Meerkat Manor comes to My Sight Notts

D225965A_web_large_280_200_tl_53_c1_c_cA family of five mischievous, inquisitive and totally cute Meerkats will get up close and personal to a group of local blind and partially sighted people at a social group hosted by local charity, My Sight Notts this Thursday 4 January.
The Meerkats were invited to the Thursday Social Group so that local visually impaired people unable to see them for themselves on visits to the zoo or safari park get the chance to interact with them in a safe, fun and friendly environment that’s accessible to them.

Hand reared by Hawks of Steele

The five Meerkat siblings, aged 18 months old and named after characters from the Flintstone’s have all been hand reared by local birds of prey experts, Hawks of Steele based at Thorsby Park, north Notts. Hawk’s of Steele are keen supporters of local sight loss charity, My Sight Notts, and have kindly agreed to visit members of its Thursday Social Group completely free of charge.

No one should be excluded from interacting with animals because they can’t see

“We’ve visited the Thursday Social Group at My Sight Notts twice before,” explained David Steele from Hawks of Steele, “because we believe passionately that people who are blind and partially sighted shouldn’t be excluded from enjoying for themselves some of the beautiful animals we work with. During our last two visits we brought along some of our magnificent birds of prey for them to interact with, but this is the first time we’ve brought in our Meerkat family who were hand-reared by us and are very tame. They enjoy nothing better than climbing on people’s shoulders, looking inside their pockets and being stroked, so I’m sure everyone will have a thoroughly enjoyable time!
“We’ve made great friends at My Sight Notts and when we see the joy on the faces of visually impaired people as they interact with our animals it’s absolutely magic and hugely rewarding for us.”

We all had a marvellous time!

Elaine Newton, lead volunteer for My Sight Nottinghamshire’s Thursday Social Group said: “We’ve very grateful to our friends at Hawks of Steele for bringing in this special Meerkat family for members of our group to touch and interact with.  We all have a marvellous time when they bring their animals in to visit us and last year we even got to name a baby barn owl, which was a real honour, the group originally called the owl Holly but when she turned out to be a he, to spare is blushes we decided to rename him Olly instead! The whole group gets an enormous amount of pleasure from these visits and everyone is really excited to meet the Meerkat family tomorrow.”