How can they say there is no human interaction? Just their presence there is human interaction and their excuse of letting nature take its course is a bunch of BULL! What about Big Si? He was found to have TB and what did they do? Instead of letting nature take its course they decided to put him down as to avoid an outbreak. Don't tell me their is no human interaction! They could have saved Flower but I'm sure that ratings crossed their minds will making this decision. They may say they put Big Si down for the benefit of the whole and I say saving Flower was for the benefit of the Whiskers. I'm not knocking Rocket Dog but if she had the dominant instincts don't you think she would have challenged Flower when the Whiskers reunited? At the present time Flower was the Whiskers lifeline for survival and I'm not sure Rocket Dog or any of the others are up to the task. How many other dominant females have we seen make the decisions Flower had to make and have positive outcomes as she did. (At least as positive as you can get in the desert). They could have prevented the snake from entering the burrow and avoided this altogether, but we can't forget about the ratings!!! R.I.P. Flower, you will be greatly missed, not only by your viewers but by the Cambridge researchers and the AP production team, I will guarantee that!

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Instead of letting nature take its course they decided to put him down as to avoid an outbreak. Don't tell me their is no human interaction!

Well they didn't avoid an outbreak. Meerkats are dying from TB, whole mobs have been lost to the disease- a disease HUMAN interaction gave them. ( This is a fact, not debatable. Just google if you don't want to take my word for it.)

Yet the non-intervention "prime directive" is doing nothing of any real substance to stop this man-made tragedy. And the meerkats suffer for "our" arrogance. And 10-20 years from now when there is a new strain of TB afflicting man, humanity suffers.

But I "guess" this is evolution research. We are studying what happens when new diseases are introduced into species that has no natural immunity. Guess we don't have enough data from HIV, SARS, Bird Flu, and chimps with mumps for the academic community to respond.

FSM- getting off her high horse only long enough to take a breath!

I think that by "Human interaction" they mean that they don't interfere in their behaviour. I mean they have to be close to them to study them and all. It's messed up that Flower died. But, hey I DON'T MEAN THIS IN A BAD WAY, she was going to die eventually. I mean it's sad she had to suffer and I'm honestly sad because of it. I believe the family will get trough this. Wiskers rule!