A Mob of Meerkats

And we were definitely mobbed by Meerkats!

My dad came down for a quick visit this weekend (arrived Friday night, left Sunday night). This was the first time he's been down to visit since he helped move me down to Texas. (It's not because he hasn't wanted to, it's just work and other obligations kept interfering.) He's working in Dallas last week and this week so decided the time was right for a visit to his daughter. This was also the first time he's seen my house, my workplace, my younger dog and cat and my bird. :)

I decided a visit to the zoo was in order (of course!). Since he loves meerkats I arranged with Sara, the Natural Encounters supervisor (which is the department that houses the meerkats) to have my dad go behind the scenes with them. We were able to get right in the enclosure with them (with ground rules of course) and he was able to feed them crickets (frozen).

Here are some pictures of the adventure:






He was also able to touch a Mouse opossum, a hedgehog tenrec, give a mealworm to a slow loris, give an elderly Mexican Porcupine a peanut, meet the Fennec Fox, touch a Tamandua and give the lion girls some goat's milk. I did not get pictures of all of that but I did get some of him and the tamandua:



And of him and the lion girls:



We then walked around and I showed him most of the animals I work with. He was able to see Bruiser, our Asiatic Black Bear and all three of our jaguars. I think the only one he didn't see was the snow leopard. You always need something to come back for!