The illegal pet trade of meerkats are a huge problem in South Africa. We are a meerkat rehab and rescue centrum and deal on a daily basis with these traumatised animals. They are extremely social animals and live in big family groups. They do not make good pets and are often dumped in cages because their owners can't handle them. We try to fight the illegal keeping and trading of these poor creatures but do not get any help from authorities. And alot of these animals have tragic ends like the one in the photo self mutalating herself because of stress and social problems because she doesn't get the social interaction from humans which she will get from other meerkats.