Initially it looked like curtains for poor little 'Simples' the newborn baby meerkat abandoned at birth by his mother and left cruelly for dead because he was the runt of the litter.
Fortunately for Simples, an alert member of staff at Cullmore Zoo near Bristol, Aileen Wuornos, spotted the tiny creature near the meerkat compound fence.
"I thought he was dead at first," Aileen told us. "But then I saw the tiniest twitch of his little nose, and the slightest flicker of a whisker."
Aileen immediately took the little creature indoors to warm him up, and massaged his chest with her finger in an effort to stimulate his heart. After working on tiny Simples, who was no bigger than a small mouse, Aileen eventually managed to revive him.
Which is where the difficult part started. After all attempts to reunite the little fellow with his mother, and his three siblings had failed, Aileen resigned herself to hand rearing the little chap.
For three weeks, during which his new home was a margerine tub because he was so tiny, little Simples had to be hand fed every two hours with specially formulated milk administered with an eyedropper. Which meant that Aileen was left exhausted by the punishing routine, but after the three weeks, little Simples was moving around and clearly getting stronger and more confident with every passing day.
So where to now for plucky little Simples?
"Nowhere really," Aileen sighed. "The fucking cat got him. I only turned my back for a minute, the cat pounced, and before I could get to Simples' aid the cat was off out of the catflap like a fucking rocket, with little Simples clamped firmly in her jaws. Haven't seen the fucking thing since, but it's getting no dinner tonight, and if I get the chance, I'll boot the bastard up the arse as well. Fucking bastard cat..."
More as we get it.
