{"id":27277,"date":"2007-09-06T17:41:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-06T16:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amateurphotographer.co.uk\/uncategorized\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax-27277"},"modified":"2014-09-02T18:24:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T17:24:21","slug":"exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/","title":{"rendered":"Exposed: Meerkat photo story was a \u2018hoax\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amateur Photographer<\/i> (AP) magazine can exclusively reveal that today?s national newspaper stories, claiming a meerkat took photographs at Longleat Safari Park, were based on a hoax.<\/p>\n

Keith Harris, head warden at Longleat Safari Park, told AP?s news editor Chris Cheesman: ?It started off as a joke. It was a slight hoax. The meerkats didn?t take any pictures at all.?<\/p>\n

Harris said that the story was originally passed to the Bristol-based South West News Service.<\/p>\n

He explained that it wasn?t meant to be picked up by newspapers in this way, adding that it started as an idea for a good picture when the meerkats began playing around with the camera equipment.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/i>, The Daily Telegraph<\/i>, The Sun<\/i>, Daily Mail<\/i> and The Mirror<\/i> were among the newspapers to publish the story after receiving it in good faith, along with the images, from the well known news agency. <\/p>\n

They reported that a cheeky meerkat called Monty used a Canon EOS 650 film-based SLR camera (pictured) to take a family portrait when a photographer left his kit inside an enclosure.<\/p>\n

The animal had seemingly clambered up the tripod to explore the controls after deputy head warden Ian Turner briefly stepped out of the enclosure.<\/p>\n

But the reports<\/a> stated that the pictures were stored on the camera’s ‘digital memory card’. <\/p>\n

This raised the eyebrows of AP’s eagle-eyed technical writer Barney Britton – triggering doubts over the authenticity of the story ? because the camera shown alongside the inquisitive meerkat was a 20-year-old Canon EOS 650, a traditional camera which uses film.<\/p>\n

Ian Turner was on holiday and unavailable for comment at the time of writing.<\/p>\n

No-one from the news and picture agency, South West News Service, was available for comment.<\/p>\n

Click here for a news update dated 7 September.<\/a><\/p>\n

Click on the links below for just a few of the original stories published in the press (6 September).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/main.jhtml?xml=\/news\/2007\/09\/05\/nmeer105.xml<\/p>\n

http:\/\/travel.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/life_and_style\/travel\/news\/article2395285.ece<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/article\/0,,2-2007410512,00.html<\/p>\n

\"Canon<\/img><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amateur Photographer<\/i> (AP) magazine can exclusively reveal that today\u2019s national newspaper stories, claiming a meerkat took photographs at Longleat Safari Park, were based on a hoax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":324,"featured_media":27278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"product-category":[],"class_list":["post-27277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photo-news"],"yoast_head":"\nExposed: Meerkat photo story was a \u2018hoax\u2019 - Amateur Photographer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Amateur Photographer (AP) magazine can exclusively reveal that today\u2019s national newspaper stories, claiming a meerkat took photographs at Longleat Safari Park, were based on a hoax.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exposed: Meerkat photo story was a \u2018hoax\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amateur Photographer (AP) magazine can exclusively reveal that today\u2019s national newspaper stories, claiming a meerkat took photographs at Longleat Safari Park, were based on a hoax.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Amateur Photographer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Amateur.photographer.magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-06T16:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-09-02T17:24:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2007\/09\/Times.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"606\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Megan Graye\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AP_Magazine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AP_Magazine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Megan Graye\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Megan Graye\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/#\/schema\/person\/09a37c0ec6db00d983eb2045e99ff2f1\"},\"headline\":\"Exposed: Meerkat photo story was a \u2018hoax\u2019\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-09-06T16:41:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-09-02T17:24:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/\"},\"wordCount\":355,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2007\/09\/Times.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Latest news\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/latest\/photo-news\/exposed-meerkat-photo-story-was-a-hoax\/\",\"name\":\"Exposed: Meerkat photo story was a \u2018hoax\u2019 - 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