Reception
Meerkat Manor has been well received by viewers and critics alike. In October 2007, it was Animal Planet's top series, with an audience of more than four million in the United States alone. In the United States, its first episode was viewed by one million viewers, and the second and third series premieres were watched by approximately 800,000 viewers each. The fourth series premiere did not fare as well, with fewer than 500,000 viewers. The viewership of the on-demand video offerings for Meerkat Manor grew 20% in September 2007, when Discovery offered each third series episode, video capsules of series one and two, top ten moments from the show, and a memorial sequence for Flower. Building on the success of Meerkat Manor's unique format, Animal Planet commissioned two similarly formatted programmes: Orangutan Island, which focuses on a group of orphaned orangutans at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, and Lemur Street, which looks at the lives of two rival gangs of ring-tailed lemurs in Madagascar.
Some fans have criticized the show for its non-interference policy with regard to the meerkats, asking why the film crew and researchers do not give anti-venom to snake-bitten meerkats, or euthanize those dying and suffering. US Executive Producer Mick Kaczorowski pointed out that Meerkat Manor was a show about the real lives and deaths of the meerkats. The research group has a policy against film crews interceding in natural events "because they don't want to have an effect on the gene pool by saving a weaker meerkat affecting the outcome of what's natural in the Kalahari." As the research project is monitoring "...the breeding success and survival of individuals and ... the factors that effect reproduction and survival" interfering in the natural processes would render the research results invalid. There is one exception to this rule: researchers will euthanize meerkats that contract tuberculosis, to prevent outbreaks that would threaten both the meerkat population and nearby cattle.
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