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Experts warn meerkats not suitable as pets

May 10 2009 by Robert Weatherall, Sunday Sun

KEEPING meerkats is simples, no?

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The nation has gone bonkers for meerkats after a computer generated version of one of them hit our TV screens.

So much so, experts in the region have now sounded a warning - after a rise in people wanting them as pets.

The popular advert - for car insurance comparison website www.comparethemarket.com - features a computer generated meerkat which lounges around a big house in a smoking jacket and speaks English with a heavy Russian accent.

But despite the advert showing meerkats happily living indoors, animal lover Gareth Welshclaims they are not suitable to be kept as pets.

The 62-year-old owns Butterfly World at Preston Park in Stockton and keeps three meerkats in a specially designed enclosure alongside his collection of hundreds of butterflies, exotic fish and snakes from all over the world.

He said: “Since the advert has been on television we have had people come in asking advice on whether meerkats make good pets and how to care for them.

“The simple answer to whether they make good pets is ‘no they do not’. You can’t keep a meerkat in a house or in a cage. If you let them have the run of the house they will tear all your furniture and carpets.

“They have a burrowing instinct and digging their claws into something is the most natural thing in the world for them.

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