Meerkats get in festive spirit at West Midland Safari Park
Baubles filled with mealworms have been bringing some festive joy to West Midland Safari Park's mob of meerkats.
Keepers at the Bewdley-based park have been busy ensuring that their Christmas decorations serve a greater purpose – to double up as enrichment for the animals in their care.
For the meerkats, who are naturally inquisitive, smaller Christmas trees have been planted in their enclosures and adorned with baubles full of one of their favourite treats – mealworms.
Lisa Watkins, deputy head keeper, said: "The keepers at West Midland Safari Park work hard to provide our animals with lots of varied enrichment, which is a way of encouraging natural behaviours.
"As Christmas is fast approaching, we wanted to offer the meerkats a festive treat, so the spare Christmas trees were a perfect choice and stopped them from going to waste too.
“The trees provided our meerkats with lots of new textures and smells, plus also acted as an exciting new climbing frame to carry out sentry duty – when they climb somewhere high to look out for danger.
"We drilled small holes into the baubles and filled them with mealworms, which encouraged the meerkats to be physically and mentally active during the cold weather.
"They had to work at teasing the worms out of the holes, just like they would do in the wild and also enjoyed digging at the base of the tree, to try to topple it over."
The meerkats weren’t the only animals benefitting from some seasonal enrichment, as the park’s pair of Sumatran tigers, Hujan and Nakal, also enjoyed discovering the new smells and textures of their Christmas trees, with the added bonus of finding meat amongst the branches.
West Midland Safari Park is currently celebrating the festive season with its annual Santa Safari event. For more information, visit www.wmsp.co.uk or call 01299 402114.
