Flower

Bought for 50kt on a whim because of a tumblr post I saw. I remember this show! It aired when I was younger and I used to watch it all the time when it was on TV. It was like Animal Planet's EastEnders in a sense. I loved Flower and I was so sad when she got bitten by the cobra but still. The show taught me about meerkat politics in a sense, and my nan's fave animal is a meerkat so when I was at hers we watched together.

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Born 15 March 2000, Flower became the fearless and formidable leader of the Whiskers in 2002. During the course of the series, Flower gave birth to numerous litters of pups, and is believed to have delivered 70 pups over the course of her lifetime. As the dominant female, Flower had the right to kill any pups born to other females in the group, but she did not exercise that right when her daughters, Tosca and Mozart, had pups at the same time early in the first series. Seven weeks after the pups were born, however, she evicted both daughters and forced them to leave their pups behind. (Tosca later died on her own, after Carlos of the Lazuli group had joined up with her for a while). Flower allowed Mozart back into the group, but evicted her permanently after two more temporary evictions during the first and second series. Twice, Flower initiated burrow moves that would force a female who had given birth to choose between their new pups or their family. Flower's daughter, Daisy, left her pups to die and rejoined her family, while Mozart accepted eviction and being alone to stay with her pups. Though Flower was known for ruling with an "iron paw", she was a devoted mother, affectionate with her family, and gentle with pups including her daughters'. When her young pups were lost in Zappa territory early in the third series, Flower risked a war with their neighbors to find them. Flower also accepted Axel, an abandoned pup from the rival Zappa group, into the Whiskers clan, where the usual response would have been to kill the young intruder. Flower's four-year reign ended late in the third series when she died after being bitten in the head by a Cape cobra while protecting a litter of newborn pups that were her own. Flower's death caused a backlash against the Meerkat Manor producers, with fans wondering why the film crew and researchers did not attempt to save the meerkat. The producers and researchers argued that doing so would violate the agreement under which Meerkat Manor was filmed, and that the primary purpose of the Kalahari Meerkat Project is to study "...the breeding success and survival of individuals and ... the factors that effect reproduction and survival." As such, interfering in the natural processes would render the research results invalid; the purpose of the show is to truly present a realistic view into the meerkats lives including their deaths. After the announcement of Flower's death, the news wire service United Press International released an obituary-like news story, while fans eulogised the late meerkat in letters, poems, memorial videos on YouTube, and numerous postings to fan sites and fan web forums.

The US Animal Planet web site added a memorial section to their Meerkat Manor site, offering visitors a copy of Flower's obituary, a video tribute, information about the film, and access to a discussion board and a live chat with the US producer of the series. Animal Planet aired a film biography of Flower's early life on 25 May 2008 entitled Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins. The film, using footage of untamed meerkats and the research notes of Cambridge University, retells the story of how Flower became the dominant female of the Whiskers after the deaths of her mother and sister.

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