Episode 31 Roar

Today on Roar...

with a diet of raw meat, how come the lions stay spotlessly clean?

Surely the keepers don't wash them...

do they?

-Hello and welcome to Roar. I'm Johny.

-And I'm Rani.

This is the very big, hairy, creepy Chile Rose spider.

They're called that because they come from the desert regions

of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile.

Despite appearances, this little lady is generally quite docile,

and she'd much rather run away from danger than confront it.

Before she gets a chance to run away from me,

I'm going to run away first.

Let's get on with the show.

What do you think, Chile Rose?

Coming up...

to be a Roar Ranger, you have to be ready for some hard work,

and it helps if you can aim, too.

-One, two, three!

-Whoa!

We got some of it on.

I meet a very rare lemur.

In fact, there are only 110 of them left on the planet.

While I discover the world's most fearless creature,

and she's not camera-shy.

But first, we've got some breaking news from the primates section.

Let's get the latest from Simon Jeffrey.

The baby De Brazza we're hand rearing unfortunately got attacked

by her dad through the mesh, they weren't in together.

He's shown aggression before but we thought it would be all right.

Unfortunately, we came in and found that she had about

a two inch wound on the bottom of her tail.

The injury is another setback for the baby De Brazza monkey

who's had a tough start to life. When she was born,

she was rejected by her mum and had to be hand reared.

The keepers know that her best chance for a normal life is

to get her back with her family as soon as possible,

which is why she's been living in the neighbouring enclosure.

The bite she got from her father was a disappointment for everyone,

but Simon knows that it's important to keep trying.

It's been a big shock for her,

It's like two steps backwards now, and we have to build up

the trust again until we can try and get her back in.

Now let's head inside the enclosure and find out how she's doing

as they re-dress the bitten tail.

Come here, you. Come here.

I know, I know.

You don't like it, do you?

Oops, come here.

Come here!

You got her? Nice and tight.

It's just the sticky bit.

We're changing the bandage every day cos you've got to check the wound,

make sure it's all right and that it's got a clean dressing on.

But, unfortunately, sometimes bandages can get actually stuck

to the tail and, of course, that causes distress for her

and she doesn't like it.

It's one of those things that looks worse than it is.

Yeah, it's really nasty.

It's starting to properly heal.

This process is upsetting and scary for the little monkey,

but it's for the best.

I know it seems it quite rough what we're doing, as far as holding her

and she's screaming and things, but it's just that it's unusual for her.

It's always a bit of a shock when you come in and find a baby, a youngster,

that's hurt itself, especially when it's been injured and it's one

that you've hand reared, cos you are quite close to them.

You don't want to see them in pain or anything.

OK? Ooh, there you go.

To live a full and happy life as a monkey,

it's vital she joins her family,

but it's a delicate and slow process.

This week, of course, she's not going to go in with anybody so she's not

having any stress from dad or mum, then we'll start again as before.

Start taking the sister in, then maybe sister and mum, and so on,

and build up to the dad again. You can't leave her on her own

as much so that you can be there to react if anything goes wrong.

See? She's a bit more scared, more wary, and this is what happens.

But sometimes this is a good thing as it can also mean that

she's slightly more wary of us, in which case it makes her want to

be nearer monkeys and away from us, so it's not all negative.

It's a tough way to learn a lesson, but the baby De Brazza's wound

is healing well and, despite the bite, she doesn't seem afraid

of getting up close to her family, even if it is through the fence.

We'll keep you posted with all the baby's news here on Roar.

Having to dig for your dinner is not something you'd find yourself doing

on a regular basis, but there is one member of the park who would relish

the opportunity because it has all the tools in hand to do the job.

"In hand", or should that be "in claw", Jim?

-In claw.

-Right, OK, who have we got here, then?

This is Winnie, the honey badger,

hence why I've got honey and some rolls.

I need you to take these two items

and then, in a minute, go with Mark to distract her

so I can get in there and hide her food. Obviously your distraction

means I can get in, get out safely without losing any legs or arms.

Jim, it's only a little honey badger. Why all this to-do?

-It's vicious.

-Really?

-Yes. I'll leave that up to you with Mark,

so if you go off and do that, then we can get in and feed her.

-And if we get it wrong, you lose a leg?

-Correct.

-No pressure, then.

It's no joke.

Honey badgers are recognised as the most fearless animals in the world.

Found across central Africa and southern Asia,

they don't shy away from fights with lions and leopards,

will raid bee hives for a snack,

and literally eat the most dangerous snakes in the world for breakfast.

Without Mark and myself keeping Winnie away from Jim,

he wouldn't stand a chance.

Now, Mark, I've heard lots of rumours about these honey badgers.

Are they really that vicious?

In a word, yes.

LAUGHTER

She's known to be very aggressive.

You do get some more laid-back ones in captivity but, in general,

they are known to be very territorial and very, very aggressive.

We better get on with it, then.

I don't want her to go over there and take a fancy to Jim's legs!

So what are we going to do here? We've got the honey and the rolls.

Rip little bits of the rolls up,

dip it in the honey and chuck it in to her so we can keep her busy.

Probably an obvious question, Mark,

but that is why we're giving her honey, because she loves honey?

-She's a honey badger.

-Well, yes, she does love honey.

They get their name from the way they will go after a hive.

They get led there by a bird called the honey guide.

The honey badger will generally rip open the hive, eat what they like

and then the honey guide bird will pick up the scraps.

It's a little relationship they've got going on. But saying that,

honey badgers will pretty much eat about everything.

She's using her claws. She has got quite big claws, hasn't she?

She has, yeah. They're one of her main assets.

As well as those huge claws, she can lock her jaws,

really powerful bite, massive teeth, although they're a bit worn down now.

She's quite elderly but they'd still hurt.

And you see her fur is very loose, very thick as well

so it's pretty much impenetrable, so there's not a lot you could do

to actually shake her off.

Jim's off over there in the corner

putting some food in a mound. Do you think he's done by now?

I would imagine so. I don't think he's going to spend any more time

in there than he actually has to, so if you want to give him a shout.

Jim, are you done?

-'Yes, ready when you are.'

-Brilliant, OK.

Jim's in place, he's set the mound there, the food's inside.

We should go and join him, and why don't you join us later on in

the show to find out what happens, and if Jim's still got his legs?

ROARING

Today's Roar Rangers are nine-year-old twins

James and Emily from Essex.

We're Roar-Rangering, we're Roar-Rangering, woo-hoo-hoo!

They can both dance well, but who will be the best keeper?

She isn't going to be good at shovelling up the poo

cos she isn't strong enough!

So which animal are they going to be looking after?

Emily and James, today you are elephant keepers.

That means some big jobs.

-James, it's elephants!

-Yeah!

It's good news about the animal, but what about the task?

Big jobs?

It's their poo, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-No!

Why do we have to do this one?

The park's African elephants are the largest land mammals on the planet

and, in the wild, are found across the central and southern

parts of the continent.

They need to eat a lot which means they also need to poo a lot, too.

Every day, the keepers have to pick it all up, and with 14 elephants

in the herd, keepers like Angela always welcome a bit of help.

-You might have noticed there's quite a lot of poo in there.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Can you see it all? It's quite heavy stuff as well.

We've got an awful lot up in the top paddock that needs cleaning out.

-Are you feeling up to it?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Yeah? It doesn't smell too much, though,

so don't worry about the smell, but it will be heavy.

The reason elephants' poo doesn't smell that bad

is that they only digest around half of what they eat.

The rest comes straight out of the other end. Sometimes,

the keepers even find whole apples and oranges in the poo.

Muscles at the ready, time to get to work.

Best to use your feet if you can,

but if you've got posh trainers on, then...

Because their digestive system is so inefficient,

they eat huge quantities of food to get enough energy.

All that food comes out as two dumper-trucks' worth of poo...

every day!

One, two, three...

Oh! Just try a little bit at a time.

How do you do this?

They need to work on their technique.

-One, two, three...

-Whoa!

We got some of it on!

Yay! A whole shovelful. Woo!

Emily's got the hang of it now, but James...

-I'm going to do this.

-You can't be beaten by your sister.

You've got to get a whole shovelful up there now.

And fling!

-Ohh!

-It gets even worse!

Yes!

Finally, he's got it.

Right, I think that's the last poo. We're all finished in here.

-Yeah!

-Yeah!

-Was that hard work?

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

-It's great that it's over and done with.

So what do our Rangers think of their day so far?

Picking up all that poo was exhausting.

At the beginning, I thought I like picking up poo but now I don't.

Well, at least all the hard work's done.

We'll come back later to see what nicer jobs

are in store for our Roar Rangers.

Back up at the honey badger enclosure,

head keeper, Jim, has set up a challenge.

He's buried a juicy chunk of meat for Winnie to dig up, and we're

hoping to catch a close-up look at her spectacular claws in action,

using a specially designed armour plated camera.

As you can see, it's a mound, and I've buried her food in the mound.

Why have you done that? Why don't you just give the honey badger

some food straight off? Cos I've heard they're quite vicious.

It's always easy to do that, just throw the meat in but,

from time to time, we try and hide it

to make it a bit more interesting for her, to use her brain,

and obviously use the claws that she's got. Here she is now.

Oh, she's coming.

-You were saying about the claws.

-You can see how long they are.

-Yeah.

The ground is like concrete but she'll dig through it very easily,

and she needs those claws for other reasons, for breaking into

bees' nests to get the honey, hence the name honey badger.

Right. And she goes into bees' nests but doesn't she get injured at all

-with all the stings?

-Yeah, again, they're just nothing to her.

She could get stung 100 times raiding a nest, and she'll just keep on going

until she gets what she wants at the end of it, which is obviously honey.

-And there goes our camera!

-We set a little camera up

to try and get as close as possible and she's knocked it over.

She's not even scared of the camera.

Look at that! Does she think she can get in there?

-Leave her there long enough, I reckon she'll be in there.

-Look at that!

I've been touching the camera, so she can smell my scent on it.

Look at this!

I've got to say, when you told me she was vicious, I thought,

"Oh, I bet she's not really, cos she looks so cute."

But I can see a little of that vicious attitude now.

She's not happy about that being there.

-There she goes, look.

-Oh, wow, OK.

-So she's using her claws. Look at that.

-She's found something.

There she goes.

See how she's gripping?

-There she goes, look.

-Brilliant. She's found it.

So what will she do with the meat, now, then?

Down the burrow to her favourite eating place, and then that's it.

She's got a little living room down there, probably a dining room

-as well where she'll eat...

-A little table and chair!

I'd love it if that were true. Wow. So off she goes.

-She's taken the meat with her.

-Yeah.

That was absolutely brilliant, Jim.

-In fact, you know what I'd like to say? I dig it.

-Oh-ho, yeah!

Now we just need to get our camera out.

Any volunteers?

How can you tell when an elephant's under your bed?

Cos your nose touches the ceiling!

ELEPHANT TRUMPETING

Why do you never play cards in the jungle?

-I don't know.

-It's full of cheetahs.

Oh, that was rubbish.

Sssssssss...

How can you tell when an elephant's in your fridge?

When you can't shut the door.

I am really excited because this is somewhere I have never been before.

I am way down deep in

the greater bamboo lemur enclosure, and the reason I've never

been here before is because these guys are really rare.

-That's right, Matt?

-Extremely rare.

-How many are we talking about?

-When we say rare, we've got 110 left.

-That is it?

-In the world, yeah.

-And how many have you got here?

-We've got three here.

Three, OK. So is there a way to tempt them out,

maybe give them some fruit or have you brought some lovely flowers?

I've brought some lovely, freshly picked bamboo from our bamboo forest.

We'll put this bamboo up here somewhere and then,

if we move back a bit, we might get to see them.

-OK.

-We'll put it over here.

You said they're quite timid.

Does that mean they're going to be quite scared of us?

No, they're just a naturally shy creature.

Lemurs are strange animals, anyway.

They obviously come from the group prosimians...

Oh, they've run away!

They're the first ever monkeys. They got stuck on Madagascar

-and that's where they stayed.

-That's it.

-You only ever have lemurs in Madagascar.

-That's right.

-So how did they get stuck there?

-As time's gone on,

the world has shifted, parts have moved, and that's where they were,

on that little corner of Africa. As it moved away they stayed there

and just made up their own strange creatures. There are some strange

creatures on Madagascar and there are a lot of different lemurs.

There are. You've got quite a few different ones here.

We don't know if that's mum or baby, do we?

-Um, I think that's Beckaly now.

-Beckaly's the baby?

-Yeah.

So you've got one baby which is fantastic if they're so rare.

-Very.

-Are you hoping to have more?

Yeah, when we first put Kenzo and Zig together, we did have our doubts

about whether they would ever breed, but they successfully bred

and they raised a very healthy baby, and she's grown up now.

So, fingers crossed, we may get some more at some stage.

It's fantastic that you've got a little one here, and hopefully

next time we chat, you can say,

"Well, actually, there's 111 greater bamboo lemurs in the world."

-That would be good.

-Excellent. Thank you so much, Matt.

-That's all right.

After a heavy session shovelling poo at the elephant paddock,

Emily and James now need to fill it with food.

The ellies eat two dumper trucks of fruit and veg every day.

They've left us food to put out,

-so do you want to give me a hand with this?

-Yeah.

I need to give you back a shovel again each.

There you go.

OK, we've picked up all the poo, put all the food out now as well.

You've worked really hard, so thank you very much for that.

Now the good bit when we let the elephants come through,

-and we can watch them eat all the food.

-Yeah!

Somebody's tired!

The elephant keepers can only release the herd

once they're certain everyone has cleared out of the paddock.

Liz, ellies.

'Hello.'

Get ready... one, two, three.

We're clear!

'OK, just letting them through.'

Oh, yeah, here they come.

Whilst you might imagine a herd of 14 elephants

would be pretty noisy, in fact their footsteps are almost silent.

That's because these enormous animals are actually walking

on their tiptoes, supported by a large pad of fat and tissue.

These squishy heels act like a pair of trainers,

absorbing the elephants colossal weight

whilst allowing them to walk steadily and quietly

over uneven ground.

But not every ellie here is huge.

The youngest is just six months old.

Etana, look, she's coming down the hill

just over there, following her mum.

She's got her ears out.

Why do they have their ears out?

It's like a bit of a warning.

If they panic, they'll stick their ears out. It's like, "Whoa!"

It makes them look bigger and stronger and scarier.

Whilst Etana tries her best to scare off the crows,

the rest of the herd are kept busy finding the food,

all thanks to Emily and James' hard work.

If you spread it really far, it takes them a long time

to pick up all the food so it keeps them really busy throughout the day.

-We don't want bored elephants, do we?

-No.

-No, not a good sight.

They look so cute!

-Yeah. Thank you for letting us help.

-Thank you for all your hard work.

You've done really well today.

I'm really impressed, so we'll have you back any day.

So how did our Roar Rangers enjoy being elephant keepers?

It was really cool cos you don't really get to see elephants eating

like hay and fruit and everything, so it was cool.

I thought it was really amazing cos I never got that

close up to one before.

Being a Roar Ranger was fantastic.

-It was amazing.

-And magical.

Now pay attention all you Roar gamers

because here comes today's cheat code.

It's frost690.

Type that in and see what you get.

There are loads of games on the CBBC website, but the Roar game

is the only one where you can create your own wild animal park,

so if you haven't tried it, why not give it a go?

Johny, what are you doing?

I'm brushing my teeth, Rani.

I ran out of time this morning so I'm doing them now.

Hey, personal hygiene is important, but in a public place?

I figured that if the animals at the park can get away

with cleaning themselves in front of visitors, so can I.

But, Johny, they have a special way of doing it. Let's take a look.

Open wide.

Got to reach at the back, Johny.

Lions are very ferocious, but also surprisingly clean.

Chris Hales is a big cat keeper, but is he also a big cat cleaner?

We don't go in and wash our lions because we wouldn't really

last too long if we did that, but they have got their own

absolutely great way of cleaning themselves.

ROARING

It's really important for these guys to stay clean.

Obviously, with them eating meat, they do get blood all over them,

all over their faces and paws, and if they didn't clean themselves,

it would go horrible and smelly and attract flies, things like that.

OK, we can see why keeping clean is important to a lion,

but how do they do it?

Let's enter the Roar Test Zone.

Time to put Chris through his paces

to find out if he can keep himself as clean as a cat.

Test One...

how do lions keep those awesome teeth clean and fresh?

When we're looking after our teeth, we use a toothbrush,

and we put it in our mouth and we clean our teeth like this.

When we're doing this, we're actually getting off all

the plaque and things off our teeth,

keeping our teeth nice and clean.

This is how the lions keep their teeth clean by chewing on the bone.

When they're chewing on it, bits of bone are actually

getting in between their teeth and helping keep them clean.

Actually, no, I'm not going to do that. That's horrible.

Gross!

Next up...

how do lions clean their fur?

This is my tongue and this is very similar to a cat's tongue.

It's very, very rough just like a cat's tongue and,

if you have a listen to it,

you can actually hear just how rough that is.

RASPING

When one of these big cats is actually licking their hand,

it sounds pretty similar to that.

All of these little bits in the tongue here are actually designed

purely to go in between the fur and get out any bits of dirt,

bits of blood, and hopefully fleas and things as well,

cos no cats want fleas, do they?

A lion's brush-like tongue isn't just great for keeping clean.

It's so rough that it can actually lick meat off bones... Delicious!

So we know that a lion's tongue is an excellent tool for keeping clean

but can Chris and his human tongue match up?

I'm going to prove that their tongue is actually a lot better

than ours by showing you just how well I can groom myself.

First of all, I hate ketchup. Actually, I probably would've

preferred to have had blood on me.

But, as you can see, I've done a rubbish job. Absolutely rubbish!

If I was a cat, I would be a bad cat!

So far, Chris is no match for a lion.

Let's see if he can make up for it with our final test called

How To Clean Those Hard To Reach Places.

Cats are slightly more flexible than us,

and they can lick into all sorts of places, unlike me, because

I can't even lick my back leg.

Ow, that really hurts!

OK, so cats versus humans on cleaning...

cats have won this one. Give me a shower any day.

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

we're popping down to see Quinto and give him an afternoon snack.

-And here's Shelly, keeper, as well. Hiya!

-Hello.

-How are you doing?

-Good, thank you.

-How's Quinto today?

He's very well. Feeling very peckish.

-Good stuff!

-It's a good job cos we're going to feed him some browse.

Is there a specific way I should do this? How do you feed a rhino?

They like to sniff their food first. You hold it up to around his nose,

he'll sniff it, check it's OK, check that he wants it,

and then he'll pull it in with his prehensile lip.

Go on, Johny. You go first.

What does prehensile mean exactly?

Basically it's this long pointed lip,

and you can see they use it like an elephant would its trunk.

It's got lots of muscles in it and they can use it to grasp,

so they use to pull in browse just like that into their mouth.

-A bit like a hand, then?

-Yeah, it's like an extra limb, really.

-He wants some of this.

-You can really hear him chomping away.

He's going, "Rrr, rrr, rrr," grinding away on the food.

Not very quiet, are you, Quinto?

Yes, they've got very big teeth, actually.

They've got molars like we have at the back,

but all their teeth are molars.

And they're set really far back so they can't actually bite you.

I was going to say, "Watch your hand, Shelly!"

They're set really far back.

They can't bite you and they are just these huge molar teeth

and they're just for grinding browse and then swallowing it.

He's definitely using his teeth today because he's munching away

but I think, Johny, like the browse, we should "leaf" now.

Thank you, Shelly.

Why don't you guys check out what's on the next episode of Roar?

One of the huge male gorillas travels 250km

to start a family at a new home...

but he causes a bit of a stir on the way there.

Excuse me, is that what I think it is?

It definitely is.

That really is a gorilla. That's a real gorilla.

What happens when you hide food from a five tonne elephant?

They stamp on it.

And Rani becomes part of the furniture in the lemur enclosure.

What do you think, Matt? Do you think this is quite

comfortable eating its lychees here? Is this what they tend to do?

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