Bastless and Odin

@utopia @Bast @Former-Member @Former-Member @Faith-and-Hope

Hello All

My home furbabies have been fed and we 3 x 2 legged critters are going to settle with movie and a meal soon. So I am just popping by.

Today we had a glorious zoo day. Talking of furbabies.lol .. We saw so many. I will share a high-light here.

Last stop before home we went to a meerkat enclosure. It was getting cool and cloudy. There are 2 heat lamps. One little fella? was in typical upright alert pose with front paws on his chest under a lamp. His head was almost in the lamp but he held pose for ages amazing he or she wasnt toast. Under the other were 3 on all fours in a huddle. A possible family group as the smaller one was always between 2 larger, but they were sunning their backs not their pate. Squirming and huddling.

All of a sudden all meerkats in the enclosure raced to opposite end. A zoo keeper with barrell of food?? was walking about 50 metres away, but no, not for them. SO they all scurried back to position. I guess the upright one who hogged a whole lamp was the dominant one. There were others who who were scampering and randomly digging. I always love them they are so social.

A sadder note: Earlier we had seen a depressed looking vervet monkey. I sat about a metre away from him?. He reminded me of me and we had a "chat". His head was drooping low on his chest most of the time.They have elongate limbs and he was twisting himself into knots, would untie them and then twist slightly differently, often quite tightly. Seemed like anxiety but maybe I read too much into it. He was in the dejected pose when we arrived at the enclosure and for the whole time we were there. Stared off to the side of me but would not look directly at me whenever looked up. We just sat for 20 mins together with a glass pane between us.

A few months ago I was so enthusiastic about the vervet monkeys, but was warned they are also hierarchical and can be vicious to maintain status within the group. We have over a dozen roughly the same age. I will discuss it with a keeper. It was not alarming but noticeable. It was pure body language that spoke to me. Yes we have to be realistic about emotions and personalities even in animals.

Generally we had a beautiful day, though I am struggling internally. Thanks for tagging

Take care.

I actually think it was pretty ingrained for that individual. They have a hospital on site and vets and I will send an email. They encourage all such feedback as animal welfare a high priority, but maybe shortage of resources for animal psychoanalysis.

From what I picked up when I was doing the Monkey House is that these monkeys are very picky about who they are kind to, and sharply maintain all divisons. Not like the meerkats or wild dogs or zebras antelopes etc.

There was another monkey with larger build looking strong with open body language .. but also stretching out paws in dominance gestures.

It is what it is.