i have to comment to melvira post . i know that be over a year ago and and this comment board be old and but i think people need to understand one thing . the researcher aren not go to interfere with the animal . why . well that would bias the research . if a meerkat that should have die life on to reproduce and then chance be the offspring would not have the best gene for survival either and which mean the meerkat will all need human help to live . which i hope you can see isn not a good idea . life be tough . sometimes fuzzy and cute little baby meerkat die . but it be nature way of weed out the one that aren not strong enough to survive in the harsh world . if you start save the weak one and they go on to produce more weak one and and you have taint the gene pool in an endless cycle of animal need human help . that isn not natural . melvira sound like a typical peta person ( whether or not they be and they sound like one ) . they say they care about animal and but they know very little about them and have never even take biology class and do not understand the circle of life and the law of nature . i be study to be a zoologist and and yes i do want want to work in a zoo and take care of animal and but i at least understand how the real world natural kingdom work . if prey doesn not die the predator will . animal kill and animal die . and i be sure it be hard on the researcher and who study this group for 10 year . ten year they watch this tribe of meerkat . i be sure they love animal just as much a anyone else who give up a nice salary to work with animal ( there isn not much money in this sort of thing ) and i be sure it tear them up inside to watch whatever meerkat you be talk about suffer and die . but it wouldn not have be right or ethical to step in and mess up nature . people be so crazed recently about have everything natural . no pesticide and organic food and etc . but when they see the dark side of what that really mean they can not handle it . it isn not the fault of the researcher that the meerkat die and it the natural way of life and dog eat dog and survival of the fit . deal with it .