Episode 27 Roar

It's vital keepers can identify and get to know their animals by sight,

but how easy is that with a whole herd of ellies?

We're going to see if Johny can rise to the challenge.

Hello and welcome to another animal-tastic edition of Roar.

-I'm Johny...

-And I'm Rani. It's scatter feed here

at the palace of the apes, which is currently home to two baby gorillas.

Correctamundo. A six-month-old and a two-month-old

and they are absolutely amazing.

They are amazing, they grow up so quickly.

By six months they're already walking and eating solid foods

and, by 18 months, running after Mum causing all sorts of trouble.

They learn this mischief hanging around with

and imitating the other youngsters in the group.

We can't hang around much longer as we have a show to get on with,

so, Johny, let's go.

Our Roar Ranger says he likes tapirs

but is a bit shocked when he meets them.

-There's Wilma.

-Flipping 'eck, they're big.

There are cats of every shape and size in the parks,

but which kind is best?

We'll be comparing an extremely large one

with a very small cat indeed.

And Rani and I get it completely wrong

when we're told to come in ready for a shower.

I think you got the wrong end of the stick. You look like idiots.

We'll start with those cats, though.

The parks are home to the biggest kinds of cat in the world,

the Siberian tiger.

But they're also home to one of the smallest kind,

the rusty spotted cat.

And today we're going to tackle a very tricky question.

Big or small... which one is the top cat?

Putting the case for the Siberian tiger is big cat boss Rich Barnes.

I'm a big cat person, probably because they remind me of myself.

They're big and they're loud.

While taking up the torch on behalf of the rusty spotted

is small cat keeper Rich Langston.

Everything's great about small cats. They're superb animals.

So, let's start with the obvious difference...

size.

Tug, our resident male, probably weighs about 220-230 kilos,

which is quite small for an adult male Siberian.

Potentially they can get...

On average, about 250-300 is a good sort of size,

but the largest ever was about 390 kilos,

so massive, absolutely massive.

By the way, 390 kilos is the weight of five grown men,

so how does the rusty spotted cat compare?

They're about that sort of size which is really quite small.

They weigh... average about 1.2, 1.4.

It's next to nothing weight-wise

but they're stunning animals in every aspect. But, yeah, very small.

So, when it comes to size, the rusty spotted cat

is always going to be the underdog,

or rather the undercat.

But what about speed?

They are very quick. You wouldn't want to try and out-run one.

They'll run at bursts of up to about 30, 35mph.

The little guys just don't have the stride to do 35mph,

but are they fast for their size?

Speed-wise, the rusty spotted cats would take a tiger any time.

Obviously not in a race

cos they've got a little bit of a gallop behind them.

They have more speed than a tiger.

Imagine catching birds or rodents, they're speedy.

They've got be very quick and fleet of foot to catch dinner every day.

OK, so they're both fast, but what about agility?

When you're carrying this much bulk, it's a bit of an issue

and you need to kind of adjust certain things for it

so, when you're either going up a tree or down a tree,

you have to be aware you're a tiger and you've got all that weight,

that you can't just jump as easily as a small cat that's nimble.

Make sure you've got a nice soft place to land.

If you blink, they're on you or gone.

They've grabbed the food, gone within seconds.

If you turn away for two seconds, they can be gone.

Superb speed and agility.

How do they compare when it comes to the senses...

sight, hearing and smell?

Well, senses are pretty important, all of them.

Eyes probably about eight times better than ours,

ears quite significantly better than ours, sense of smell.

All of those things are obviously all quite important.

The main one really, certainly for cats, is the vision.

Where they come from there is long grass,

it wouldn't be about the sight.

They'd rely on their hearing to hear mice and rats, pick out a rustle

and react like that. By the time they've reacted, it could be gone.

-And then there's strength.

-30-40 kilos.

I don't know if you've ever picked that up. It's quite a weight,

we struggle with it, and Tug will come along and pick it up,

throw it about, and run off with it like it's not even there.

They might be little,

they might not be the strongest cat in the world,

but they go for it and mean it.

They put as much effort into kills as the biggest cat would.

Anything else?

As far as killing machines go,

there's nothing that they haven't got or tools that they require.

It's all there... the teeth, the claws.

They don't have to pretend they're bigger than they are

or strut around, pretending they're the king of the jungle.

I'd a bat the rusty against a Siberian tiger any day.

So we still haven't got an answer to which one is the top cat.

You'll have to decide that for yourself.

The keepers need to know all the animals they look after very well so

they can give them individual care, but that's easier said than done

when there are lots of them, like the ellies here,

so we thought we'd see just how hard it is by setting Johny a test.

Right then, the challenge is on.

I've got the learn the names of all 14 elephants in the park,

and I've got to admit they all look the same to me,

so I've enlisted the help of ellie keeper Liz Morris.

-Liz, thank you so much for this.

-That's all right.

-Where do we start?

Well, first things first.

I think we just find one ellie and look at some distinguishing features.

So this one here is Tammy.

Now, Tammy's quite easy to tell apart from the other females

because she's the tallest, so look out for some long legs.

-Tallest.

-Then next to Tammy, we've got her two daughters.

We've got Jara there. She's the biggest of all the calves.

Then her other daughter there is Uzuri.

You notice she hasn't got any tusks yet.

-OK, brilliant.

-That's those ones there.

-Here we've got Janu. He's one of our male calves.

-Yep.

And if you look at his tusks,

-his right tusk is a lot longer than his left.

-Right.

He's actually broken his left one.

That will grow back but, for now,

-you've got a good distinguishing feature there.

-Broken tusk. OK.

-So far, so good. I think I might be able to get this, Liz.

-Yeah?

I've got a good teacher. Right, OK. So who next?

Easiest one to tell is Jums, right at the back there.

He's about five and a half tonnes, so you can't miss him.

Jums... monster!

Next to him is Justa. Now, she's really easy.

You see halfway down her ear, she's got a notch missing,

and if you follow that along, she's got like a wart on her side.

-So you have to see her left-hand side to see that.

-Right, OK, brilliant.

Another really easy one is Stuvite at the back there.

Her tusks point downwards and she has the longest...

-Even longer than Jums?

-Longer than Jums, yeah.

Jums has worn his down a bit so they're quite short.

Fighting probably! Right, OK.

-So who else do I need to meet?

-Let's see.

-Right, we've got Swana straight ahead.

-Swana.

If you look closely at her forehead, it looks very dirty.

She's got quite a lot of dead skin on her forehead.

If you look at the others, they're all quite smooth.

That's Jama and she tends to be one of our rounder calves.

-She's a bit podgy.

-So...chubby.

-Chubby Jama.

-It's pure muscle.

I'm sure she'd like us to believe that.

I was feeling confident and now it's just...

overloaded with information!

They all look the same still.

A really, really easy one, the tiniest of them all, Etana.

Etana's so cute. How old is Etana?

-She's only seven months.

-So she's the baby.

I'm sure you can tell the difference between her and Jums.

Definitely, yeah. One more. OK.

14 will be Juva.

Now, he's the last of the calves.

He's got quite a hairy back.

So what you want to do is, when you find a calf, the biggest one is Jara,

the smallest one obviously Etana...

I can't even remember the mum's name. What's the mum's name?

Juva's mum is Stuvite.

Stuvite's got the longest tusks.

Right, the longest.

It's not always right, but the baby closest to her will probably be Juva.

Right now, I feel a bit scared and very confused,

so I'm going to take these notes away, get them in my head.

Thank you so much, Liz.

I feel a little bit more enlightened than I was before.

Bring it on! OK, I've got Tammy who's the tallest,

then we've got Jara who's the biggest calf.

We've got Jama who's kind of chubby, then Etana's the little baby.

I can remember Etana, definitely.

Today's Roar Ranger is 11-year-old Jake from Barnsley.

When I heard I was going to be a Roar Ranger, I was just so excited.

It's the first time I've done anything like this.

Jake's more used to walking his pet dog Maggie,

so how does he feel about looking after some much bigger animals?

I'm not right keen on really tall dogs.

If a big dog runs at me, I'm thinking, "Run away, run away,"

you know, just in case they dive on me.

He needn't worry.

With a black belt in Taekwondo,

Jake's got some pretty handy moves, so what's he hoping to look after?

My favourite animals are snakes,

tapirs and tigers.

With over 40 different species of animals in the park, our Roar Ranger

could be looking after anything, from a bongo to a black rhino,

from a lynx to a lemur.

But will it be one of his top three?

"Jake, today you're a tapir keeper. One of your favourite animals!"

Yes!

Coming all the way from the jungles of South America,

the Brazilian tapirs with their long twitchy noses

have looked much the same for over 20 million years.

A quarter tonne of pure muscle, these hulking beasts

are distant relations of the rhino, without the horn obviously.

So Jake's got one of his favourite animals,

but what job has tapir keeper Shelly got up her sleeve for him?

-Hi, I'm Jake.

-Hi, I'm Shelly, tapir keeper.

-Do you know what you're going to be doing today?

-Looking after tapirs?

Before we look after them, we have to clean them out, I'm afraid.

Pickles.

And the tapirs to be cleaned out are Tommy and Wilma.

This happy couple love their bed but it badly needs changing.

The first thing we've got to do,

-we've got to get them out into the paddock...

-Right.

And how we do that is we move them around using bread.

It's time for Jake's first meeting with his second favourite animal.

There's Wilma.

Flipping 'eck, they're big.

So it isn't just big dogs that Jake's wary of.

At around a metre high,

Wilma is as tall as a Great Dane and nearly five times as heavy.

But with experienced keeper Shelly by his side,

our Roar Ranger is in safe hands.

-Are you sure you don't want to feed her any?

-I'm sure.

Good girl. Come on, then.

Now that Tommy and Wilma have been lured away from their beloved beds,

-it's time to get stuck in.

-Nasty!

Tapirs drink around a bucketful of water each day.

That's equivalent to a staggering 55 cups,

and it all ends up coming out the other end, and all over their bed.

I'm picking up this, I don't want to step on tiddle.

Oh, poo!

Smelly work.

Now we've just got to get all that out.

How's it smelling, Jake?

Poo! It ain't right nice, I can tell you that.

These bed-wetting beasts need a layer of sawdust

to absorb all that wee,

topped with a comfy mattress of fluffed-up straw.

It's time to put some Taekwondo moves to work.

I can honestly say I am...worn out!

Oh, we'll come back when Jake's had a rest

and it's time to feed Tommy and Wilma.

Why did the zebra cross the road?

I don't know.

Cos there was a zebra crossing!

Rah!

What do baby pythons play with?

Rattle snakes.

Why did the frog go to the hospital?

I don't know.

Because he need a hop-eration.

Now, a little while ago we gave Johny the very difficult task

of memorising all 14 ellies here at Howletts.

Well, now we are going to put him to the test.

And to help us, we have Liz Morris here, elephant keeper,

and we've got Johny here doing a bit of last-minute cramming.

Johny, how are you doing, my man?

I'm feeling quietly confident, Rani. I'll be all right.

Quietly confident? I think he's nervous, really.

Let me explain the rules to you.

-We'll ask you seven questions about these ellies.

-OK. That's fine.

-You have to get four right to pass this task, OK?

-Piece of cake.

Piece of cake? We'll wait and see. Now, Liz here...

look how stern she's looking!

She is actually going to be marking you.

The ellies are in front of you in their own paddock,

and here are your questions.

Which of the females is tallest?

See, I know Jums is the tallest of all of them. He's the male.

-It's not the question I asked you, Johny.

-No, I know it's not, Rani.

Um...

Which of the females is tallest?

I think it's that lady over there, and I think her name is Tammy.

Tammy.

Oh, don't I get the answer now?

No, no, you don't. We'll wait till the end.

What is Swana's most distinguishing feature?

-Swana?

-Mm-hmm.

Oh, see, I'm getting mixed up with the names now. Stuvite or Swana...

We're going to have to rush you there, Johny.

Swana... distinguishing feature.

OK, that's...

Swana has got sort of wrinkly...

No, she's got dry skin. She needs moisturiser.

I couldn't remember if it was Swana who had the long tusks...

Can you just give me a final answer?

Swana... OK, her distinguishing feature is the fact

-that she's got lots of dry skin over her head and on her back.

-OK.

Which of the ellies has tusks that point downwards rather than out?

I think it's Stuvite.

Is Juva male or female?

Juva, Juva, Juva.

You see, there's a few that sound alike. There's Juva...

..Jaru or something.

He takes his time. We could go and have a cup of tea.

Listen, I'm thinking here.

Great minds take a long time to process such information.

OK, I'm coming with it.

He's one of the younger males of the herd.

OK.

Which of the ellies has a big wart and a notch out of its left ear?

Er... Justa.

Which is the biggest baby?

I don't know, I don't know all the... No, let me think.

Do you want to come back to that?

-Can I ask a friend or something?

-You haven't got any friends, Johny.

-I'm joking. I'll be your friend.

-Thank you.

What is the name of the youngest member of the herd?

That's easy. I can see little baby Etana over there.

She's so cute, I'll always remember Etana. Definitely Etana.

Definitely got one right.

All right, then, Johny. We asked you seven questions.

It's time to go over to serious Liz.

Liz, out of seven, how many did he get right?

-He needs four to pass this.

-Come on. Bring it on.

You actually did very well, and got six out of seven.

Bring it on. Six out of seven.

The one you didn't answer was "which is the biggest baby?"

-Which was Jara.

-Jara.

-Jara, Jara, Jara.

-Very good. Taught you well.

-I just didn't want to show off.

-Look at Liz... "I taught you well!"

Johny, how do you feel about that?

I feel amazing. I think I must know almost as much as you now, Liz.

-I could be one of the elephant keepers.

-Hang on a minute!

Looking for any young elephant keepers?

-Yeah, if you want to volunteer.

-OK, wicked.

I think Johny's got himself a new job.

I think I need a bit more ellie education. Well done, you.

Stand by, online gamers, it's time for today's unique cheat code,

and it's wind348.

I'm sure you all know by now that

if you type that in to your own Roar wildlife park on the CBBC website,

you'll unlock treats, new animals or extra features.

wind348. Get to it.

Now, Johny did pretty well naming all those ellies a few minutes ago.

I'm glad I'm not being tested on the Grants zebras,

even though there are only three here.

I haven't got a clue how you tell them apart.

Do these guys all have different personalities?

There's only one way to find out and that's not by having a chat to them,

-but having a chat to this fella here. Hiya, Ben.

-Hi, how's it going?

I'm very well, thank you. Now, I see we have a little bit of a snack.

-Yeah.

-OK, shall we start putting this in?

-Go for it.

-She looks quite eager.

She's quite a nice friendly one, you can feed her by hand.

I've not done this before. Look at her sniffing it out.

Keep your fingers in.

Look at those teeth! She looks quite horse-like, doesn't she?

Yeah, definitely. Big lips.

It's also nice to get this close to give her a little dental inspection.

If there's anything wrong with her it's nice to get up close

so we can see properly.

So I've given her a bit of bread. I'll pass some out to the others.

Now, they don't seem as keen to come over,

so tell us a little bit about these guys.

She's quite gentle, this one, is she? Quite friendly. Hello, you.

Can't keep eating bread, though. There you go.

What about these guys as well?

Can you tell the difference?

Yeah, definitely. This female here, you can tell her apart,

-she's got these more browny stripes on her.

-Right.

The one behind is a little darker and Flynn, the male in the background,

is more of your typical black and white-style zebra.

Physically there's a difference,

but what about personality-wise?

Do zebras have different personalities?

We've spoken about Flynn in the past,

about being a bit of a cheeky chappy.

Yes, he's had incidents with the giraffes in the past.

Yeah, Flynn is quite young so he's kind of outgoing, a bit bolshie,

who'll maybe nip the females here and there,

but the females are a lot more placid.

You saw the one coming over earlier.

She's nice and gentle. The other one's slightly more shy.

And how about Flynn with two females, though?

I mean, two females together...

Can they sort of keep Flynn at bay?

They probably could do, but they're again quite relaxed

so they don't really choose to.

He's pretty much part of the herd and they never have any problems,

apart from if he's feeling a bit of a bully, he'll chase them.

Yeah, they never gang up on him.

As a hoofstock keeper, it's really important

for you to know your animals and what they want,

so can you tell how they're feeling,

when they're hungry, when they're tired?

Yeah, definitely. They're always hungry.

-That's an animal thing. They're always hungry.

-Right, OK.

But if they're walking around and their head's slightly down,

they're sluggish, that means there's something wrong,

so we see if there's anything medically wrong with them.

As for all the other behaviours, if...

You can see Flynn at the minute has got his ears forward.

Flynn just over this way here. There's Flynn.

His ears are twisting round almost.

Yeah, they're going all round. He's checking everything out,

listening to the different sounds around him.

Because he's nervous of us, he's making sure that we're fine?

He's making sure nothing's creeping up behind, coming down the road.

Generally checking everything out.

They're very clever, these animals, aren't they?

I wish I could turn my ears round backwards.

We'll be catching up with the other kind of zebra here...

the Grevy's... later in the series.

Having cleaned out the tapirs' smelly bedroom earlier on,

it's time for Jake to give them their breakfast.

There's your food.

-Let's go and hide their food, shall we?

-Yeah.

Tapirs feed on plants, leaves and fruit,

but these hungry herbivores can scoff up to 40 kilos a day.

That's like eating 20 whole chickens.

I'll just lob this bit.

I know a good place.

Hiding food means the hungry couple have to hunt for their brekkie,

giving them and their long noses a little work-out.

Yeah.

Job done. It's time to release Tommy and Wilma.

Are you ready?

Yeah.

But Jake's not taking any chances, which is very sensible of him.

-Which one's that... Wilma?

-This is Wilma coming out first.

This docile duo are only after their breakfast,

not a slice of Roar Ranger.

Tapirs are usually curious and friendly.

Only if they're surprised, taunted or attacked will they bite back,

but with Shelly on hand, Jake's quite safe.

That's it. Just stand still, don't run away.

They're checking us out to make sure that we haven't got the food.

Look, my hands are empty.

Look, empty hands.

This Roar Ranger does not want to be up close and personal.

Can you see their noses going all the time?

-Yeah.

-They can smell the food but they just don't know where it is.

Do you mind if I go back the other side?

If we go the other side of the fence we can watch them from there.

-Would you be more comfortable?

-Yes, I would.

-You don't want to touch one, then?

-No.

But Jake has a plan up his sleeve.

OK, we'll watch from the other side of the fence

-and see which bit of food they get first.

-OK.

-Let's go and do that.

-Go on, you go first.

-Come on, then.

See you.

There you are. He was all right there, wasn't he?

It's natural to be a bit frightened of big animals

so as they watch Wilma and Tommy

sniffing out all the tasty treats that he's hidden,

how much has Jake enjoyed being a tapir keeper?

It was good, I can tell you that.

It was a little bit scary when I saw how big tapirs were.

Meeting the tapirs, it can be a bit daunting sometimes.

You don't expect them to be as big as what they are.

So did you have a good time?

I have, I've had a smashing time.

Next time I come, I'll be sure to wear my wellies!

And how's our Roar Ranger feeling after all his hard work?

Well, I'll tell you one thing... my back's gone.

Oh, well, at least it's in a good cause. Wilma and Tommy are happy.

It's almost the end of the show, but before we go,

we've been called up to Discovery Zone for a bit of a shower.

Yeah, we certainly have.

I personally am very clean but Johny, you need a wash.

Let's get in there.

-Right, Rich, we are ready to be washed down.

-Bring it on.

I think you got the wrong end of the stick.

You look like a couple of idiots.

It's not you that's actually having a shower. If you come down here,

it's these guys that I want you to shower, not to have a shower with.

And so what we're going to do is we're just going to shower

some tortoises and take a look, make sure they're all OK,

give them a general check, and have a chat about them.

So these are tortoise. Any other name?

Elongated tortoises from Asia, so they're the more endangered

of some of the tortoises and we'll tell you a little bit about them.

Is this their shower?

This is their shower. It's good to give them a shower.

Keeps their humidity up, they absorb some of it through the shell,

and they drink when you spray them, which you can start doing.

Some of them drink straight from it, others just sit there...

Oh, look, his little head's going in. Should I give him my shower cap?

Do you want to give him your shower cap?

No chance. Give him yours.

Do they like this? Because their heads are going in.

-They're not scared, are they?

-No, they're not.

They're quite tough little things.

They quite like this most of the time.

It saves them having to go over to the water bowl and drink from there.

There's one just hidden under here.

-Oh, come here, little fella.

-Have a little look at him.

Are you saying that you're actually showering them

to give them fluid more than to actually clean them?

It's not to clean them. We're not bothered about how their shells look,

if they get dirty, they scuff them quite a lot,

but the water's just good. It lets them absorb it through the shell.

It's kind of like really, really hard skin

and so it does absorb... You can feel them.

-You can hold it.

-Oh, really?

Oh, he's got quite sharp nails.

-He's a lot tougher than I thought he would be as well.

-Yeah. Hello, you.

This is what it should sound like.

-Will that hurt?

-No, it doesn't hurt them.

Because we've given them the right UV lights and the right kind of diet,

their shell grows nicely and it hardens up nicely.

If they're given the wrong sort of stuff

their shells can become soft and fragile. This is how they should be.

Do you do this often, Rich, for them?

Yeah, we try to do this every time we feed them.

It encourages them to come out.

It kind of wakes them up a bit when you spray them,

so they're interested in the food.

I've got to say they have scrubbed up pretty well, Johny.

They're looking very pretty, and while we clean these guys,

check out what's coming up on the next Roar. See ya.

Some very dangerous animals have arrived in the park.

The only way to see them in the dark is with special night-time cameras,

and you get a ring-side seat.

We'll see just how clever

the gorillas are at finding their food...

THEY SQUAWK

And can you sing like a sifaka?

We give it a go in Ask The Keeper.

Don't miss it.

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