{"id":2007,"date":"2016-03-08T15:01:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T05:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=2007"},"modified":"2016-03-12T15:06:57","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T05:06:57","slug":"meerkat-pups-born-at-taronga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=2007","title":{"rendered":"Meerkat pups born at Taronga"},"content":{"rendered":"\"MeerkatTaronga Zoo is celebrating the birth of its first Meerkat pups in nearly seven years.\r\n\r\nThe two pups were born to first-time parents Nairobi and Maputo on 7 January, but have just begun venturing out of their nest box to explore Taronga\u2019s African-themed Meerkat exhibit. \u201cThey were initially a little wary of this big new world outside, but with a bit of encouragement from mum and dad they started to explore,\u201d keeper Courtney Mahony said.\r\n\r\nThe pups\u2019 sex will be confirmed when they have their first vaccinations and a veterinary examination, although keepers suspect there is a male and a female. They have started to do quick hands on health checks and are weighing the pups regularly to ensure they are healthy and comfortable in the keepers’ presence.\r\n\r\nAs with all Meerkat young, the yet-to-be named pups are developing very quickly. Despite only weighing a few grams when born, they both now tip the scales at over 120 grams and have begun to sample solid foods such as fly pupae and mealworms.\r\n\r\nThey are also practising sentry duty, trying to stand on their hind legs.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey may be young, but they\u2019re already showing signs of their own little personalities. Our male is the bigger of the two and he\u2019s more adventurous and inquisitive, while the female is quieter and prefers to stay close to mum,\u201d Mahony said.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is all new for them and they learn by observing their mum and dad, so we\u2019re very lucky that Nairobi and Maputo are proving to be fantastic and attentive first-time parents. Nairobi is letting the pups suckle and grooming them at the right times and Maputo protects them, huddles over them and curls up with them at night.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaputo arrived from Perth Zoo in late 2014 to form a new breeding group with Taronga\u2019s alpha female Nairobi, who was the last Meerkat born at the Zoo in January 2009.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taronga Zoo is celebrating the birth of its first Meerkat pups in nearly seven years. The two pups were born to first-time parents Nairobi and Maputo on 7 January, but have just begun venturing out of their nest box to explore Taronga\u2019s African-themed Meerkat exhibit. \u201cThey were initially a little wary of this big new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1592,1673,1674,1672,630],"class_list":["post-2007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-birth","tag-born","tag-courtney-mahony","tag-meerkats","tag-taronga-zoo"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":402,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":402,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Taronga Zoo is celebrating the birth of its first Meerkat pups in nearly seven years. The two pups were born to first-time parents Nairobi and Maputo on 7 January, but have just begun venturing out of their nest box to explore Taronga\u2019s African-themed Meerkat exhibit. \u201cThey were initially a little wary of this big new world outside, but with a..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"1592":{"name":"birth","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=birth"},"1673":{"name":"born","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=born"},"1674":{"name":"Courtney Mahony","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=courtney-mahony"},"1672":{"name":"Meerkats","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=meerkats"},"630":{"name":"Taronga Zoo","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=taronga-zoo"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}