Episode 12 Roar

Chaos in the ele-paddock - a baby boom means there are

six youngsters now, so how will the keepers cope?

Hello and welcome to Roar. I'm Rani.

And I'm Johny. And as you can see, I'm over

six feet tall, incredibly strong and the largest land mammal in Europe.

Johny, sorry, but I think you've read the script wrong.

It was about these guys - the European bison.

These five are eating machines

and they can munch on 32 kilograms of food a day.

Yes, and as I was saying, the bison can be distinguished by their thick,

woolly coat that covers the head and neck, and during the autumn,

they develop an extra thick coat to prepare them for winter.

Today's show is just hotting up, so let's get on with it.

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?

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.

The crowd in the elephant paddock's been

growing rapidly over the last four years, with six calves being born.

There are 14 elephants here now and remembering all the names

is a real challenge for keepers Dave, Liz and Angela.

Their different sizes help, of course.

Jums, the adult bull elephant, is absolutely huge.

And at the other end of the scale,

there's little Etana, just four months old.

Etana is the tiniest baby elephant you will ever see.

She is very, very dinky.

She stands out amongst the rest of the herd.

Everyone always comments about how small she looks,

especially compared to, like... if she's standing anywhere near Jumby.

She's teeny.

But Etana's a typical toddler -

always interested in new things and developing

her senses of sight, sound, taste, and particularly, smell.

She does like sniffing poo.

She eats the poo as well, which is actually good for her

because it contains antibodies from the adults,

so she's building up her immune system. Really good for her.

Another thing she likes to do is walk backwards. We often

get people come up to us saying, "Is the new baby all right?"

But she's just discovering what she can and can't do,

and it's just a fun thing to do at the moment.

Swana is her proud mum but she does like to have a break once in a while

and fortunately for her, elephants are great at babysitting.

When a calf is born, the mother obviously helps to get the calf

to its feet, but also you find that other females will help out as well.

These can be sort of females of the same age that have had calves,

and you also find younger females helping the calves out as well.

All the other elephants have been fine with her.

They push her towards Mum because that's where she's supposed to be.

All the other youngsters, though, they just love her.

They are learning how to be a female,

and they'll know what to do if they, later on, have babies themselves.

We'll come back to meet the five other elephant calves later.

I've come to the coati enclosure and I've been given strict instructions

by keeper Jess Ottaway to keep the bucket of food away from me

because apparently, these guys are hungry. Look at them following me!

-I feel like the Pied Piper. Hiya, Jess.

-Hi.

I'm going to hand this over to you before I ask you, is it safe?

These are all perfectly fine. All they want is the food.

You've got a treat for me today, haven't you?

-Yes.

-What exactly is it?

We've put your camera down here, we'll try and get all their noses

and show them using their noses, how they would in the wild.

Nose cam! This sounds good.

Well, they seem absolutely desperate for their food,

so let's give it to them. How are we going to do it?

Just throw it all over the camera.

OK, we've got bananas, meal worms, pears and apples.

As you can see, straight in there.

You talked about them using their noses. This food's straight

out of here, but normally, do they dig for their food?

They would dig around for roots of plants, fruits,

anything under the ground. They'd use their nose to hook it out.

Is it quite a hard nose then?

Not really, it's quite soft, kind of like a dog's nose.

But they use it more like a pig

and shovel up all the undergrowth and everything.

Let's see them here. They're going for it.

Also, looking at them this close up, take a look at these claws.

They look like they could do some serious damage.

Their claws adapt for them to also pick up undergrowth and dig holes.

So what do they use more, the nose or their claws?

For hard soil, they'll use their claws, but normally,

if it's soft and things and they know where the fruit is,

they'll use their nose more.

They're coming straight in here and grabbing the food!

-Is this one family?

-These are all females.

In the wild, the females would live in a group

and then the males would be solitary.

Is there a hierarchy in here?

Is there like a leader of the pack?

Not really. They tend to just work as a clan, and like you saw,

they all come in together. There's not one takes more than the other.

They just kind of eat as quickly as they can and

get it all down as much as they can.

-So no-one will miss out?

-Definitely not.

We can hear birds tweeting in here, or is that really the coatis?

No, that's the coatis. They're very vocal.

They make little tweets when we come around.

If they feel there's any danger, in the wild, if there was any predators,

-like birds of prey are anything, they'd make an alarm bark.

-A bark?

Yes. So they can make quite a range of noises.

I won't ask you to do an impression!

You see the little nose, snuffling around?

More interested in the meal worms than the fruit.

They get fruit every day, whereas they don't always get the meal worms.

So it's a bit of a treat for them.

They're enjoying their food!

Look, their tails are standing in the air.

Like a happy dog or something. I've got to mention the tails though.

Little stripes on them remind me of another animal. Any relations?

They are related to the raccoon

and they use their tail for different signals.

They'll be up when they're eating

and it will signal to other clan members that they've found something.

It's been great to see their noses in action today, Jess.

It's a bit like a spoon.

The only thing is, how do they clean them?

With a big lick of their tongue, I suppose!

Thanks very much, Jess. It's been great popping down here today.

All right then, that's a cut!

We're here for an Ask The Keeper session

with one of the more feisty members of the park,

and not the keeper! It's the African hunting dog.

We are going to be firing questions at Head of Carnivores, Jim Vassey.

Our pack are hungry for answers, Jim.

-Are you ready?

-Yeah, bring it on.

OK. He says bring it on - bring it on, guys.

Vinnie, have you got a question?

Do they hunt in packs or do they hunt by themselves?

These actually hunt in packs. The more eyes and ears on their prey,

the easier it is for them to catch something.

They will hunt something and find something that's old

so it's easier to catch.

They don't always go for the healthy stuff.

They find an animal that may be injured or old, but they tend

-to catch them, more often than not.

-Once they've got their

-eye on you, you've got no chance.

-No chance.

How big is their territory?

I suppose you may be looking at 200 to 300 square kilometres.

They will have a main den where the females give birth,

but also other dens dotted around their area, so at different times,

they'll move the pups to another den because the food will be better.

So they've got a vast area that they cover.

Do they see in black and white or colour?

They see almost the same as us.

They've got better vision at night, but with these guys,

the way they catch their prey is more smell and sound.

Hence why they've got huge ears. They are almost like radar dishes.

They turn their ears around, pick up where the sound is coming from.

If there's dense vegetation, they can't see their prey, so

that's why they use the big ears and their noses, which are very good.

I know they eat meat, but do they eat veg?

90 per cent of their food is meat,

but that other 10 per cent, they will eat some of the food

in the stomach of the animal they've killed.

So there'll be grass in there, maybe berries and stuff like that.

I've got to say, Jim, I'm very impressed.

You're obviously Head of Carnivores for a reason.

Guys, can we come up with a Killer Question, do you think?

Let's huddle and think of a question that's really going to trick Jim.

Come on, guys, come close.

OK, guys, have we got any good ideas?

This looks a bit mean, I think!

Five heads against one. But let's see what they come up with.

-Right, have we got it?

-Come on, guys, bring it on.

We've done our research, Jim. Ready for your Killer Question?

-Yeah, go for it.

-OK. Which breed of African hunting dog is the biggest?

Good question, good question.

Because as you know, all countries in Africa have got

sub-species of the same dog. But, if I were to hazard a guess -

South Africa.

You're right, South Africa.

-Yes!

-You know everything, don't you?

Not everything, but, you know...

That was a good guess and I was right. Yes!

We'll get you next time, Jim.

What d'you reckon? Thumbs up or thumbs down for Jim?

Thumbs up all round. Catch us next time on Ask The Keeper.

You did well.

Why don't dogs make good dancers?

Cos they have two left feet!

What's a sheep's favourite cartoon?

Baa-lamory!

HE GRUNTS LIKE A PIG

What noise do you get when you drop a water balloon on a cow?

-I don't know.

-Cow-boom!

THEY LAUGH

I've heard there's a new rhino keeper in town,

so I've come down to meet and greet him in true Roar fashion.

And also to find out how he's going to get a beast like

a rhino to become friends with him.

-Hi, Gareth.

-Hi, How are you today?

Very well, thank you. Nice to meet you.

-Now, new keeper.

-Yeah.

And you've been thrown straight in with the rhinos, so,

firstly, how are you finding it?

It's very good. I'm just starting to get used to them all

as individuals and try and learn them all apart,

because they are all very different. There are 16 rhinos at the park.

So telling them all apart at the moment

it is a little bit tricky. I am getting there, slowly.

OK, I'm going to quiz you! Who have we got here?

This is Quinto. So he's a young man.

He's a very handsome boy, as you can see.

Is it true that you and Quinto have come from the same park?

Yeah, well, he arrived a few weeks before me, but he did, he came from

the park I used to work at.

I didn't work with rhinos at that park, I worked with giraffe.

So I kind of new Quinto but I didn't know him personally,

so it's nice to kind of meet him a bit more officially, if you like.

You seem really at ease here with Quinto. Quinto, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Is that because you've got food and he's happy because of that?

Is that one of your tricks to get to know the rhino?

Food is always a good trick to get to know a rhino. They're quite...

not greedy, but they're very food-orientated, so if

you want them to say hello to you,

then food is always a good starting point.

So is that how you get an animal to trust you

as a new keeper in a new section?

Well, I mean, I guess...

trust kind of comes after a bit of time. They've got

to get to know you and understand what you're like and who you are.

It does come with a bit of time, but obviously, food

does soften the path if you like. It makes it a little bit easier.

But it's also nice because it gives them some kind of connection to you.

You can get closer and talk to them and they can start to listen

to your voice, because animals do pick up on all

those kind of mannerisms that we have as people as well.

So is that what you'll do? Now you're here, you're new at the park,

will you spend a lot of time coming down and chatting to the rhinos?

To be honest, because we've got 16 here,

there's a lot of rhinos that I've got to know.

And also, they are all individuals and they all do look different.

They've all got personality differences,

as well as physical characteristics as well.

Have you noticed anything about Quinto so you can recognise him?

Yeah, he's got a really, really long front lip.

He's got a massive, prehensile front lip.

Quite strong as well.

And his horns are very different to everybody else's as well.

So they're all very different.

People always assume animals are all the same,

but it's like people who've got two black cats, they can tell them apart.

And it's like families with twins.

It's been great to meet you and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of you.

-Yeah, hopefully so.

-Good luck here at the park.

-I'll hand these to you.

-Thank you.

-I'll get out of here. Thanks.

-You're welcome.

Here you go, boy.

Back in the ele-paddock where we met Etana earlier on,

Liz, Angela and Dave have five other cute calves to look after,

starting with Uzuri.

Uzuri is very special to me

because she was born a week before I started,

so she was kind of learning how to be an elephant as

I was learning about elephants.

Uzuri's like a naughty little child at the moment.

She pushes it a little bit with some of them,

and she'll just take on anybody still,

and she's just a really good fun.

She can disrupt things a little bit.

When you're doing a fence feed she'll charge you along the fence,

so she's just really good fun at the moment to play with.

At a year and a half, Uzuri and the older youngsters

are all on solid food now, which is great for them

but hard work for the keepers.

We've been successful. We've bred quite a lot of elephants,

which is brilliant but means the more we have

the more food we have to feed them, so the more food we have to chop,

we have to pick up more poo, we have to sweep more, tidy up more.

It's brilliant but there's a lot more work to do.

The quantity of food we have to produce is enormous.

We have two deliveries a week

and it's two huge lorry-loads full.

We get a dumper-load every day, and that's fruit and veg.

Then they get a big bale of hay

and they also get branches from trees.

It's absolutely worth it.

Much more to do, but yeah,

enjoyable, it's lovely to have babies around.

As one of only two males working in the ele-section,

Dave is in the minority, and the same is true in the paddock.

One of the few boys is two-and-a-half-year-old Juva.

Juva is one of our young bulls.

Very placid, he's not aggressive at all.

As he gets older, he'll grow out of that,

but hopefully it'll stay for a while.

One day, Juva will be as big as his dad,

but for now he gets bossed around in the playground.

The young bull, growing up with young females,

is possibly going to get a bit of hassle,

especially if the females are a bit older.

But give him time and he always get them back.

It's like watching children play.

One of those bigger girls, nearly twice his size, is Jamma.

Jamma is a lovely little character. She's nearly three years old.

She's the matriarch's daughter,

which means she gets away with a lot.

She can throw her weight around as long as Mum isn't around.

As soon as Mum's there, she's on her best behaviour.

But she's grown up and she's helping to look after the babies.

Massa, the matriarch, or top female elephant,

will quickly sort out any kid who steps out of line.

MASSA TRUMPETS

She's kind of like the boss.

She leads all the other elephants in the herd.

In the wild she'd lead them to water, to food,

she'd be the one to alert them to any dangers around,

and she'd help to raise all the calves as well.

The oldest of the young elephants are Jara and Janu.

They're both four years old and getting bigger.

But as cute as all these babies are, in 10 years' time,

even little Etana will be huge, and that's a growing problem for Dave.

The headache comes when you think about the future.

Obviously we've got to think about expansion,

because obviously as the calves get bigger,

they're going to need their own quarters.

To have a breeding herd of elephants,

that's amazing, African elephants.

It's one of the largest herds in Europe, and we'd like to carry on.

We'd love to get to, say, 20 elephants.

That would be absolutely amazing.

But building buildings like this to house elephants

with all the sophisticated gating systems that we have

costs a lot of money.

Give it a year down the road, we would be pretty full.

Which shows just how successful the breeding programme here has been.

The keepers don't mind all the work the little elephants create,

but for now at least, even they are thinking perhaps enough is enough.

How's your wildlife park doing in the Roar online game?

Log on and check out all the new attractions.

Today's cheat code is fog13, so type it in and if it isn't too foggy

you'll see what surprises are in store for you today.

I'm in the capuchin enclosure

and the professor of primate puzzles has been at it again.

-Keeper Jamie, how are you doing?

-Not too bad.

What on earth is this contraption?

We call it the raisin board.

So you can see all these holes in here.

We stuff a raisin inside and it just makes it a lot more difficult

to get the food out.

Why do you want to make it more difficult?

With the capuchins,

they're so intelligent that they need constant stimulation.

We have to give them puzzles and things to do,

which is what this is. They have to fiddle it, getting the things out.

It's also natural behaviour as well.

So with things like termites, they would have to get in little holes

-and get them out.

-Who's this fella?

This is Brian, he's the main man. He's the dominant male in here.

All right, they seem to be having a go at it here.

-Shall we take a step back so that more come down?

-Yep.

So this is Brian here.

Brian is having a right old go.

He's be taking them out with ease. Are they dextrous, the fingers?

They've got hands the same as us.

Thumbs, fingers can grasp really well.

He's certainly speeding through them.

I've noticed there's some leaves in there.

-Why have you put that in?

-It makes it more natural.

It's something else they root through.

Oh, look, he's going for it now!

Oh, no, it's the raisins he's interested in.

It's something else to add to it

to make it more difficult for them.

Some of these guys appear to be making noises like,

"Oh, I want some!"

But it's just Brian here on his own.

Won't he let some of the others have some?

He's the dominant male, so his job is to check everything out first,

so he'd check it's safe, but also because he's the dominant male,

he gets first dibs.

So they're waiting to see if Brian drops dead

and if he's all right, then they'll have their share.

Pretty much it, yeah. And as they come down,

you'll notice they're submissive to him,

and they make noises to him, you know,

"Is it all right if I have a go?"

And you can see Brian is going to both sides of the board,

just to stop everybody else having a go.

There's a little sneaky one having a try there.

-Are they a family here then?

-Yes.

There's five females, Brian is the male, and the rest are all the kids.

Now Brian's moved off. The others will start coming in.

It'll generally be the males that come in,

so you've got Freddie and Genghis.

The females probably won't come down until we've left.

They're a bit more nervous.

So what's Brian doing right now?

He's not the most intelligent of capuchins.

He's sort of a contrary to the rule.

He gets a bit selfish and gets very frustrated

that he can't get it all out at once.

"Argh! Forget it all," and he wants to chuck it off!

It's amazing seeing these guys with this board

and how they work together, and there's a hierarchy there.

It's been brilliant. Thank you.

I reckon, with this board now they've got no raisin to be bored.

-Oh, dear.

-Because, raisin...

I see what you did there.

Ah!

Now, back to the European bison that we saw at the beginning of the show.

Smaller than their American cousins, they're fascinating creatures,

and keeper Barry spends a lot of time with them.

My name is Barry and I can talk to the bison.

Hmm! Hmm!

As you can see, European bison are huge.

They weigh over a ton, and in the wild would live in enormous herds.

So they talk to one another a lot.

But Barry reckons that it's a good idea to be on speaking terms too,

because, you don't want to fall out

with anything that's big and hairy with horns.

Hmm! Hmm!

He's not impressed. He's probably thinking,

"What's all that about?"

So bison really talk at all?

Bison will roam for quite some distance.

Mainly the females will stay together with the calves,

so obviously there's a need to keep in contact with each other.

They roam over great distances,

so vocalisation would be used to keep in touch with the others.

The males will tend to be more solitary.

So they do communicate, but can Barry actually talk to Izabezza?

He's only a young lad, just five years old,

but will he listen to Uncle Barry?

If I give him his nuts, let's see what he does.

There you go. There's your brekkie.

It's rude to talk with your mouth full. Maybe he's just being polite.

He does make a huffing sound,

so I'd like to think that's a "Thank you" and "Where is it?"

and "Hurry up" sort of message.

Let's see if I can communicate with him.

See if I can get any noises from him.

Izabezza, come on then.

Come on then.

Hmm! Hmm! Oh, he's recognised that sound.

Not quite sure what message I gave him,

but he did recognise it as a sound, didn't he?

He may be a good boy...

-Good boy.

-But he's not very chatty.

Hmm, hmm, hmm!

No, he's more interested in his breakfast!

I think he's a strong silent type.

Barry, you might as well say good bison. Get it?

That's about it for today's show,

but we've got time to come and help carnivore keeper

Mark Hawkes give the dhole some dinner. How are you doing, Mark?

Hiya, I can see flashes of orange.

Are the dhole actually in their enclosure whilst we're here?

-They are, yeah. We're in here currently with 16, 12 adults.

-16?

16, with us 3.

Yeah, at the moment, yeah.

-Are we safe?

-I brought a little bit of food along

so it should keep them at bay for five minutes.

Gosh. Now I understand there are some pups in here.

Yes, there's four pups at the moment.

Still quite little and quite cute.

That's one of the adults coming up.

That's an adult? Not that big, actually.

Do you think we'll see a little pup at all?

While they're still quite young, quite small and vulnerable,

they'll probably hang back a little,

wait for Mum to sort of hopefully bring them some food

after she's had her fill.

You might not see them until they're bigger.

They seem quite shy.

Where do they usually lurk around here?

I can't see them. I can just see, like you were saying, flashes.

Generally, when there are people in the enclosure,

they'll hang back out of the way.

You can guarantee that even though you can't see them,

they're watching you.

You've got one or two. As you can see, he's bold.

-Is that the same one that came over before?

-More than likely.

Rabbit's their favourite food that we feed them as well,

so he'll look for the best ones before

any of the other dogs can get them.

So if it's the same one, will he be collecting

for the rest of the pack, or is it just all for him?

Well, at the moment,

he'll probably be looking for the best bits for himself.

There's a very strict sort of order within the pack.

There's a hierarchy, so the guys at the top will get their fill first

and then it'll filter down to the lower ranks.

And do the pups eat rabbit as well, do they eat the same food?

At the moment they'll probably be starting to eat

a bit of solid food.

They would have been suckling from Mum as well.

But once they get older,

they'll be scrapping for their fair share of the food, yeah.

We look forward to seeing that, then, when the pups

are a bit more confident in their enclosure.

Thank you, Mark, this has been a right dog's dinner.

It has, though, hasn't it? Been a dog's dinner?

All this talk of food has made me feel peckish.

-Shall we get a bite to eat?

-I think so.

Check out what's on the next episode.

Oi, wait for me!

The tigers are given some ice blocks to cool off with,

but it only seems to fire them up.

I try to get six adult gorillas to behave for a photo,

but they don't exactly say cheese.

And our Roar Ranger decides to be brave and hold a snake,

but it decides to go up his T-shirt.

Oh, no!

Don't miss it!

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