Chico, the meerkat in residence at the Los Angeles Zoo, is alone.
Whether that is a tolerable state of affairs is being debated by zoo officials and animal activists whose support and affection for the meerkat has been fueled by cable television's popular Meerkat Manor.
As on the Animal Planet series, the meerkat is a highly social creature. Meerkats forage together, serve as guards and baby sitters for each other, and even strategize about war tactics. Meerkats that violate clan rules suffer a most dire fate -- banishment.
Chico needs company just as his TV brethren do, local activists say.
"Kids ask, ‘Where are his friends? He needs to have friends.' It's very sad," said Janelle Fisher of Sierra Madre, the leader of the Chico Project, which has focused on the lone meerkat since his burrow mate died in January.
A Web petition with about 900 signatures is hoping to persuade zoo officials either to get a few roommates for Chico or transfer him to another zoo, where he can make new friends.
"They need companionship," said Fisher, who visits Chico every two weeks and likens the 9-year-old meerkat's solitary condition to a death sentence.
Zoo officials disagree. Meerkats can be managed as solitary animals with appropriate care, said Jason Jacobs, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Zoo. Other institutions, including the Denver Zoo, also tend to lone meerkats.
Jacobs said that the zoo has talked with several institutions about moving Chico or obtaining other animals to join him, but he declined to name the institutions.
Other zoos face similar challenges with their meerkats. In Denver, zookeepers were recently contacted by the East Coast Meerkat Society, whose members were concerned about a 12-year-old meerkat, Ed, who has been by himself since his mate died several months ago. Ana Bowie, the zoo's spokeswoman, said that because Ed was sickly and unusually old, zoo officials decided it was in his best interests to let him live out his "twilight years" at the zoo.
"He's certainly not by himself," she said. Ed has imprinted on his human caretakers, she said, and expects to see them daily.
"You have to look at an individual meerkat to determine what is best for it," she said. "As well-intended as groups may be, they can sometimes make assumptions that individuals who care for them aren't putting their best interests at heart. It's not correct."
However, at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, 24 meerkats live in family groups, according to a zoo spokesman. The only incidents of lone meerkats involved rejected babies who were sick or whose mothers had died, zoo officials said.
A year ago, Chico was transferred from the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky to the Los Angeles Zoo in order to befriend another single meerkat, Spanky. But Spanky died in January.
Chico has age-related arthritis and teeth problems, which might make self-defense problematic, said Jennie McNary, the curator of mammals at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Although meerkats are social by nature, they are also territorial and aggressive, she said.
"He could be picked on if we introduced him into an established group," Jacobs said.
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