner and of course it was very small.

Alan
 
"Meerkats United" was made in 1986, first broadcast in 1987.

I have slides of Meerkats taken at the following zoos:

London (Sept.'82)
Blijdorp, Cologne, Wilhelma (Feb.'84)
Adelaide (April '84)
Philadelphia, Toronto (Sept.'87)
Brookfield (Oct.'87)
San Diego, Los Angeles (Oct.'90)
Taronga (April '91)

I think Meerkats were a fairly common zoo species (though not as common as they are today), but I wouldn't call them a zoo superstar species. I recall in the USA in the 1980's zoos were on the lookout each year for something different that they could market, and Meerkats were one of those things (around 1992 the next craze became Naked Mole Rats).

But the Lion King really put them in the spotlight, and then Meerkat Manor. That's when their popularity really took off.

:p

Hix
 
0.2 arrived 1908 in Philadelphia (the last female died in 1916)

Numerous imports occured in the mid-1960s and they appeared to have all gone to zoos with some kind of small animal building (Omaha, Philly, Buffalo, Memphis, Milwaukee, National, Houston, Rochester (NY), Evansville (IN)).
 
Incredible as it now seems, in 1981 when I was about to make my first ever visit to the Cotswold Wildlife Park I was very excited because I knew the place had Meerkats and therefore I was going to see something different. I am sure most people in the UK had never heard of them then, but now nearly everyone coos over them.
 
Tim May said:
London Zoo’s first meerkat arrived in 1830 and two were born there 124 years ago in 1888.
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Thanks for the responses everybody. From Tim and gerenuk's information it seems that meerkats have been in captivity for a long time, but in relative obscurity until they became movie and tv stars.
 
Like you David, my first exposure to meerkats was in San Diego, but I recall them from Elephant Mesa earlier than the exhibit next to the Kopje. Wildlife World Zoo in Arizona had them in the late 80's, and Phoenix first got theirs in 1992.
 
Mongoose were not allowed to be imported into the U.S. until somewhere near the end of the seventies. meerkats were included in this restriction. I remember when i saw meerkats in Brookfield zoo in the Small mammal house during the early eighties it was mentioned in the guidebook how the zoo needed a special permit to get them. I also remember seeing meerkats in Toronto at the same period, i do not know if the U.S. restrictions also applied to canada. Surprised no one has mentioned this yet.
 
carlos77 said:
Mongoose were not allowed to be imported into the U.S. until somewhere near the end of the seventies. meerkats were included in this restriction. I remember when i saw meerkats in Brookfield zoo in the Small mammal house during the early eighties it was mentioned in the guidebook how the zoo needed a special permit to get them. I also remember seeing meerkats in Toronto at the same period, i do not know if the U.S. restrictions also applied to canada. Surprised no one has mentioned this yet.
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funnily enough, in New Zealand mongooses are prohibited from import, but meerkats are somehow exempt from that. In NZ their popularity stemmed entirely from Telecom adverts (pre-Lion King etc days). Once the Telecom adverts became a hit, the three major zoos (Auckland, Wellington and Orana) immediately imported groups from Australia in an obvious attempt to attract visitors. Orana imported a male-only group under the theory that they breed so easily they didn't need a breeding group because Auckland and Wellington had them too. They soon had to make another import which included both males and females.

I just had a google, and here are the adverts of which I speak!
Telecom Meerkats in New Zealand | The Inspiration Room
 
Those are good ads, especially for the 90's. I have a suspicion the footage from the first one was from Meerkats United (but I could be wrong).

:p

Hix
 
they were good ads, yes, and I believe the footage was indeed from Meerkats United. I don't remember the programme being shown on NZ tv (although it probably was), so the Telecom ads were the only major exposure the general NZ public had to meerkats (helped of course by them being on all the time!).
 
They are engaging animals, but I fear NO exotic species exhibit makes me rush past more quickly than Suricata suricatta.

UK zoos have done them to death. I wish somebody would make an effort to establish some of the rarer mongoose species.
 
I know that the Toronto zoo has had meerkats for a while. Most people that I know just think of meerkats as "that animal in the lion king". They might have been popular before, but the lion king really boosted their popularity. It just sucks that after the lion king, meerkats became "superstar" species, and their relatives the hyenas became even more hated.
 
gerenuk said:
0.2 arrived 1908 in Philadelphia (the last female died in 1916)

Numerous imports occured in the mid-1960s and they appeared to have all gone to zoos with some kind of small animal building (Omaha, Philly, Buffalo, Memphis, Milwaukee, National, Houston, Rochester (NY), Evansville (IN)).
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Do either of you have any sources for these? I'm working on my dissertation at the minute and any information on the captive history of meerkats would be very helpful.
 
In Animals On View by Anthony Smith (Widenfeld and Nicholson, 1977 ) the section on Cotswold Wildlife Park, page 70, says 'Meerkats (they have bred here), and are rarely seen in Britain).'

The first International Zoo Yearbook lists breedings of meerkat in 1959 at Cologne, Frankfurt, Krefeld and Rostock. It sees they were popular in Germany.
 
bongorob said:
In Animals On View by Anthony Smith (Widenfeld and Nicholson, 1977 ) the section on Cotswold Wildlife Park, page 70, says 'Meerkats (they have bred here), and are rarely seen in Britain).'

The first International Zoo Yearbook lists breedings of meerkat in 1959 at Cologne, Frankfurt, Krefeld and Rostock. It sees they were popular in Germany.
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Thank you very much Rob!
 
IanRRobinson said:
They are engaging animals, but I fear NO exotic species exhibit makes me rush past more quickly than Suricata suricatta.

UK zoos have done them to death. I wish somebody would make an effort to establish some of the rarer mongoose species.
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I always look at them as I find the whole family fascinating, mongoose are a real treat.

I realise I’m probably in a minority of about one on zoochatwho enjoys a meerkat enclosure.

But like you I do wish there were more diverse / rarer mongoose species in more places. I’d go out of my way to see mongoose of all sorts.

It’s such an opportunity for collections as the sub species are often active.

The films, use in ads and their social structures coupled with the sentry behaviour, means they are fun to spot for people particularly those with kids and they have instant recognition value. I’ve rarely heard a meerkat being misidentified (though some of the other mongoose family get the whole ‘it’s a meerkat’ thing). I’d expect they are also not the hardest animals to keep / maintain or to build interesting enclosures for.
 
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