Episode 28 Roar

Some very dangerous animals have arrived in the park.

The only way to see them in the dark is with the special

night-time cameras we've rigged up.

And you get a ringside seat.

-Hello, and welcome to Roar. I'm Rani.

-And I'm Johny.

We've got something beautiful to show you on today's show.

Stop it, Johny, you're making me blush!

I weren't talking about you, I was talking about this

-beautiful little baby tapir.

-Ah, well, that's understandable.

This little fella is nine weeks old. He's getting bigger by the day!

He may look quite light now, but within two years,

he'll weigh up to 350 kilos. That's the same as 10,000 packets of crisps.

And speaking of crisps, we've rustled up

a packet of fun for you today, so let's get on with the show.

-You're beautiful as well, Rani.

-Yeah, I know.

We'll see just how clever the gorillas are at finding their food.

Can you sing like a sifaka?

We give it a go in Ask The Keeper.

And what's made this stag so cross that he's stamping his feet?

He may think that Johny's copying him.

The keeper called, told me to meet him

so he could show me his samba, and I just hope he's got his dancing shoes on.

-Come on, are you going to lead?

-Sadly not, Johny, no.

-Not that kind of samba.

-What do you mean?

-That kind of sambar.

-Oh, I knew that.

Er, those sambar over there.

What are the sambar?

-These are Asian deer.

-Right, OK.

You'll find these throughout India and most of eastern Asia.

You'll find them out roaming swampy areas and savannas.

They're quite widely spread. We've got 18 of them in here.

-Can we go in there with them?

-Sadly not, Johny, no,

because the adult male is a little bit aggressive,

so we don't go in with them. We do when we feed them,

He looks quiet shy to me.

-They're over there at the minute.

-Yeah.

While we're standing here, he's doing a threatening posture,

stomping his feet and had his tail turn up, which is a warning.

If I was to go in there and act threatening,

how would he get rid of me?

-He would probably charge you.

-Really?

And they've got massive antlers.

Yeah. I've brought these down so you can see a set of antlers up close.

Amazing. If I had these, no-one would mess with me!

HE GROWLS

Do I look quite scary?

Not really, Johny, no.

Are these fully grown, then?

They are. They go that way round, so that's the way they would be.

-That's the way they would be.

-Why do they grow their antlers?

I've always wondered that about deer.

It's primary defence and display.

If you're going to breed successfully,

you to have to ward off other males.

It's like humans if we had a flashy car, we'd be most likely

to get all the girls, kinda thing.

Yeah...

I've noticed that these antlers here are huge.

Are they made of bone?

Yeah, yeah. These are bone, and they grow these every year.

They shed them in the early part of the year here,

and by the rutting season,

which normally starts round about the end of November here,

they would have grown another set and the velvet would have come off them.

Let me ask you about that because I've noticed

this bull over here, they look like they're coated in suede.

Basically, yeah. It helps protect the new-growing antler,

and there's blood vessels in there which help feed the bone.

If you look on the bottom of this one, you'll see some small holes,

and that's blood vessels,

again, where it supplies blood to this so it can grow.

Now, when we get old, we lose all our hair.

When a deer gets old, would it lose its antlers?

No, they continue growing antlers until the day they die of old age.

Oh, well, thank you so much.

I didn't know anything about these sambar deer.

Of course, I knew it weren't really dancing.

-Fancy going to a bit of a boogie, anyway?

-Yeah, go on.

In the dead of night last winter, two very rare

and fierce creatures joined the park's breeding programme.

The keepers had never seen them, but they knew the boxes

contained some of the rarest cats in the world.

Head of carnivores Jim Vasey had just taken delivery

of two Chinese leopards.

They come from northern China.

We'd normally show you shots of them in the wild, but hardly

anyone's ever filmed them.

The two leopards have never met before and could attack

or even kill each other, so for now, Jim's keeping them apart,

although their enclosures and sleeping quarters are side by side.

Good boy, good boy.

Good boy.

You're OK.

That was the male.

Jim's next challenge is to try and get them together

for the sake of the species.

In terms of breeding these, they are very rare in the wild

and safari parks around the world, so there are very few.

I mean, numbers in the wild, no-one really knows.

It's just that we know that there are maybe 30 pairs in the world in zoos,

and that's why we've got a pair

to join the breeding programme, because they're rare and endangered.

So a female who can have kittens is very valuable.

Good girl, good girl.

Hiya, sweetheart.

GROWLING Ooh, yes, I know - love you too!

Love you too.

Good girl.

GROWLING

Yeah, OK.

They're fit and healthy.

Don't matter how many times, you know they're going to jump at you,

but it still makes you jump.

Oh, she's feisty.

And with a name like Ting Ting, how could you be aggressive?

But there you go.

Our biggest concern in mixing these is the male either attacking

the female and even killing her, or the female killing the male,

because the females do have to be more aggressive, especially when

they've got cubs, because then they have to defend the cubs.

If I was the male, I'd definitely be scared of her!

To help them make friends, Jim's moved the male out of his enclosure

and put the female in there so she can sample his scent.

Tonight, they'll be able to get used to each other

through this fence.

But Jim needs to find a way of watching them,

so we're going to set up a special camera.

They are elusive, and that's our big problem. When we're around

and they know we're around, they're not going to do nothing.

That's why we're putting up the camera.

The camera will see them in the dark.

We can't. That's the whole point of

this, to make sure we do it right and we get the valuable information

we need to be able to safely put them together, and that's the aim tonight.

We want the male to come to her, and then, with this equipment,

we'll be able to see how they interact with each other in the dark.

I think the camera's set up and ready to go, so shall we have a look

and see if it works?

Yeah, I'm pretty impressed with that. That'll give us a good shot

of her coming out of her shed, which is great, and also it

gives us enough of an area to see any interaction between him and her.

The worst case is, he may never come anywhere near her,

and that would be the worst one.

We need to be able to see them interacting,

and this gives us the opportunity to do that, and then,

fingers crossed, it will work.

We'll come back later to see whether Jim's night-vision spy camera

does capture shots of the secretive Chinese leopards.

Ah, lucky-dip time, and I feel lucky!

I do, I do! And hopefully I can find...

Oh, yes, yes, I've got something! I've got something!

It's a banana. Well, that's not the kind of prize I wanted,

but I do know five gorillas that would be very pleased with that.

And, considering I'm in the gorilla enclosure

with head of gorillas Phil Ridges, it's a good job.

-Hiya.

-Hiya, Phil.

Phil - lucky dip for the gorillas, are you mad? Why are we doing this?

It's to give the gorillas something different to do,

rather than just forage around normally for their food.

Put some in a box with some shavings in.

We've got banana in here. What else have we got?

There should be a little sack of peanuts in there.

Have I got one of those in here as well?

It was next to the bottom.

I can't find it. There's peanuts

inside this bag, so you're expecting the gorillas to rip this open?

Yep, they'll rip it open. They usually use their teeth.

Quickest and easiest way for them do it.

Is that why you ask them to do it? Why not scatter them?

They have got to dig for them anyway.

It's just another different way of presenting

something that they usually get scattered around the enclosure.

That's what they normally do, pick it up off the ground.

Why not do something that makes them think for an extra second or two?

Is there anything else I can put in?

Yes, there's some raisins as well.

You can just put those in the shavings, so they will

have to sort through the shavings for those.

Raisins are tiny! Have you seen gorillas' hands?

-They're very dextrous though.

-They'll pick these out?

-Individually, yeah.

-These will get covered in sawdust.

Will it be OK for them to eat the sawdust?

They'll eat a bit but they're good at spitting out what they don't want.

Are they inquisitive enough to know that it is kind of a lucky dip?

Yes, I mean, they might not see exactly what's in there initially,

because the box will be closed, but they will just tear into it, knowing

that there is probably something which might be edible.

If not, they will just be curious

and then they will see things which are edible.

They're not going to be nervous? Think, oh, it could bite...?

I don't think so. They've seen boxes before.

Right, mine is done. You are a little bit slow.

-A bit more to do on mine.

-We are going to finish these off.

I'm going to place mine somewhere down there?

-Yes.

-Join us later in the show, when we will be letting the gorillas

back in their enclosure for a bit of a lucky dip.

Hurry up, Phil!

Why did the frog say "miaow"?

He was learning a foreign language.

Ta-da!

Ragh! Ragh! Ragh!

What do you get if your budgie flies into a blender?

-I don't know.

-Shredded tweet.

What is the wettest animal?

A RAIN-deer.

THEY LAUGH

One of me, four of them, and a petrified-looking keeper.

It can only mean one thing - it's Ask The Keeper time.

In the hot seat today is head keeper Simon Jeffreys.

-How are you doing, mate?

-I'm all right, yeah.

-What the heck is that?

-This is a Sifaka.

A Sifaka. Wow! That looks amazing.

Is it of the monkey family? It looks like a koala bear.

-This is a lemur.

-OK. How are lemurs different from monkeys?

These are like the first monkeys, this is what they were like,

in evolution, before they became the monkeys that they are now.

-Fascinating. Guys, have we got any questions?

-How long do they live?

Sifakas can live until about 30.

Is that pretty good in the lemur kingdom?

Yes, I mean, some of the bigger ones can live a bit longer,

but yes, 30 years is a good age.

Have you got any questions?

If you left two male lemurs in a room, what will happen?

It depends on the lemur. We have got two boy Sifakas here

and they would fight, unfortunately.

Certain ones live in big male groups. Ring-tailed lemurs

are known for having big multi-male groups, multi-females and everything.

How many species are there?

There's hundreds of species of lemurs.

They only come from one island, in Madagascar,

and there's over 150 different types of lemur.

Is there different types of Sifaka lemurs?

There's nine different types of Sifaka.

Technically the same animal but different colourations,

with different names.

So you've got like cockerels, crown Sifakas.

There's nine different sub-species.

Are they friendly? Yes, lemurs are very friendly.

Sifakas are known for being very curious,

coming down to you to see what's happening and everything.

That's good to know. They don't bite or anything,

they're not vicious creatures?

No, no, lemurs are really nice animals.

What kind of noises do they make?

Sifakas are called Sifakas because that's the noise they make.

In the jungle it is like, "Shiffa, shiffa! Shiffa!"

What do you reckon, guys, shall we try and call one over?

Ready? Three, two, one...

ALL: Shiffa!

Shiffa! Shiffa!

Shiffa!

-He's gone.

-The opposite effect!

Maybe we told him to go away or something.

How many Sifakas are there left in the wild?

Of this type, there's probably about 10,000 in the wild.

We don't know, because there's not been a good count in a while.

Sifakas are critically endangered.

A lot of lemurs are. Over 90% of Madagascar has been

deforested, so there is not much left.

You have answered everything so far, but I want to confer with my crew.

Come on, guys, huddle in.

We are going to ask you a tough question.

It's killer question time!

That's a pretty tough one.

Shall we do that one? OK, brilliant. Ha-ha!

I think we've got you here, Simon. Here is our killer question.

Luke, do you want to do the honours?

If lemurs were in the Olympics, in the long jump,

where would it come?

The lemur would win hands-down - they can leap nearly nine metres.

As far as size-weight ratio, if it was a human, it would be

-a massive lemur, and it probably leap 20 metres easily.

-You're right.

You answered our killer question. Give him a round of applause.

We've thrown everything at you.

What do you reckon - thumbs-up or thumbs-down for Simon Jeffrey?

-Thumbs-up.

-Well done, Simon.

You got away with it but there's always next time, in Ask The Keeper.

Welcome back. I'm still with head of gorillas Phil,

and we are now outside the gorilla enclosure.

Earlier on, myself and Phil set up these boxes.

Now, Phil, they're not works of art, are they?

-By no means, no.

-What are they?

-Cardboard boxes.

-Filled...

-..with stuffing.

They are filled with sawdust and loads of treats for the gorillas.

We're hoping the five bachelors will come out, open them up,

have a root round and get themselves a prize.

I don't think that will work, though.

Probably not, knowing those fellas.

They're safely locked away at the moment, aren't they?

-And we're going to release them? Shall we do that?

-Yes.

Right, then, Phil, here's the big boys now.

Coming straight over for it.

-This is Cush, isn't it?

-This is Cush, actually, yeah.

Ooh!

But he hasn't smelt it or anything.

-And who's that one there?

-That's Ambam.

And he's just completely opened it up. There you go.

Do you think they're all copying each other?

Cos we've got another one, Boms, isn't it?

-That's Boomy.

-Boomy's come over as well.

-Decided it's not worth it.

Do you think because he doesn't know there's food in it,

they've seen others playing with the boxes?

Might be or maybe he's just not interested in that box.

Ooh! He's coming down the slide!

Maybe he just wants to play?

Have a look at that, that's absolutely amazing -

the way he's blowing the sawdust away.

I think he probably had some raisins or peanuts in there, so he's just

blown away the shavings because it is lighter.

Hopefully none of it will go up their noses as well.

It's so cool, and it's all just to get to the little raisins.

So, amazingly, they will just put

a lot of effort in to get a little bit of food, because

-it would take a lot of raisins to fill one of these guys up.

-Yeah.

I was a bit concerned, I thought,

"Are they just going to get a bellyful of sawdust?"

You can see Boomy there,

moving his hand, sifting the shavings away.

They've got their different techniques.

That's interesting, because these are techniques

-they may have to use out in the wild to get their seeds.

-Exactly.

They've got to figure out the quickest and easiest means

of getting food.

He's down there just sifting through it, almost blowing it away.

Yeah, he's probably blowing it a bit as he goes down.

Jeemoo has taken his up there.

Oh, look, he's gone for the hessian sack!

-Yep.

-He's ripping it apart with his teeth like you said he would.

That's a lot of work, he's got to rip that open, then he's got to

shell the nuts, and then... It's too much work, open the box, find it...

It's kind of what it's for, to make them work a little bit.

But they do it as efficiently as they can, like just ripping the bag,

whereas we would undo the knot and then do it nicely.

That's because we like to recycle.

Yes! And the peanuts as well, they crack them in their mouth -

they don't pop them open and then put the nut in their mouth,

they put the whole thing in, pop the nut with their lips,

then spit out the shell.

So they're in their mouth straightaway then.

Meanwhile they're picking up another one.

It's been like a gorilla's birthday party with those lucky dips.

Yeah, without the wrapping paper.

Without the wrapping paper, but they have had loads of treats,

-It's been a treat for us, thanks.

-No worries.

Are you ready to make some improvements

to your own wildlife parks

in the Roar online game?

Then just type in today's cheat code...

And make sure that your animals are getting

all the food and treats they deserve.

Happy gaming!

Back down in the Chinese leopard enclosure, Jim has installed

a camera to try and find out how the two very rare cats,

a male and a female, get on together at night,

because they very rarely come out in daylight.

Whenever he's tried to watch them, they run for cover anyway,

and they really don't like him looking in the sheds.

Jim's hoping they will breed, because they're so rare,

but he needs to bring them together carefully,

because they could fight to the death.

He's recently swapped their enclosures

to get them used to one another's scent,

and they're only separated by a fence, so they should

be on camera if they met up in the darkness last night.

Fingers crossed we've got the evidence we need on this tape

to be able to go forward, put them together

and leave them together as a pair, permanently.

The female has access

to the space behind the fence, while the area on this side is the male's.

Just moments after Jim hit the record button,

the female made an appearance.

We had actually left now. We had set

the camera up and walked away, and within 10 seconds, she's come out.

Ah, this is interesting, she's now rolling on the ground.

This is a great sign.

If cats like each other, they'll do this

to cover themselves in the other one's smell.

But there's no side of him yet on this side of the fence.

We need to be able to see the male coming into shot.

Oh... I think she has spotted the male now.

Her posture's changed.

She's sat up now but she's looking around, obviously following the male.

The way she's looking,

I half-expect to see him any second.

Whoa! Ha-ha!

There's the male.

This is amazing. Hardly anyone has ever seen these

very rare cats close up.

Very impressive.

The rosettes on the north Chinese leopard are amazing.

All leopards have got these what we call rosettes, and they're all

varying shapes, but it's the first time I have seen them that close.

There he is now.

Very pretty boy.

That is an amazing shot.

The male and the female are moving close to each other,

which is just what we want.

But later on in the night, the mood changes.

THE LEOPARDS GROWL

He's just had a go at her there,

that wasn't good.

She's panicked a bit.

But soon after that confrontation, the male turns his attention towards

our camera, rather than the female.

Whoa!

You wouldn't want to meet that on a dark night, that's for sure.

He walked towards the camera, and all you've got is

just two big headlamps, really, of his eyes, just coming at you.

That's amazing.

Jim's pleased - the cats showed enough interest in one another

for him to move on to the next stage of his plan.

The tape has let him see the two rare leopards behaving naturally

and he's thrilled.

Yeah, it is a rare opportunity to see them,

because they hear your vehicle coming a mile away, and they just hide.

You don't see them. There wasn't any aggression there,

even though he lunged at the fence.

LEOPARDS GROWL

I think it's a good sign.

By the end of a few weeks we will be able to put them together,

and they will be able to stay together.

Let's hope that Jim's right,

because if they were ever to produce any cubs,

can you imagine how cute they'd be?

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

to the Discovery Zone to meet keeper Rich Barnes, and what is surely

-the tiniest animal on the park.

-Hi, Rich.

-Hello.

Tell us all - what tiny animal are we going to be looking at?

Frogs today.

-Frogs, they're not that tiny!

-They're pretty small.

-Can we have a look?

-You can, yes.

Just over here we have some of our frogs.

Wow, they're amazing.

They don't look real, oh, my gosh.

These are known as poison arrow frogs and or poison dart frogs.

Quite a large family, loads of different colours, shapes and sizes.

These are, as the colour suggests, blue poison dart frogs.

The brightly coloured tiny frogs come from Central and South America,

where they live in the hot, wet rainforests.

Poison dart frogs, something that small, surely can't be dangerous?

As it is, it's not, but what they do...

the Indians embed their needles in the back of the frog,

roll it around a bit, cover it in the toxins, which is in the skin,

and use it to shoot monkeys out of trees and that sort of thing.

They're an amazing colour, aren't they?

Is there a purpose for the colour, cos we talk about camouflage?

Well, obviously, that doesn't look very good camouflage.

In a tropical forest you will be seen quite easily.

They want the animals that are going to try to eat them

to see them - to go, hang on a minute, why are you so bright?

Bright things we shouldn't eat, and that's why they leave them alone.

It is a deterrent that they are so colourful.

So it's the opposite of most animals

-that want to blend in - they want to stick out.

-Yep.

I've seen a few frogs in my time, but never any like that.

-Are these endangered?

-All frogs and amphibians are now

considered quite endangered because of a thing called chytrid fungus,

which is wiping out millions and millions of frogs worldwide.

It's from introduced species into the countries where these guys live.

Unfortunately, as soon as it gets near them, it wipes them out quickly.

It is a fungus that lives on the skin which they just can't get well from.

Unfortunately it is wiping out loads.

So, pollution, chytrid fungus,

makes them quite endangered, yeah.

I'm surprised they're not jumping out.

They're quite good, they know when this slide goes open that

it is food time, normally, so they sit there waiting, really.

They're all perched there ready, as if to say,

come on then, feed us, where's the food?

Well, Rich, we don't want to keep these guys waiting.

Thank you for letting us pop up today

and thanks for watching Roar - check out what's on the next episode.

We will be making the toughest decision of the year -

out of all the beautiful babies who have been born in the parks,

which one is the cutest?

I think the baby meerkat's the cutest.

The baby de Brazza's.

The cutest baby animal is the elephant.

A disabled lioness has moved house,

and we find out why she had swimming lessons when she was a cub.

She was given arm bands or a lifejacket

and this went on for a few months until she got too big,

and the owners of the dogs at the local pool

decided they did not want to take their dogs there any more!

And the lion-tailed macaques are in for a treat,

but what's our Roar ranger feeding them?

-Are them worms alive?

-Yeah.

You're going to be putting your hand in to scatter them around in a bit.

You go first, then, Mr Monkey Expert. Monkey Man.

That's all coming up on the next Roar.

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