Episode 34 Roar

Today on Roar, the parks are in the grip of a heatwave

so we're going to find out how the animals chill out.

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

-And I'm Johny.

And these cheeky monkeys are the colobus monkeys.

They love nothing more than feasting on their favoured snack, the peanut.

Rani, I love peanuts as well, am I cute enough to have a treat?

Go on then, Johny, because you asked nicely.

You guys are going to go nuts for today's show, let's get on with it.

There you go! Ha-ha!

Coming up on today's sizzler,

Rani catches one of the world's most elusive cats on camera.

Ooh, I can see him, I can see him on this camera!

The head of primates gets a grilling about the baboons in Ask The Keeper,

but is he scared?

-We're feeling confident, Simon, but are you?

-Bring it on!

And people say cats don't like water, well, nobody told the tiger cubs.

It's a scorcher on the park today,

but luckily for me, I've got someone on hand to keep me cool.

Rani seems to have come up with an ingenious way of beating the heat,

but I wondered how the animals managed to keep cool.

Well, Johny, they have plenty of adaptations

to help them deal with the baking weather.

Let's check them out and I might give some of their tips a try.

I'll give you a tip, Johnny, keep fanning. Off you go.

Keep me cool, keep me cool. Nice!

The parks are crammed with hundreds of wild animals

and many come from countries with dramatically different

weather conditions to those in the UK.

Although a British summer often looks like this,

I want to know if I can pick up a few tips from the animals

on how to keep cool when the sun's sizzling.

First up, it's the remarkably rare black rhino,

the world's third largest land mammal.

They live on the African continent in habitats that

range from tropical grasslands to deserts where temperatures

regularly climb above 30 degrees. So they must be used to the heat,

but how on earth do they stay cool?

Keeper, Shelley, has the answers.

When it's baking hot outside, black rhinos love to wallow in the mud

-to keep them cool.

-I think it's working, I think it's working!

Mud acts as many things. It's a sunblock, it keeps them cool,

it's an exfoliant, so once it's on them and it's dried out,

they then rub on the fences and it'll take all their dead skin away.

More importantly, it keeps all the disease-bearing insects off them,

which is especially important in Africa.

This isn't cooling, this is just gross.

Has anyone got any tissues, please?

Let's move on, shall we?

Siberian tigers come from the cold forests

and mountains of eastern Russia and north-east Asia,

and have super thick coats to withstand temperatures that fall

as low as minus 15 degrees centigrade.

That's even cooler than head of cats, Jim Vassey.

So how can tigers possibly cope when it's hot?

There are several ways they try and keep cool.

One is to sit still and pant, because obviously cold air passing

through their mouth, all the blood vessels in the tongue,

cooling the blood down,

then the cool blood gets circulated around the body.

HE PANTS

No, not working for me. All this is doing is making me thirsty.

Got any water?

Most domestic cats hate water

but on a hot day, the tigers like nothing better than a cooling dip.

It's part of their lives. They need to be near water for drinking,

but, more importantly, for swimming and keeping cool.

And the cubs don't just use the pool to keep cool.

For them, it's a bit wet playground.

Should I? Should I?

Forget it, I'm going in.

Finally, let's find out how the big boys do it,

the awesome African elephants.

Head keeper Dave is our ellie expert.

Obviously, people drink to keep cool, elephants do the same.

But obviously they use their trunks to do that...

And different size of elephants, different size of trunk.

A big animal, like the bull, you're talking maybe 10, 15 litres.

10 or 15 litres? That's a whopper of a straw!

But it's not the only gigantic body part elephants use to stay fresh.

Elephants will use their ears to keep cool by constantly flapping.

Elephants' ears are full of blood vessels which the elephant

can choose to fill with their warm blood.

When they flap their ears, the blood cools down and so does the body.

Genius.

This isn't working. I need to grow some bigger ears.

The ellie's final trick is definitely not something you should try at home.

They throw dung all over themselves...

-What?!

-And that will dry onto them and it's like a sun pack

at the same time. It can be a messy business, especially

when you've got to sweep it up after they've thrown it everywhere.

No chance.

You know, it's nice for the ellies but sometimes not too good for us!

I've tried all these different ways to keep cool

but I reckon I'm going to stick to the original and best.

What? It's really off-putting trying to eat your food

when you guys are watching.

In fact, I wonder what it's like for the clouded leopard,

because those guys are really, really shy,

so when we feed them and then we're trying to watch them,

-it must be quite embarrassing for them. Hiya, Ben.

-Hiya.

I've been trying to have a snack and these guys keep watching me,

it's putting me off my food.

-So rude!

-It is, isn't it?

What's it like for the clouded leopards?

-We've got Utan here, haven't we?

-We have.

-Really shy fellow.

Yeah, Utan's a clouded leopard, very shy, nocturnal,

much rather stay out of people's way.

If we have a look in the enclosure, nowhere to be seen,

that's how shy he is. Is he actually in there, Ben,

or has he gone out for a walk?

No, we haven't let him out yet. He's in the other enclosure there,

there's a dividing fence and he's staying right out the way,

away from us.

Ee have been down here a few times and we rarely get a look at him,

so we've had a plan today because we want you to have a chance to see him

-because he's beautiful, isn't he?

-Fantastic looking.

So what we've done, well I haven't done, actually, our technical guy,

Mr Strange, has done, he's placed a camera all the way up there.

Now, Ben, why has he placed it all the way up there?

Clouded leopards are arboreal, which means they're very good climbers,

they'd much rather be off the ground. So what's going to happen is

I'm going to take some food in, place it on his special shelf,

come back down and we're going to see him, hopefully, eating.

All right then. Now just in case this camera misses it,

because Utan might just walk away, Ben is going to be a bit daring

and take another camera up there, aren't you?

-I am, yeah.

-So are you going to leave it up there?

No, this is going to stay with me and show you what I do.

Right, Ben is now making his way into the enclosure.

Are you sure you're going to be all right climbing up there?

-You don't want a ladder, safety net?

-I'll be fine.

We do have to say though, Ben does do this all the time, so you know,

you shouldn't be shimmying up things that you're not aware of.

He knows all the health and safety and these guys do it for a living.

Careful, Ben, nice and slowly.

-Ben, I can see you on my camera!

-There's the meat.

The meat's in place.

-Give us a little wave, if you're safe to?

-Can you see me?

-Yay, hi!

I don't know why I'm waving back at the screen. I can wave to you real.

-OK, Ben, are you happy?

-I'm happy.

All right, then, everything is in place so why don't you guys

join us later on in the show?

Fingers crossed, we will get a look at the elusive clouded leopard.

Ben, make your way back down.

-What's striped and bouncy?

-I don't know.

-A tiger on a pogo stick.

-Boing-boing!

THEY MAKE MONKEY NOISES

What kind of fish goes well with ice cream?

Jellyfish.

HE SCREECHES

-What do you call an elephant that never washes?

-I don't know.

A smellyphant. Poo-hoo!

It's Ask The Keeper time once more and in the hot seat today

is the big boss of the primate section, Simon Jeffery.

But Simon, you're not the boss of us, so are you ready?

-I'm ready.

-OK, bring it on.

Girls, have you got your questions?

-Yeah.

-OK, Honey, you're first.

Where do baboons originate?

Baboons come from Africa. These particular baboons come from Guinea.

They're called Guinea baboons, because they come from West Africa.

Could you do an impression of the noises the baboons make?

Baboons scream. They make all sorts of noises. They can bark like a dog.

-Could you do one of them?

-Brilliant.

They just go "Waa!" They scream lots.

So lots of fighting, lots of screaming.

They go "Boo-hoo" to each other,

they do all sorts of different communications.

-They're very social.

-Simon, you've worked with these for quite a while,

can you tell which noises mean what?

We're getting a better idea now of exactly what they're meaning.

It comes from watching the baboons interacting a lot.

Interacting with kids, all that kind of stuff.

The screaming, you get used to which ones are dangerous screams

and which ones are just kids screaming at another kid,

there's not even anything really happening.

Can baboons kill each other or kill

other animals and do they fight a lot?

They do. Baboons are known for hunting all sorts of animals.

They'll take down small antelope. They'll take lizards and birds.

They've even been known to take down flamingos. There's footage of this.

As far as fights go, it's not impossible

that they may kill one another. Usually, males fighting.

If a new male wants to take over, he's got to fight the current male.

And they're very dangerous animals, they have really big teeth.

Baboons' teeth are nearly two inches long. So they've got big canines.

That is massive. I would never have thought it with the baboons.

And do they use them quite a bit then?

Yeah, they'll use them for fighting, they'll use them for catching prey.

I mean, they're an amazing animal.

-How dangerous can a baboon be to a human?

-They can be very dangerous.

They are a big animal. You've got to be very careful,

because if they start to attack, it's not just one,

it'll be the whole group that attacks. We have to be careful

but like I say, we can control them with food and stuff.

They are captive so not as dangerous as wild ones

but you've got to be careful.

So, girls, let's give him a round of applause for that... Stop!

Because now it's time for the killer question.

We're feeling confident, Simon.

-But are you?

-Yeah, bring it on!

OK, bring it on indeed.

It's killer question time.

Simon, these crazy baboons behind us

are from five countries, can be found in five countries.

I want you, WE want you, to name four of those countries.

Well, as they're Guinea baboons, you've got Guinea,

Senegal, Gambia and Sierra Leone.

-Oh, name the other one.

-He's right, completely.

I can't believe it!

Every single question he answered.

Well done, Simon,

but I think the last thing we need to do is a thumbs-up or thumbs-down

for head keeper Simon Jeffery. What do you reckon?

Thumbs up all round.

We've got a thumbs down. I think she's a sore loser.

See how they get on next time in Ask The Keeper. Didn't he do well?

OK, welcome back, I'm still outside the clouded leopard enclosure.

We're really hoping to get a look today at Utan because we never

really get a chance to see him.

So what we've done is place a camera way up there,

right opposite his favourite shelf.

Now, keeper Ben has placed some food in there

and all we've got to do now is wait to see if Utan will come out.

And look, here he comes. Oh, look at him.

Ben, he did that with more ease than you did.

And I can see him, I can see him on this camera!

One clouded leopard.

Now, he's pacing around.

What's going on?

Basically, because all of us are around, right next to his enclosure,

he's getting a bit nervous.

I can't believe the length of his tail.

-It's huge, isn't it?

-What does he need that for?

Basically, when he's bounding through trees,

it gives him the perfect balance, it counterbalances the weight.

He's amazing. And he's big.

-He's a big lad.

-Where would they go up high in the wild?

-They wouldn't climb up trees, would they?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Really?

It's where they spend most of their time.

They do come on the ground when they feel safe but they will tend to

go up high and find somewhere to sleep through the day,

then go hunt at night and find whatever they can.

What have you given him to eat today?

I've put a bit of rabbit up there.

He's not interested at the moment

but in the wild, is that the kind of thing he'd go for?

He seems quite big to be eating just a bit of rabbit.

Well, basically, in the wild, they'd probably take out small deer,

if they could catch rodents and birds, they'd eat that,

-anything they can get themselves on, really.

-Wow!

Now we don't often get a chance to see these great cats and it's fair

-to say that they're endangered.

-They're very endangered, yes.

They're incredibly hard to breed in captivity and in the wild,

-people are poaching them for their skins and for body parts.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-When you say body parts?

Why would you want a body part of a cat like this?

Well, they can be used for...

People use them for medicines.

-Really?

-Obviously, their skin, their fur looks very pretty, so it

-might look good on someone's wall. I wouldn't choose to do that.

-No.

You talk about them being really difficult to breed.

-You've got quite a few here though.

-Yep...

-Go on, Ben.

-Our current numbers are 25.

-That's fantastic.

-You've bred them here?

-Yeah, we're the best breeders in the world.

That is absolutely amazing. It's so good to hear that, because even

though we don't get to see them, we know the numbers are rising.

-Yes, certainly in captivity.

-And they are so amazing to look at,

I love watching him, his tail swishing side to side.

Do you think we should just leave him to enjoy his dinner in peace?

Yeah, I think we should leave him alone.

It's been fantastic to get a close look at him. Thank you so much, Ben.

Keeper, Shelley Ansell, has 90 deer to look after on her rounds, but she

also takes care of one of the few birds in the park, the guinea fowl.

They may only be the size of a chicken, but they still make

plenty of noise when they're hungry.

We've just got a few broken bits of bread.

The guinea fowl like to bite some small crumbs off and stuff.

The guinea fowl are the only birds at the park,

so often forgotten about.

With 40,000 square metres in which to roam free, the six guinea fowl

can look a little lost in their huge enclosure and Shelley has been hoping

that the group, or rasp as it's known, would produce a few chicks.

But after weeks of waiting, none of their eggs have hatched naturally,

so she's decided it's time to step in.

Our plan with the guinea fowl

is to incubate and hatch some eggs so we can have a few more out here.

Ours are getting a bit old now,

and it will be nice to get a few more to keep the numbers up.

In the wild, guinea fowl nest from spring to late summer

and the female will sit on the nest while the male bird stands guard.

The problem with this group is that they keep abandoning their eggs.

So Shelley's plan is to try and find

the eggs before they get too cold and then look after them herself.

The guinea fowl lay the eggs all over.

They have different nests in different sheds.

I'm assuming it's different females having different nests.

No, none in there.

There is a nest in this one.

It's just down in this corner

and there's an egg in it, which is really exciting.

That was laid fresh this morning.

Just as Shelley feared, the hen that laid the egg is nowhere to be seen.

I'm going to take this egg away.

Guinea fowl mums aren't very good mums at all.

Like we've just found it,

they often have them and walk away and leave them

and they get cold or eaten by other animals,

or accidentally broken because of the deer coming in and out.

So it's much safer in our hands.

So, Shelley has just become a first-time mum to a guinea fowl egg.

But getting it to hatch will be quite a challenge.

We'll find out later if she can crack it.

Hi there, all you gamers. Hope you're listening carefully

because it's cheat code time for the Roar online game.

Today, it's drought500.

If you're not a Roar gamer yet, then why not?

Go on, give it a go. It's easy to find on the CBBC website

and it's great fun. Happy gaming!

Across the parks, the sun is still scorching and apparently,

I'm not the only one who could do with some help cooling down.

Hoofstock keeper, Carl,

has invited me up to the tapir enclosure to chill out.

-And here he is now. Carl, hiya.

-Hello, Rani.

I can see the tapirs are here as well,

-and as you instructed, I've brought this treat up for them.

-Thank you.

-What is it?

-It's a large ice lolly for tapirs.

I've got to say, it's very cold on my hands.

So I'm going to hand you that and tell me, what's in it?

Well, we've got apple and orange in here, and watermelon, bananas.

And yes, basically, because it's a real hot day today,

and these guys unfortunately

haven't got a pool in the side of the pen, so...

A little icy treat then.

It helps cool them down a bit, yeah.

-Who have we got here?

-This is Lidaeng.

-Hi, Lidaeng.

-She seems to be enjoying that.

-She loves them.

Do they normally eat ice lollies?

Not normally, no. This is a special treat as it's so hot today.

-Right.

-They don't normally eat these, no.

You say they haven't got a pool. Is that what they'd do in the wild

to keep themselves cool?

Yes, they spend a lot of time in water in the wild.

-About 70% of the time.

-Really?

Near or in water, yeah.

-You've got another one wandering around.

-That's Copasih, her son.

-Will he be interested in the ice lolly?

-He's a little bit shy,

so he'll hang about in the wings, until we've gone,

then he'll be over here and help his mum finish these lollies off.

When you don't make ice lollies, what can they do to keep cool?

Because it's a really hot day today. Luckily, we're in the shade.

We're quite fortunate here

that we have this fantastic enclosure for them.

It's very heavily wooded, so it does maintain quite a cool temperature.

Now we've got loads of healthy treats in here for Lidaeng.

Any chance she'd like to have a big lick of the ice lolly?

I'm sure she will. Would you like to tip it out on the floor for her?

What do I do, just pour the juice on the floor, or the whole thing?

-Just tip it out.

-She's a little bit nervous of me, maybe.

Have you ever given them ice products before?

No, never. This is the very first time they've ever had ice lollies,

and it seems to be quite a success.

Yeah, she seems to be really enjoying that.

Do you think she can smell the fruit

so she's aware of everything she normally eats?

Yes, I mean, they've got a very good sense of smell

and she's more than capable of smelling

all the fruit that we've got for her through the ice.

-I think she'd enjoy this when we're not around.

-I would say so.

Well, if she doesn't, I certainly will.

-I'm desperate to have a lick of it.

-Me too.

-I'll fight you for it.

-Go on then!

Keeper, Shelley, is hoping to increase

the number of guinea fowl at the park.

But she's realised that she's going to have to raise the chicks herself

because the birds have failed to hatch any eggs on their own.

Guinea fowl mums are really bad at looking after their eggs.

They just lay them and leave them, basically.

Usually foxes or birds eat them,

so it's a race to get there first, to get them out and get them here.

A guinea fowl hen will lay an average of 60 eggs during a breeding season

but despite searching high and low, Shelley's

only managed to find a single egg to incubate. So, to increase her

chances of success, she's had some fertilised eggs delivered

from another collection and she's planning

to incubate them all together.

We're going to put them in the holders.

They've not got to be in there too tight, just tight enough to

make sure they don't roll around too much.

Fat end's got to be at the top.

I've just put in our little guinea fowl egg there.

We put the date on the top that it was laid, so we know exactly

when it should hatch.

My eyes are on this one.

Shelley's not going to be using a nest,

she's got something much more high-tech.

The incubator is the nest, to save us sitting on them!

It does the turning itself, so basically all we've got to do

is keep an eye on it to make sure it is keeping its temperature.

At a steady 30 degrees and 51% humidity,

the incubator creates the perfect conditions for the eggs to develop,

but there's still no guarantee that it'll work.

We're hoping all of them will hatch but it's not likely,

which is why we try to start with so many.

But we'll do our best and hopefully get as many as we can.

If the eggs do hatch, then it'll be up to Shelley

to raise the new chicks.

We do become their mum.

We feed them, we look after them when they're little as well.

Hopefully this one will meet its mum!

Shelley will have to carefully monitor these eggs for about 25 days

before they're ready to hatch, but with any luck,

we'll be bringing you news of a brand new gaggle of guinea fowl as soon as

we're back for our next series.

With time running out on today's Roar, we've just popped over to meet

gorilla keeper, Ingrid Naisby, and the two new arrivals.

-Ingrid, how are you doing?

-I'm well. Good, thanks.

It's been a very exciting time over the last six months,

not one, but two arrivals.

I've been doing the baby spotting.

We have one just there by the rocks, is that the...?

That's Fufu and her baby, Luna.

He's six months old.

-Six months?!

-And we've got Mumba and her baby, who's two months old.

Can we see the little two-month baby?

You might see them out, she does come out but she's a little bit

camera-shy sometimes.

She'll get used to that with us hanging around here all the time.

I'm impressed at the six-month old, quite little, isn't it?

Yeah, they're really small when they're born, they're tiny,

smaller than human babies.

But they're really strong and it takes a long

time for them to develop.

Have they developed well, though? Are they getting on all right?

They're doing fantastic. They're exactly where they should be.

I mean, Luna, the six-month old,

he quite often gets off and has a little run around.

And he's climbing as well.

Lovely stuff.

There's Dad. Now, of course, Djalta is Dad and he's displaying there.

Is that because he's quite protective?

Yeah, he's a very good dad, but he's also very protective of his family.

-And how about Mum? Is Mum a good mum?

-They're both fantastic mums.

Mumba, who's the mother of the two-month old,

-she hasn't had a baby for 10 years.

-Wow.

But she's doing really well.

Do you have to keep an eye out on her though, help her along,

or will others do that in the group?

No, they kind of take care of themselves.

They're very good at being mums. We keep an eye on them,

make sure they're healthy, but generally,

we let them get on with it.

We're going to have fun this summer seeing those little ones grow

and hopefully, we'll get to see the youngest as well. Thanks so much.

That's the end of today's show, but why don't you stick around

to see what's happening in the next fact-packed episode of Roar.

Our next show is the last in the current series,

so we've got a special rip-Roaring edition, looking back at some of our

top moments and favourite clips.

How could we forget the heart-warming story of Tiggs, the baby meerkat?

There's the fateful day when Johny faced his fear.

Oh...!

And Rani lost her bottle.

SHE SQUEALS

We'll find out what it takes to be a Roar Ranger.

Enthusiasm, hard work, or sheer courage?

Flipping heck, they're big.

And I'll be going right back to the beginning,

to my very first appearance on Roar.

-That stinks!

-That's all coming up on the next Roar.

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