Meerkats in the Kalahari Desert

Animal Planet Channel's Meerkat Manor Grows in Popularity

Nov 6, 2007

Affection for these small masked mammals grows as the gang recovers from the death of Flower of Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa.

The Whiskers clan of meerkats in the Kalahari is without a matriarch. Flower, the leader of the central gang of meerkats that is the focus of Animal Planet Channel's documentary cum soap opera, Meerkat Manor, died in real life February during the filming of the show's third season after being bitten by a cobra.

Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor Viewers Mourn the Death of Flower

So, when viewers tuned in at the end of September and watched Meerkat Manor’s matriarch, the feisty Flower Whiskers die on screen, even Animal Planet executives were stunned by the outpouring of grief from across the world.

Meerkat lovers, who swamped the network with sorrow-filled notes after the death of Shakespeare in Season One the previous year, were shattered to hear the news that in an episode scheduled for the end of September 2007, Flower Whiskers, the queen of the Kalahari in South Africa would die of a cobra bite.

A Journey's End, featured the sad events leading up to Flower's untimely death, which occurred during yet another meerkat struggle for survival in South Africa's Kalahari Desert.

Flower Whiskers - Queen of the Kalahari

The Animal Planet Channel is planning a commemorative spot, an online tribute and a press event in New York to honor the Meerkat Manor heroine. There is also a feature film in the works, Queen of the Kalahari, which is intended to be a prequel about Flower's life prior to her small-screen stardom.

"Flower was larger than life," said Marjorie Kaplan, general manager of Animal Planet and Discovery Kids Media. "She stood tall against her foes, readily and regularly faced conflict and was a pillar of strength for her family."

The Masked Mammals of Meerkat Manor

The daily goings-on of these masked mammals at the so-called Manor is like a sound track from any prime-time soapie, filled with jealous exes, sibling rivalry, down ‘n dirty (meer)kat fights, pregnant daughters getting kicked out of the house and more than enough paring off.

But the furry stars of Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor certainly don't follow any script; they write it as they go along. Of course they are assisted by a group of researchers from the Kalahari Meerkat Project, their specially built fiber-optic cameras and some pretty smart editors who manage to captured a true slice of life that just happens to be taking place, at times, in a burrow in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa under the wide embracing African skies.

Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor is Filmed in South Africa

The filming of Animal Planet’s popular Meerkat Manor takes place in the Northern Cape area of South Africa where visitors can experience the energetic daily social life of meerkats at the Kalahari Meerkat Project at Van Zyl’s Rus.