Episode 20 Roar

Today on Roar - when she was born,

this baby meerkat was very sick.

Now the keepers are doing everything they can to help her survive.

Hello and welcome to Roar. I'm Rani.

I'm Johny. I'm in a tug of war with Melendey the serval,

who can run at speeds of up to 80 kilometres per hour!

And she can jump over three metres straight up.

Which is almost two Ranis standing on top of each other.

Very impressive. And speaking of jumping, I think we should LEAP

-into today's show.

-Let's do it!

Ah, she's winning, Johny!

Coming up on Roar -

we'll be grilling a keeper to get the low-down on the world's

largest rodent.

Why has Kruger the big bull elephant turned mean and moody?

And up at the baboons, Dad goes mad when the kids nick his dinner!

-SHRILL SCREECHING

-Oh!

They're faster, but Dad's bigger.

Stay tuned to see what happens.

But first there's some big news about the meerkats.

Three weeks ago, there was an emergency when a newborn pup

fell dangerously ill.

If she didn't get medical attention in the vet's hospital

she was going to die.

So the keeper in charge, Rich Barnes, had no choice

but to take her away from her mum.

It was a tough call but then Rich is a tough guy.

He has to be, because he's the boss of the big cats section.

But maybe roughty-toughty Rich isn't such a hard case after all.

The baby meerkat is still in the vet's hospital

but it's Rich who's been looking after her more than anyone else.

-In fact, he's absolutely devoted.

-Hello!

Are you ready for some food?

I'm not really a big softie at all.

Don't let anyone ever see this, all right?

But then this baby would turn anyone into a softie.

Patience!

OK, this is Tigs. TIGS SHRIEKS

A little baby meerkat.

Three weeks old today, aren't you?

Eh? TIGS SHRIEKS

Yeah, she's doing really well now.

Actually look like a little meerkat now, don't you, eh?

Look like a little meerkat? Yes. TIGS SHRIEKS

And these are OK noises, kind of content and just, "Oh, what's that?"

What's that?

And when she's hungry, she proper squawks like a bird.

SHRILL SHRIEKS

Yeah, she's quite cute.

Aren't ya?

She's now three weeks today and she's, er,

she's doing well. Apart from she's started teething and chewing

her tail a bit. It's sore, isn't it, madam? It's getting better.

You think it's getting better?

Yes. SHE SHRIEKS

Despite the name, meerkats aren't cats at all.

They're actually a kind of mongoose.

They come from the deserts of southern Africa

where they usually live in a large family group called a mob.

But sadly Tigs will never be able to return to her mob.

Like many animals, meerkats will reject a baby

once it's been gone for more than a day or so. In fact,

if Tigs WAS put back in with her family

they'd probably kill her. So now it's up to Rich

to become a foster parent.

Are you hungry? Are you hungry?

SHE SQUEAKS Are you hungry?

Are you? Are you hungry?

Do you want some grub?

Tigs is too young to have anything but milk.

And she's getting the sort that's specially made

for kittens of domestic cats.

I feed her every two to four hours...

Every three hours-ish, roughly.

It's not an exact science. They'll let you know as and when

they want feeding.

Last little bit. Come on, last bit.

There we go.

That's a good girl.

Good girl.

It's just a matter of feeding throughout the day and night,

around the clock. Hence the reason why I'm a little tired and cranky,

but, you know, it's worth it if you can get them to survive.

She's doing really well now.

She's started to be quite a lot of fun now, so it's quite good.

Now Rich is going to leave her to snooze

with a fresh hot water bottle.

But since Tigs needs to be fed every three hours, round the clock,

the keepers must take turns to bring her home with them at night.

We'll find out how that works later on.

When gorilla keeper Emily Clark invited me down to the pool

I thought, way-hey, a bit of swimming on this lovely day.

What I didn't count on, Emily, was the western lowland gorillas

would be joining us. What's this all about?

-I didn't think they liked water!

-They don't like deep water

but in the wild you can find them in the swampy areas

-and they will wade in up to about their waist.

-OK.

I can see you've got some grapes. They look quite hard and very cold.

Yeah, we've got frozen grapes here.

And we've got a pool here.

-Obviously the gorillas are not going to be waist deep in it.

-No.

-It's safe in that pool.

-So are we putting those grapes in the water?

Yes, you guessed it.

We'll put them in and see if the gorillas will go in there

just like they would in the wild in search for food.

I bet your arm's getting cold, so let's chuck those in.

You've got some little ones in here. Is it safe for them

to go in the water?

Yeah. In this group, our youngest one she's big enough that she could,

well, she could be in the water and her head wouldn't be under.

-She'd be quite safe.

-And what about...

-putting some of these grapes on the ledge, maybe...

-Yeah.

-..if they don't know there's food in there?

-Yeah, we can do that too.

Scattering them round, as well, makes sure the gorillas don't fight.

-Is that the whole idea? To put a load out?

-Yeah.

We've got 14 gorillas in this group

-so it's good to spread the food around.

-Lucky we've lots of grapes.

The other things is, are there any gorillas we have to watch out for,

that will just dive straight in? Is there anyone who loves the water?

It's down to individual preference.

It'll be interesting when we let them out.

We've a few gorillas that are good at using sticks

-to obtain things they might like.

-OK. I don't think they'll need sticks,

I think they'll need sieves to get these grapes.

-Emily, is that enough for now?

-We can put a few more in,

and the rest we can scatter around the enclosure.

to prevent the gorillas fighting and encourage natural foraging behaviour.

We're going to scatter the rest of these grapes.

Join us later when we release the gorillas and find out

if they're willing to take the plunge.

It's Ask The Keeper time.

Today we're going c-c-crazy for the c-c-capybaras.

I'm joined by these animal addicts,

who are ready to give hoofstock keeper Helen Rhodes a grilling.

-Are you ready for the flames?

-Yeah.

-Go on, Jordan.

-What food do they eat?

-Capybaras are herbivores

so they'll eat any shoots, leaves. In the wild, they'd eat aquatic plants.

What climate do they live in?

they come from South America so it's very warm.

It's sort of Argentina, Uruguay, anywhere like that.

Central and south America.

Do they have any predators?

-They don't look like they can defend themselves well.

-They have lots.

Ocelot, jaguars, any wild cats.

Also snakes, but their main predator is probably humans.

-Really?

-Yep, they kill them for their meat.

Are these guys endangered, then? Are there many left in the wild?

They're not endangered. There's a lot of them. There is loss of habitat,

so we have to be careful but, at the moment, they're fine.

Are they related to any other animals?

They're in the guinea pig family and they're rodents,

so they're related to all rodents like rats and mice.

How long do they live for?

In the wild they live up to about ten years old.

but in captivity they'll probably get to about 12 or 13.

-They're mammals, so I guess they give birth like a human.

-Yep.

They can have up to eight babies. Generally they'll have three or four

but they can give birth to eight babies and they're born quite big

so...must be a bit of a task.

-How long are they pregnant for?

-145 days, which is just over four months.

How long ago did they give birth? I've noticed some little ones.

Those little ones by the fence are two weeks old.

I think we've asked all the questions we can think of.

Almost. There is still time for the killer question.

We did our research and we've thought up some tough questions

-and we're going to pick one now, OK?

-OK.

WHISPERING

Ready? Yeah? Cool.

Right, time for the killer question. Are you ready?

-No!

-Well, you're going to have to be, cos here it is.

How many capybaras would it take to weigh the same as a family car?

Huh...slightly unfair.

Um...well, OK. Just trying to think.

Say a small family car weighed, I don't know, a tonne?

Yeah? We'll go with a tonne. The average capybara is 50...

In a tonne, divided by... I'd say about 20.

About 20.

I can tell you...

you're quite a way off. You could actually get 40 capybaras

to weigh the same size as a family car.

-Oh, at least I tried.

-You tried, you did all right.

All the other questions were right. She got the killer question wrong

but are we going to give her the thumbs up or thumbs down?

Thumbs up all round. You've done really well.

Let's see if the next keeper does well in another Ask The Keeper.

-What type of maths does an owl like the most?

-I don't know.

-OWL-gebra!

-BOTH: TWEET-TWOO

-Wooo!

-Wooo!

What day does a fish hate?

FRY-day!

RAAARRRGH!

-What did the boy octopus say to the girl octopus?

-I don't know.

I want to hold your hand, hand, hand, hand

hand, hand, hand, hand.

Ha-ha-ha-ha!

THEY ALL LAUGH

Earlier on in the show,

gorilla keeper Emily and I placed some treats in the gorilla's pool.

Now the gorillas are on their way out, so all we have to do

is wait and see if they are brave enough

to go in there and munch on them grapes.

-Here they come, now. Whose group is this?

-Keefu's.

Is there a chance Keefu will go to the pool first, to check it's safe?

He may do. He generally gets first pick of the food.

But again, he might collect the grapes from around, first.

But there are a few grapes in here, so he might try and protect them.

There are plenty of grapes. Here's one approaching the pool.

-Who's this?

-This is Kebu. He's one of the older males

Does that mean he's more confident?

Yeah, more than some of the other gorillas in this group.

-Still, he's only picking them off the edge to begin with.

-Yes.

Do you think he's tempted to go in the water? Or is that too scary?

I think he will - once he's got everything he can reach first.

I like that. Playing it safe, taking the nearest ones first.

-Who's this one?

-Kouillou.

-Kouillou.

-Male or female?

-Male.

-He's a bit confident, isn't he?

-He is.

Not got his feet wet though.

He hasn't got his feet wet, but he's definitely reaching in...

-Kebu's started reaching in.

-Is that what they do, copy each other?

Sometimes. Kebu's probably had the ones that were nearest to the sides.

He's having to reach now, so he can get some more.

Look at that! Look at the reach.

Keeping his feet gripped onto the side.

Is that because they're nervous of the water?

We were saying earlier, in the wild they would wade in.

I'm sure when the ones closest to the side go, he'll get his feet wet.

That's amazing! He really is gripping on with his feet.

-Are their feet really strong?

-Yeah, very strong hands and feet.

-So, who's that one with the lettuce?

-That's Obeke.

And he looks like he's going to use the lettuce to support one hand,

-while he uses the other one to collect grapes.

-You're being polite.

I thought he was greedy! "I'm having that lettuce for later!"

Oh, probably that, too. I don't think he'll let go of it in a hurry.

Ooh! Look at this action, here.

Really finding a way, anything not to get into the water.

If there was no food in here, would they ever actually go to the water?

What if they were really hot, a day like today?

We'd love nothing better than to jump into a swimming pool.

Ever a chance of gorillas doing that?

They tend to rest in the shaded areas to cool down a bit more.

It's generally only when there's food or something interesting in the area,

that they tend to use the pool a bit more.

That's Tebe that's come along.

Oh, look at that, gone straight...

Aaahh! Ha-ha! And we all got splashed. Brilliant.

Thank you very much, Tebe.

See, they do like splashing around in the water on a hot day.

I say, those grapes have been a success.

Mel! Mel!

Mel!

MEL!

Ah, I've been called out here, to this field,

to help keeper, Mel Frampton, pick some food for the baboons.

But I can't seem to find her anywhere. Mel! Mel, are you there?

Eh, what's...?

Mel, what you doing in there?

-There you are! I wondered where you got to.

-What were you doing in there?

Cutting some maize.

This is our field of maize that we grow for the animals.

I thought you might like to give me a hand to cut some for the baboons.

-What do you reckon?

-Definitely. First, what is maize?

Maize is a bit like sweet corn, but different. Not like the one we eat.

You can boil this for hours and you wouldn't be able to eat it.

This stuff is the maize, it's in here.

And maize is actually grown in some African countries.

Monkeys eat it in the wild. We give it to keep them occupied.

-It's something they naturally eat.

-Brilliant.

Let me help you out. What do I do?

Knife for you. Let's go and cut some maize.

Is there a specific technique to cutting maize?

Just cut it at the bottom, if you can.

-Just cut a few.

-There are loads of animals in the park,

but I'm wondering, are there are any animals in there?

I hope not. A few spiders and creepy-crawlies, other than that, no.

-Right, so where should I cut?

-Anywhere around here.

-Here?

-Yeah.

-Oh, that was easy.

-Easier than you think.

And what part of the maize would they eat?

They'll generally just eat this bit. A bit like the corn on the cob.

They might chew on the stalks, but it's generally these parts they like.

Baboons have got such strong canines.

As big as a lion would have. They can tuck straight into this

-and eat this.

-They must have a pretty good digestive system.

Yeah, whereas we'd have no chance of trying to eat this.

They'd tuck into it like it's nothing.

-I'm going to cut one more off.

-OK, go on then.

-I'm quite enjoying this.

Join us later to see what the baboons make of this amazing treat.

-Amazing.

-Amazing maize.

-Thanks.

When she was born, Tigs, the baby meerkat, was very ill.

To save her life, she had to be taken to the vet hospital.

Unfortunately, that means she can never go back to her own family

because they would reject her and probably kill her.

Three weeks have gone by since we last saw Tigs

and she's grown quite a bit.

At six weeks old, she still needs to be fed every couple of hours.

Day and night.

This evening, big cat keeper, Jess, is looking after her at home

and Rich has stopped by to see how they're doing.

Hello! How are you?

How are you? Meow!

TIGS SQUEAKS

Meow!

TIGS SQUEAKS

You making yourself all big?

As you can see, she's getting quite big

and getting more of a handful each day.

She's now started to venture away from me a little bit.

And she's been staying with the other guys a bit more,

they've been helping out and having a bit of time with her.

And it's good for her, it boosts her confidence with other people,

amongst other things, but also it gives me a chance to get some sleep!

Which is quite nice.

It's amazing something that small can have that much energy!

In the wild, Tigs would need that energy because at this stage

she'd be starting to learn how to forage for food.

You can see already her claws are already quite substantial

and have been for some time.

It's the main tool of a meerkat. They use them for digging,

they use them to disarm prey,

and so it's quite important that they grow first.

In just a couple of weeks, Tigs will need to be weaned off milk

and on to proper meerkat food.

Rich has begun the process with something easy.

OK, these are just cat biscuits,

domestic cat biscuits soaked in water to make them a bit easier for her

to get down. Not that she'd have a problem if they were crunchy.

She's putting on weight steadily, which is nice.

She's eating like a little gannet, as you can see.

Obviously we'd only really have concern if she wasn't eating well

and drinking well, but that's never been an issue with her particularly.

Here you are.

Three at a time!

Ah, Jess isn't going to be pleased with you. You made a right mess!

You little pickle.

But real meerkats don't eat cat food.

The largest part of their natural diet is grubs and insects.

Now, Rich wants to try Tigs on her very first mealworm.

That's a kind of beetle larvae.

Would you like a mealworm?

Tigs doesn't seem to know what to do with the mealworm.

But if she's ever going to be a proper meerkat,

she needs to get used to food that wriggles.

We'll be back shortly to see if she can.

OK, gamers, pay attention, because here comes today's cheat code.

And if you haven't checked out the Roar game yet, what's keeping you?

You'll find it in the game section of the cbbc website.

Just go get it and get going!

Earlier on, myself and keeper Mel, picked all this maize

to feed the baboons. Now it's time, Mel. What do we do?

Right, if we chuck this over the fence there...

then we can feed some to the baboons.

-Right, so should we go over this?

-Yeah, we'll go over.

-OK.

-Right, Mel, what do I do?

-Let's start feeding this to the baboons.

Chuck some over here, then we can poke some through the mesh.

They'll try and grab it. We can do it from here actually.

-Just sort of...

-Before I do it, do they snatch it?

They will just pull it through, like that, yeah.

I've noticed the bigger ones come up first. Is there a hierarchy?

Yes, definitely. The dominant male, which always gets to eat first.

Then there's the hierarchy structure going down from that

and right at the bottom, the lowest ranking will have to wait

until all the high ranking ones have got theirs.

If there's anything left over, they'll get some.

SCREECHING

-Wo, wo, wo!

-Oh, dear.

-They're going crazy, Mel!

-They are.

Someone's been told off.

That's the dominant male, there, and he's telling off this one here.

Obviously trying to steal his bit of maize.

What would happen if the dominant male caught the other one?

-I think he'd definitely get a serious slap round the ear!

-Really?

He's too quick, actually. He's not quick enough to catch him.

He's smaller, more agile, so can go straight up there.

Here comes the big alpha male again.

Here he comes.

See, once he comes back all the others run out the way,

let him eat first. As you can see

there's a little, tiny baby, over there who's having a little try.

Not succeeding. Mum's picked her up and carried her off

because two of the others have come along. Taking her baby to safety.

-Got a little child-sized portion.

-Yeah. A little mouthful.

-He's a bit of a bully.

-He is.

Will it ever get to the point where he bullies them so much

they gang up on him?

They do, it has happened. Sometimes the whole group have chased him

and kept him at the top of the cage, they're all at the bottom.

He's picking his toes. Not good table manners!

Here you are.

He doesn't look too interested in this. Too busy picking his toes.

None of the others will come now, because the alpha male's there.

That's it.

I've noticed that this baboon here is stuffing its face.

He's got little pouches, here.

These type of monkeys, baboons, have cheek pouches.

A bit like hamsters. She's stuffing as much in as she can

before the male comes and steals it all.

Then she can go up there and eat it in peace.

I like it. So, will they feed their young?

We've got a really tiny baby... Check this out!

That is so small. Would she get the food and then feed her baby some?

They will share it. The baby will be on her,

and if she comes and has a bit of food, the baby will be down,

nibbling, trying to sneak a bit of mum's food.

That's how that start on solid food, really.

I like it. Brilliant. Mel, you know what?

All this talk of food, and this, has made me quite peckish.

-Fancy joining me for lunch?

-Yeah, a bit of corn on the cob?

-Yeah!

Rich is still trying to get Tigs to eat her first mealworm.

So far, she's just been playing with it.

You'll like it, if you eat it.

Except you're not too sure on this.

In the wild, babies learn what to eat from watching their family

so it's difficult for Rich to teach her.

Now you've got a taste for it. What do you think?

Nice?

Another?

Ooh, she actually liked it.

Do you want me to hold it for you? Is that what it is?

It looks like that's it, exactly.

She can't possibly feed herself because one is too spoilt, isn't one?

There you go.

Come here. Look...

So she does like them, just didn't want to eat it herself.

In the long term, I don't think that there's much chance

of her going back in with mum and dad.

I would hope to maybe get another meerkat that's in a similar situation

and introduce her to either one or two males

and create a new group of youngsters

that will then hopefully go on... to increase in size.

and do everything that meerkat groups should do.

But all that is still a long way off. And the next we see her,

Tigs is going to be much bigger...

You're going to savage me, properly.

..more energetic...

and a lot more trouble.

Look out for that, later in the series.

It's nearly the end of the show, but before we leave,

-we are with ele-keeper, John...

-Hi.

..and find out a bit more about Kruger, the bull elephant.

-Apparently, he's in musth.

-That's right.

Ah, musth...

-Johny must know about musth.

-I don't know anything about musth.

What is it?

It only happens to bull elephants.

Their hormones go through the roof.

Basically they are becoming mature elephants.

When they do this, the hormones, testosterone levels, go up

-and they become very, very aggressive.

-OK.

So Kruger's not normally aggressive?

Normally, obviously we show him a lot of respect,

normally he's quite chilled out. But at the moment he's in musth

so we treat him with a bit more respect.

-Keep away from him then?

-Oh, yeah.

-Other than respect,

is there anything else you can do, or don't do during musth?

We cut his diet down. Especially high protein pellets like jumbo nuts,

because obviously the more protein he gets, the more aggression he'll have,

the more energy he will have. So by cutting his food down,

he's got less energy and that's good for us.

In the wild, musth would last two or three weeks

because they're on the move all the time. In captivity, in zoos,

even though we have a fantastic paddock, we're not out in the wild,

so the musth tends to last much longer.

John, you've got your work cut out.

Taking a look at a very chilled out Kruger, you're doing a great job.

-Thanks.

-No probs.

-Thanks for letting us get so close. Not too close.

Unfortunately, we're out of time on today's show.

Stick around and see what's coming up on the next Roar.

There could be trouble when two big cats meet for the first time.

Will they be friends or foes?

The Roar Ranger discovers it's not the horns you have to look out for

it's the beaks!

Oof! Got my finger.

Is a loaf of bread and pot of honey going to keep the keepers safe

when they have to go in with the most ferocious animal in the park?

They've chased leopards off their kills!

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