Episode 11 Roar

Stand by to meet the mighty log-cam.

The wild dhole pups are nearly old enough

to come outside for the first time.

But will our camera, hidden in a log,

capture their first adventure live on tape?

Hello and welcome to Roar. I'm Johny.

Did you know that an ostrich brain

is roughly the same size as a golf ball?

Ah... Fore!

I'm Rani, and Johny - that was rubbish.

Did you know that our brain is roughly the same size

as this lettuce, which is eight times bigger than a golf ball?

Doesn't make us any good at golf though, does it?

I'll have you know I'm very good at golf.

But we've got no time for sports -

we've got a show to be getting on with. Let's get cracking.

The tigers have plenty to say for themselves

but can you chat wit them? Our Roar Ranger seems to think so.

-Ugh!

-We mix up the elephant's diet a bit by serving them jelly,

but what will they make of it?

And I meet the cutest thing in the world -

a baby De Brazza's monkey, who's just three days old.

Six weeks ago, four beautiful dhole puppies were born here.

But they haven't come out of their shed yet

and the adult dholes are being very protective.

So they keepers want to find a way to check

the pups are developing properly without upsetting the pack and

interfering with their natural behaviour.

In the wild, dholes, which are also known as Asiatic wild dogs,

roam across large parts of India, China and south-east Asia.

But they're thriving here in Kent, too.

The four new puppies bring the total pack number up to 19,

and Ben's trying to keep an eye on them.

Occasionally we get to see them in the shed.

Every now and then we'll have a quick look to make sure they're OK.

But, uh, yeah, we don't really get to see them that much at all.

I assume they're coming out at night time, when it's most quiet and

they feel most safe. Obviously we haven't got the public in

at that time of the day and we're not around,

so there's no one round to bother them and they just get on with it.

We usually don't get to see their first steps. Today we have log-cam.

Carved from a tree, welded together from sheet metal,

and finished with thick Perspex to protect the hidden camera.

Log-cam can go where no cameraman would dare to tread.

Last year, it braved the tigers in their lair

and got us some interesting shots.

Despite a mauling, log-cam survived

and now Ben's putting it to a new challenge -

to video the pups emerging from their den.

We haven't seen them coming out,

so we could capture their first steps on this camera.

If it comes off, Ben will get unique shots of the pups.

Once the log's in place and we get right out of the way,

we might get good stuff, but they have to know we're out of the way.

They have to hear us leaving, basically.

I'm going to place it in it's metal box now and make it dhole proof.

Log-cam's in place now.

It's getting towards the end of the day now,

so it's starting to quieten down.

The publics starting to leave the park, so if we get out of the way,

we should get some shots.

Will Ben succeed? We'll come back later to find out

what the hidden camera has recorded.

In the wild, animals come across new and interesting tastes and smells

every day of their lives. The keepers like to make sure

that happens here, too,

and some of the ideas they come up with are really fun.

Mmm! Jelly is may favourite party food and I'm sure you're the same.

When I heard that elephant keeper Tom King

was going to put jelly in the belly of an elly, I just had to come down

and see what's going on. What's the big idea, Tom?

-Hi, Johny.

-How you doing? You all right?

-Not too bad. Nice hat.

-Thank you.

Today, we're going to give some jelly to our ellys,

because it's got flavour, it's got small, but more importantly,

it's got this jelly texture

Now obviously, most jellies have a lot of sugar in them.

-That's not good for their teeth.

-Most definitely.

Anything that's packed with sugar is not good for your teeth.

-However, this is sugar-free jelly.

-Genius.

We're not too sure what the elephants are going to do

-when they come up to see this jelly.

-Where are the elephants now?

They're in the other paddock,

really busting at the gate and wanting to get to their jelly.

Right, OK. So shall we release the jelly?

-Let the jelly go.

-OK. Let's do it.

As well as lemon and lime, the ellys are also getting the choice of

raspberry, and my favourite, which is orange.

But the blackcurrant looks rather good too.

-Who's this who's come out first?

-This is Jums.

He's our bull elephant.

OK. And he is generally the leader?

Well, he's the biggest and in elephant structure, that matters.

-Size matters.

-Right. OK.

Is he the only male, or at least the only adult make?

He's the only adult male in this group.

You can't keep two big bulls together in the same group.

Oh, look at this - we've got the first one. That's blackcurrant.

-That's Justa.

-Justa looks like she's really enjoying it.

So, talk to me about the pick-up technique.

How are they picking this jelly up?

Every elephant seems to have a slightly different technique.

There's a little bit of a grab. I think what's happened is

that some of the jelly is small enough,

they can actually pick it up in their prehensile tips, which is good.

Some of them are trying to scoop, because a lot of elephants,

they tend to scoop round

-and then pick it up and put it into their...

-Like a spoon?

-Yeah.

-OK.

But I think they technique that's working best is

the suck technique, when they actually put their trunk in

and then they have a big snort

up their trunk and pop it in their mouth. Just like drinking water.

Tom, I see Janu's going for the blackcurrant one,

but it looks like she's backing off a little bit...

Who's this who's coming over?

That's Shibi who's coming over now and Shibi is our number two.

She's one below Massa, the matriarch. She's very high standing.

SHE SQUIRTS FROM HER TRUNK

She's not enjoying that! She just spat some out!

No. Part of the problem is we've got a lot of leaves in the paddock.

That's what happens when you get leaves in your jelly and

it goes up your nose. You just spit it out.

Jelly and leaves going up my noise - I'd try and spit it out, to be fair.

Overall, though, I think they've really gone for this jelly.

I think it's been a major success.

Tom, thank you so much. We both put jelly inside the belly of an elly.

THEY LAUGH

We have two Roar Rangers today,

Kelly and William from Blackpool.

THEY SCREAM

They both love animals, but as they're brother and sister,

they can also be very competitive with each other.

I am going to be a better Roar Ranger than my brother today.

I'm going to be a better Roar Ranger than my sister today,

because she's not as fast as me and I can do more tasks than she can.

-I'm going to be a better Roar Ranger than you!

-I'm better!

-I am!

I think you'll find I am.

Kelly and William could be working with any of the animals today

out of all of the hundreds that live in the parks.

At home, they like nothing more than

playing with their cute cats, Becks and Daisy,

and are itching to get going on today's task.

So, what is it?

"Kelly and William, today you are tiger keepers. It'll be Grrrreat!"

Yes!

They'll be working with Siberian tigers,

which are the largest of the five surviving species.

But there are only 400 or so left in the wild,

so they are very endangered.

BOTH: Being a tiger keeper's going to be amazing.

Yes!

The homeland of the Siberian tigers is 3,500 miles away

in eastern Russia,

where the temperature can fall to -50 degrees.

So they need their fur coats. Our Rangers are in a hurry to meet

Chris Hales, deputy head of big cats.

High guys, you all right? I'm Chris. How you doing?

-Hi, I'm Kelly.

-Hi, Kelly.

-And I'm Will.

-All right, William.

The tigers Kelly and William will be working with are a family.

The dad, Tugar, mum, Ingrid, and one-year-old cubs, Sinda and Bira.

A group like this is called an ambush,

because of their ability to sneak up on prey.

But today, they're just lying in wait for Kelly and William.

Our Rangers are only allowed to get this close

because they're with a professional keeper.

OK, obviously you can see we've got...

THE TIGERS ROAR AND MOAN

..four noisy tigers in here. Do you know what these noises are?

These are greetings.

THE GREETINGS CONTINUE

-You can make it back to them.

-THEY IMITATE THE TIGERS

Fantastic. They like being talked to.

THE KIDS AND TIGERS CONTINUE TALKING

Only a year has passed since the two tiger cubs were born.

Back then, they were a lot cuter and smaller than they are now.

Do you just want to stand up for a second.

How tall are you? About that tall? OK.

How tall are you?

-Come on. How tall are you?

-OK!

And she's a one-year-old.

She's a bit bigger than you guys already, isn't she?

So I think now that we've done the nice bit,

-are you guys ready to go and do the smelly bit?

-Yeah!

-Yeah?

Unlike pet cats, even grown-up tigers sometimes wet their beds.

But they're pretty pongy anyway

and it's much worse when their fur gets wet.

It's been raining, so it's possibly going to be

a bit wet in their bedroom.

We'll go in, have a fish through with our hands in the straw and

-if there's anything wet, it goes in the bins.

-Yep.

-Let's go.

Ah, yeah! They've definitely been laying in here.

-It's time for our Rangers to take a deep breath.

-It smells horrible.

I need air, cos it smells in here!

They're finding a lot of wet straw in there.

You need to stand on the bin, right, and jump up and down.

-OK! Loads more room.

-THEY LAUGH

But now, all that wet straw needs to be replaced with nice dry stuff.

-I'm the one going backwards!

-OK, guys.

-Argh!

-Ha-ha!

So what you need to do is take yourself a chunk and

just do that with it.

How's that? Would you guys sleep on that? What do you think?

Yeah. It's quite comfy!

-It's really comfy, isn't it?

-I'm having a nap now. Goodbye!

Well, it does need to be comfortable,

because tigers sleep for up to 18 hours a day.

But our Rangers need to go and wash their hands

and we'll come back later when they feed the big cats.

What did the hungry Dalmatian say after he had his meal?

I don't know.

-That hit the spot.

-THEY LAUGH

HE ROARS

What do you get if you cross a dog and a frog?

A croaker spaniel. Woof woof! Ribbet ribbet!

HE LAUGHS

Who did the fish borrow money from?

I don't know.

The loan shark.

THEY MIMIC THE "JAWS" THEME

THEY LAUGH

We've got a special treat for you today.

I'm with head keeper Simon Jeffery - but that isn't the treat. No.

It's because there's a new baby here in the park.

We're in the open-top enclosure and we can see the little one just here.

Simon, who is this, please?

This is Kubinda. She's one of our most successful breeding De Brazza's

and this is her little baby there.

-This is only literally three days old.

-It's unbelievable.

-Quite a different colour to Mum.

-Yeah, very bright.

When they're born, De Brazza's monkeys are very light.

It's possibly a way of being able to see it and make sure it's all right.

How's Kubinda doing, and baby? At this moment in time,

Kubinda's just munching away and looks fine to me.

Yeah, she's been doing very well. Her baby's been suckling,

it's bright and alert. We make sure it's all all right.

Kubinda's doing very well. She is quite an old animal.

Usually they would have a baby every year.

She only has one every two years at the moment.

-She's getting on now.

-That looks so cute!

It looks like Kubinda's got two tails from the top.

You can just see little one's tail popping out. And the hands as well!

Now, little one's clinging on.

Is that just the instant reflex when they come out?

Yeah. As soon as they baby's born, they know how to grip on and

this is why they're so strong.

I saw Mum then jump up onto the logs.

Any chance that baby's going to get knocked, or is Mum very protective?

She's very aware of where it is. She does know.

It's not impossible little knocks may happen, but unlikely.

She's very aware of her baby. She's very experienced.

-How many has she had before?

-She's had eight babies.

Very experienced Mummy, then!

There's many of her daughters around us here.

This is her daughter, Grub, down here.

She's got plenty of others as well

that might come and look after the baby later on.

She doesn't like to give up the baby until it's a few weeks old.

So, we're talking about auntying. They'll all pitch in.

Here we've got the colobus. Do they pitch in?

They would with their own monkeys, but not with the De Brazza's.

But in their own groups, they're really good at auntying,

the colobus especially. They'll take the babies constantly.

-Everybody in the group will take them.

-Talking about auntying,

we haven't mentioned someone very important yet. Daddy.

Where is he in all of this?

Well, he's actually here on the floor behind us.

-This is George.

-Hiya, George.

He's our diabetic monkey. We keep an eye on him.

The dads don't do a lot. He'll come across and look after...

If there's a threat to the group, he'll protect the group,

protect the baby, but he doesn't pick it up or carry it.

What about these? They're watching.

They want nuts. Simon has nuts and they're eager to get them.

And little one? Is little baby healthy?

Do we know if little baby's a girl or a boy after three days?

We don't know. She keeps it so close to her belly

that we can't get a look yet.

As soon as it comes off Mum, we'll see what sex it is.

It takes a couple of weeks till the babies are off.

Thank you, Simon.

I'm going to get out of here because these guys want more nuts!

Back down at the dholes enclosure, Ben's been using a camera in a log

to try and get pictures of the four young dhole puppies

when they come out of the shed.

He wants to make sure they're getting on well

with the rest of the pack.

This is the camera that we placed in previously

to try and get some activity of the dhole pups.

Here's the bit I filmed of me.

See what else.

It seems like a lot of activity from the adults.

Guarding the shed and going in and out of the shed.

They don't seem too fussed by the camera.

There's one there, just sniffing it now.

Quite curious by it.

Steaming up the lens.

The hidden camera is something new in the enclosure

and the adult dogs won't let the pups anywhere near it

until they've checked it over thoroughly.

Adults coming out the shed. Guarding the shed.

No pups yet, though.

And now one of the adults is trying to eat the hidden camera.

It's pretty tough, though and, although dholes have sharp teeth,

it should survive.

There's clearly something about it that interests them.

There'll be some weird smells on log-cam.

I've had to carry it in here.

It's rubbed up against me so all my smells will be over it.

It's been carried up on the vehicle

which carries all the meat and bins from other animals.

So I'm sure there's a lot of unusual smells on here.

So, nothing of the pups last night.

Shame. I think we should give it another go and just keep trying.

The pups are bound to come out some time.

We'll stick it in a bit further this time.

And we'll come back later to see if Ben DOES get some pictures.

Have you checked out the new Roar game on the CBBC website?

We've got loads of new stuff this year,

including a brand new enclosure called Ice World,

where you can look after penguins and seals.

And here's today's cheat code.

You might want an umbrella, because it's...

Type it in to give yourself and your animals a treat.

Earlier on, Kelly and William from Blackpool gave the Siberian tigers

some nice dry straw to lie on.

But their work isn't finished yet.

There's one other thing we need to do today. What do all cats like?

-Food.

-That's right. So, we're actually going to feed them today.

And tigers love smelly meat.

Believe it or not, this is a small feed.

Imagine all four of these pieces joined together.

They get one of them each. So it's quite a big piece each.

In fact, it's not unusual for an adult tiger

to eat up to 40kg of meat in a day.

That's the same weight as Kelly or William.

In the wild they have to hunt for their food.

So we're going to make it more difficult by hiding this food about.

I'm going to leave it to you two to find some good hiding places.

-Are you ready for this, then?

-Yeah.

Right. Three, two, one, go!

So, are the Roar Rangers enjoying the job?

It's a bit gruesome. Makes me feel a bit icky.

I think I might put it in here.

Shall we head out of the enclosure and let the cats out?

THEY GROAN

We don't know what the tigers are actually talking about,

but they could be demanding dinner.

I'll open up the slide.

How long do you think it'll be before they get the food?

-I think it'll be 30 seconds.

-I think it'll be ten seconds.

OK, well, I think it's going to be seven seconds.

As soon as I pull that slide open, count. We'll see who's right.

-Are you ready?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Ready to count? OK. Go.

Ten! I was right! I was right!

He's chasing him!

You did well. Ten seconds, fantastic.

That's just about everything that needs doing with the tigers now.

You can see they're happy with their food.

Thanks for your help today.

I think I was a better keeper than my brother today.

I hid the food in the best place because mine got picked up first.

That's not good. It's supposed to be picked up last.

You're supposed to hide it. Make them...

William might have a point there.

So does Chris think he's better than his sister?

I can't tell you who's the better keeper

because they both did fantastically.

They had their strong points, their weak points,

but put them both together, superb!

The tigers always came to me.

You finished yet?

Back at the dhole enclosure,

the hidden camera, meant to get shots of puppies leaving the shed,

may not be needed any more.

Head keeper Jim's heard that a pup's been spotted out in the enclosure

and has come down to take a look for himself.

Unfortunately, I can't see any. I can see lots of adults in the grass,

just their heads sticking up, but no pups.

But they are quite small so it's a tricky thing with the long grass.

Sure enough, as soon as Jim arrived, whatever it was disappeared.

They've heard my voice and decided to leg it in the long grass.

The chances are, as soon as I walk away, get in my vehicle and drive,

they'll all come out waving flags and doing triple somersaults

saying, "Hey, he's gone!"

But Jim decides to wait quietly, on the off-chance.

And, eventually, there is a movement in the long grass.

Will Jim get a clear look at it, though?

They look good.

There are four pups in the litter,

but this bold little chap has left his brothers and sisters in the den

and come out for an adventure in the big wide world.

It's always good when you have dominant ones within the babies

because that one then will come through when it's an adult

and show that it's a born leader. You always get one or two like that.

There it is! Yep. Very good.

He's now come out of the long grass

and is playing happily with some of the family members,

which is good. It just shows that, with a bit of patience,

you'll get to see and you'll be rewarded.

Oh, yeah, it's coming over.

But the adults are watching

and they won't let the pup get too near to Jim.

There's several of the pack around him, keeping an eye on him.

Obviously, they know I'm here.

If they think I'm a threat,

they'll pick it up and take it back in the shed.

But, having steered the pup to safety,

they appear to have something else in mind.

What it looks like is that Dad and another male

is trying to coax it out of this enclosure,

into the bigger enclosure.

-DHOLES SQUEAK

-You can hear the squeaks.

They're communicating.

And, look, they've pulled it up

and into the big enclosure now.

It may look rough, but it's the natural way for pups to be carried.

-And his mother's arrived now.

-Mum's taking control here.

She'll probably go straight to the shed with it.

Ooh, where's she taking it? She's taking it in the bushes.

She just wants him safely out of sight.

Everything I've observed is all natural behaviour.

An adult picking up the pup because they think it's in danger,

and they've whipped it off into the bushes.

I'm happy with what I've seen. The pup looks in good health

and the rest of the family are doing their job.

So, great.

Now this pup's left the shed, hopefully his brothers and sisters

will soon have the courage to come outside, too.

That'll make it easier for the keepers

to check that they're fit and healthy.

We'll see lots more of them, too, later in the series.

Do you remember the amazing pictures of a moloch gibbon being born?

Well she's now out in the main enclosure with her mum, Yoni.

Head of primates, Simon, who showed us the baby De Brazza monkey,

has invited us to come down and see her.

She's doing really well. She's healthy, gripping well.

This is big news in the moloch gibbon world. Why is that?

These are a critically endangered animal.

There's only about 2,000 left. They're on the brink of extinction.

To have any babies born is just fantastic.

For us especially. This is the first baby born at Port Lympne, ever.

You look like a proud dad, a big, massive, beaming smile!

You have a breeding programme here. What exactly does that mean?

The idea is that you have a certain amount of animals,

you want to make sure they're paired up properly so, when you breed,

you get the right genetics so you can pair up again down the line

and keep breeding.

The hope of the future is that you can reintroduce back into the wild

-when you have enough animals.

-Why are they so endangered?

They come from a very small island in Java,

one of the most overly-populated places on the planet.

There's about 120 million people living on Java,

compared to Britain at 60 million. They're about the same size.

So there's barely any forest left there -

less than 10% left than there was originally.

This means, through deforestation, pet trade,

these animals are on the brink.

It's really sad, but there's a great side to it, you have a new baby.

-So cool.

-I can see you have nuts and they want them.

Whilst you feed them, we'll say goodbye to you guys

and say make sure you check out what's on the next episode of Roar.

We lay on a fruit feast for the coatis

but are their long, pointy noses or their razor-sharp claws

most useful for eating?

The keepers think they understand animal behaviour

but does Barry know what he's talking about?

HE GRUNTS

And capuchins are very clever monkeys

but is their leader, Brian, going to let them down?

He's not the most intelligent of capuchins.

He's sort of contrary to the rule.

Make sure you're watching.

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