Episode 8 Roar

It's red alert as the bull rhino's let in with the females.

Everyone hopes they'll have babies, but they're very aggressive

and that could mean a fight to the death.

Hello and welcome to Roar. I'm Johny.

Ruff. Ruff.

Roni, what exactly are you doing?

Sorry, Johny.

I'm talking to the tigers, finding out if they had a good day. Ruff.

-Really? Ooh. Ruff, ruff.

-Roni, that doesn't sound like talking to me.

That's because tigers make loads of sounds that humans can't hear.

The sound I'm making is called chuffing.

It's a sound of friendliness and affection. Ruff, ruff.

In that case, I'd like to keep on these guys' good side

so if you can't beat them, join them. Ruff, ruff.

Enough of that, Dr Dolittle. Let's get on with the show.

Ah, brr.

Five-a-day for the ellies means a jumbo-sized mountain of fruit.

But they have to find it.

While the colobus monkeys prefer a more personal style of service.

And giant giraffes look even bigger when they stare you in the face.

But we're going to kick off with baby rhinos.

Grumeti was born here a couple of years ago -

just one of 29 black rhinos they've managed to breed

at Port Lympne and Howletts. They've even sent five back home to Africa.

That's really important.

Black rhinos were almost wiped out in the wild by poachers.

They may look like nature's answer to the tank,

with their thick skins and lethal horns, but they aren't bulletproof.

So the parks want to breed some more babies

and Kingo here has fathered five calves in the past.

But the big daddy suffers from a rotting foot, poor thing.

Head of section Paul Beer has been keeping an eye on it.

With the feet, especially with Kingo, we've had problems before.

He gets hole in the bottom of his feet.

The tissue rots, so the dead tissue needs cutting out.

If we don't do anything with his feet, he could get a major infection.

If it travels up the legs, you can't have a three-legged rhino.

If his feet got worse, he might not be able to walk,

let alone mate with a female rhino.

So park vet Jane Hopper was called in to take a look.

She scraped out all the pus and muck from the infection

and found that it hadn't spread as far as they'd feared.

A couple of shots of medicine, and Kingo was set to father more calves,

which is vital to the future of black rhinos.

At the moment, he's very important.

To my knowledge, he's one of the only breeding males in the country.

He's the only breeding male we have here. There's males at Chester Zoo

and that's it in the whole of Britain. So he's highly important.

The keepers have lined up two females for him to breed with -

Vuyu, who he knows, and Yagga, who's a new girl in town.

He's been in with Vuyu before. He's had two calves with her,

one of which we sent back to Africa.

Hopefully, they get on quite well. Hopefully there's no bloodshed.

GROWLING

Whoa, that sounds a bit worrying.

The problem is, rhinos are very aggressive

and, when they first meet up, they often fight.

So, if there's to be a successful mating,

Kingo will have to be introduced to the females very carefully.

He can be a bit of a thug. In the past, he's beat the females up,

chased them all over. He can go one of two ways.

They get on well or he can hate them and try taking the gate off

to get in with them.

Since they don't want the gate or the girls damaged,

all of the rhino section staff are standing by to step in.

Luckily, Kingo keeps his cool.

KISSING SOUND EFFECT

So far, so good. They seem comfortable with each other.

A little bit of snorting on the second day, nothing to worry about.

We've had them down here this morning, rubbing faces and kissing.

It's a promising start, so the next step will be

to let them all into the same paddock together

and see if they move onto mating.

But that's the moment of maximum danger,

the time when they're most likely to fight.

We'll come back to see what happens.

Elephants are the largest land animals by a mile,

and you might think they have to eat loads of meat to grow that big.

But actually, they're strict vegetarians.

So they munch their way through masses of fruit and veg.

Which, of course, results in mountains of pooh.

But that's another story.

I've been asked to come to the ellie section to lend a helping hand.

And now I've seen Tom King, I understand why.

You might be injured but, of course, the ellies still need feeding.

-Is that right?

-Yes, they do.

-So what can I do to help today?

At the moment, we're making up enrichment boxes for them.

-So you could help by filling these boxes up.

-OK.

-We've got loads of fruit and veg. Is this all for the ellies?

-Yes.

A daily allowance or is this for a whole week?

-No, this is just a daily allowance.

-Really? How much is in here?

It's going to be about 300-400kg of fruit.

That's a LOT of fruit. And we've got loads of different things here.

-Beetroot, apples...

-Bananas.

-The whole lot.

Why am I putting it in boxes? Are the ellies picky with their food?

Not necessarily picky.

What we want to do is put something into the paddocks

that isn't obvious, to an elephant, what it is straight away.

So they have to use one of their senses, which is smell.

OK, so they'll use their sense of smell to find the food in the boxes.

-Does that look like enough to you?

-That looks excellent.

-Exactly what we want.

-How many ellies are out there?

-We've got 14 elephants out there.

-14 ellies, 14 boxes.

-Luckily, this is the last one.

-Yay!

All right. This one's complete. Shall we feed those hungry ellies?

-Let's go.

-Come on, then.

Hello and welcome to another Ask The Keeper.

I've come out here to the African Experience

to hook up with this brainy bunch of boffins

who've got a few questions for keeper Nick Turk

to see if he towers above the rest with his knowledge on the giraffe.

Look at them. They're massive.

We have to be quiet, so we don't scare them. They're quite timid.

Have you got any questions for Nick?

How fast can giraffes run?

They can run at around 30mph, something like that.

So reasonably quick. Quicker than you, anyway.

It's taken a shine to our camera.

Generally, out in the wild, would they run away if they saw humans?

Yes. I went out to Tanzania a few years ago

and got reasonable close to some and they just scattered.

They are quite nervous animals.

They're an animal that can be predated so they don't stick around

if there's something they don't like.

OK. Chloe, have you got any questions?

What are the horns for?

The horns are there for defence and for the sparring that males do.

When they come across each other they whack each other with their heads.

-How tall do giraffes usually grow up to?

-That's a good one.

-Ooh.

Well, up to around 5.5 metres.

That's very tall but I think that's the record.

For the older people in the audience, sort of 18 foot, that sort of height.

How long can giraffes live for?

Sort of 30-40 years old.

Have they got any predators?

Generally lions or hyenas would take the babies cos they're easier.

They will take adults, as well, but only if they really have to,

cos they've got a wicked kick on them that will kill a lion of hyena.

Lots of great questions there, but I think things are neck-and-neck now.

-See what I did there with giraffes, neck?

-Very good, yes.

Things are neck-and-neck now, so we need to go for the Killer Question.

-We've done some research...

-Have you?

..and we've come up with a few questions

that you might not find so easy to answer. Are you up for this?

-We'll give it a go.

-Brilliant. Come on, guys.

(The question we should ask him... Giraffes have really big hearts.)

Wicked, OK, ha-ha.

Right, Nick. Are you ready for your Killer Question?

Go on, then. Give it to me.

Before we came here, we found out that giraffes have massive hearts.

We want to know how many human hearts

could you fit into a giraffe's heart?

Will a guess do?

A guess'll do. If you get it right!

Er...let's have a look.

Ten.

-Final answer?

-Final answer.

-Can I phone a friend?

-You can't, unfortunately, and you're WAY off.

-It's 36! You can fit 36 human hearts inside a giraffe's heart.

-Really?

-I didn't know that.

-Amazing, isn't it?

-You learn something every day.

I'm pretty impressed with your knowledge of these giraffes.

Guys, thumbs up or thumbs down for Nick?

-Thumbs up.

-Thumbs up.

-Oh, yeah.

-Thank you very much. Cheers.

Well done, Nick. You are definitely head and shoulders above the rest.

Giraffes, head and...

Join us next time for another Ask The Keeper.

Oo-oo-oo-oo! Ah-ah-ah-ah!

What's big, grey and has horns?

An elephant marching band.

# Do-do-do-do. #

Ah-ah-ah-ah!

-Why did the frog go to the hospital?

-Don't know.

-He needed a hoperation.

HE SNORTS

-What happens when a cow doesn't shave?

-I don't know.

He grows a moo-stache.

THEY LAUGH

Earlier on, Tom and I filled some boxes with fruit

and we placed them inside the ellies' paddock.

One over here,

one over there,

one in the tree and, to make it MORE difficult for the ellies,

we've placed them in some holes.

The ellies are coming through now.

Tom, trunks to the ground. Are they sniffing out the fruit?

-Are they going to find it?

-Yeah.

They use their trunks to pick up the scent of the fruit and veg

that we chop up and put all around the paddocks.

They'll see the boxes but they can't see the fruit and veg inside them.

So, hopefully, they'll use their trunks to find out where it is.

You say they can see them. Do they have great eyesight?

We always talk about sense of smell but never their eyesight.

Elephants have probably got the same kind of eyesight as humans -

-20/20 vision.

-OK.

They can't see any better than we can see in the dark...

-Right.

-..but their sense of smell is far greater than ours.

-So if they see a box... This little one, who's this?

-That's Juva.

Unfortunately, she's just gone through Jums's box.

We made one big box up for Jums.

So, hopefully he won't get told off.

And now he's left that box and gone over... Is that his mum?

-That's Davit, yeah.

-Brilliant. So Davit's now tore that box open.

Obviously smelt the fruit.

But how comes he's left that box and gone to mummy's box?

He probably thinks what she's got is better than what he's got.

And he probably heard me say, "That's Jums's box." That's his daddy's box.

-He's going to get into trouble.

-He will.

Tom, here comes the big fella, dragging his trunk along the floor.

This is Jums, isn't it?

That's right, yeah. Now there'll be problems.

Who's there going to be problems with?

-With elephants, you have a hierarchy within the females.

-Right.

-Jums, the bull elephant, is outside that structure.

-OK.

When you're an elephant, size matters.

So all the elephants will give way to Jums, because he's bigger.

When he came in there, it was like he greeted Shibi with his trunk.

-Do they shake hands, almost, or am I seeing things?

-No.

Trunks are very, very tactile.

If you can imagine, you can smell through your hand,

this is why you see elephants putting their trunks

in other elephants' mouths, touching other elephants' bodies.

OK. So they use the trunk to - like Jums -

pick things up and put them in their mouths, like he's put that box in.

-They use it to touch, to carry things, to break things?

-Oh, yeah.

That trunk's great. I want myself one of them trunks, I do!

-It's very useful.

-It is.

So there he is, snorting up all his fruit. Is it snorting or grabbing?

What he's doing is picking individual bits of fruit and veg up.

If he snorts it too much, it'll go right up his nose.

That's what the trunk is - it's an extension of the nose.

What would happen if he did that? Would he sneeze it out?

He probably would and I would duck if it's coming towards you.

It's been fascinating to watch them today.

Of course, there is still one box left.

Before Jums comes over, I think we should get out of here.

-It's a good idea.

-Come on, then.

-OK.

OK, then. Back to the rhinos,

who were kissing through the fence the last time we saw them.

The keepers are hoping they'll mate and make some more babies like this.

But Kingo the bull rhino might attack,

and even kill, the females instead.

Paul Beer's decided there's only one way to find out.

This morning, we're putting Kingo in with Vuyu and Yagga.

He's not been with females for two years, so he could be excited.

Things have been good between them for the past few days.

We're just going to open the gate and go for it.

Paul will yet Vuyu and Yagga in at one end of the paddock,

and deputy head of section, Nick Turk,

is standing by with the big daddy at the other.

We'll let Kingo out first and he can wander.

Then we'll let the girls go

and hopefully they'll link up and we won't have too much bloodshed.

Paul seems pretty cool about it, but these guys could do a lot of harm.

And how could anyone stop them?

Nick's brought something along just in case.

One of the only things that'll split off two fighting rhinos

is a fire extinguisher. Hopefully we won't need it.

The keepers know from experience

that the sound of a fire extinguisher being let off

would surprise the rhinos and probably make them stop fighting.

So now they're ready to begin.

-Right, do you want to give nick a shout?

-Want to let Kingo go now?

OK, Kira.

It's time to find out whether Kingo will try to mate with the females...

Go on, son, on you go.

..or attack them.

Meet your girlfriends.

'Right, OK. I'll let the two girls go.'

OK.

All right, V.

Oi!

She IS keen to meet Kingo.

There's a good chance they won't fight - they've mated twice before.

Last time was eight years ago,

but scientists think rhinos have excellent memories.

Vuyu's leading the way happily enough.

She's been quite keen on going in with Kingo.

Yagga's not so keen, but then she's quite a nervous animal.

Ideally, Vuyu will now go with Yagga to back her up till she sees Kingo.

She'll probably panic and run, which is the last thing I want,

because Kingo will chase her. We want to keep it as calm as we can.

Paul and Nick are very experienced keepers.

They've done everything possible

to make sure the rhinos' meeting goes smoothly.

But these guys have poor eyesight,

the females may be surprised and frightened when they see Kingo.

Here we go. He's a couple of hundred metres away, heading for her.

Right, Nick, he's right in amongst Yuvu and Yagga.

Vuyu's just going over to him.

He's squeaked and run off the other way.

I'm not sure what he was doing there.

Whether he's realised the girls are in with him...

But at least Vuyu isn't spooked. In fact, she's strolling after him.

Looks like she'll have to persuade him it's time to have babies.

So we'll come back later to see if Kingo IS keen to mate.

Are the animals breeding in YOUR wildlife park?

Log on to the Roar online game and check out all the new attractions.

Today's cheat code is...

So type it in and see what surprises are in store for you today.

We've been following the progress of an adorable, and very rare,

grizzled leaf monkey baby over the last few days.

We put a camera in the monkeys' bedroom

and, despite the mischievous efforts of his dad,

we recorded brilliant pictures of what they did at night,

which no-one has ever seen before.

Adam has invited me to come and meet him down at the enclosure.

Adam, where is this momentous monkey?

At the moment, mum and the baby are right at the top, there.

Wow, OK. Why are they so shy?

It is natural behaviour for them. Any danger, they shoot straight up,

as they would do in trees.

A lot safer up there, very acrobatic up there.

They can get away from a lot of things when they need to.

If we're on the ground, they want to be away from us.

-Do they have a lot of predators in the wild?

-They can do.

Being high up isn't always the safest place.

Eagles and birds of prey might take some of the youngsters.

Potentially, snakes can and carnivores on the floor can, too,

so they do have some predators they've got to watch out for.

How do they defend themselves? Do they have big teeth or claws?

The males do have fairly large teeth,

but it's probably not enough to defend against the larger predators.

What does the future hold for the baby?

Hopefully, in the future, we can get a few more animals.

This offspring is actually related

to virtually every other animal of this species that we have.

So it's very important for us to get new animals, which we did recently,

so they can be paired up so there's no genetic problems with them,

so they're not inbreeding, things like that.

He's got years, yet, to be fully developed

and he can stay in a group,

so he's got a good life ahead of him.

He's got a good mum, as we can see.

All the food keeps him growing, hopefully, and he should be fine.

You must be loving it that you're here

for such a critically endangered animal

and you've been looking after them as another one comes along.

Oh, sure, it's a real privilege.

There's no-one else in the world looking after these guys,

so it's a great thing.

Obviously, any baby is important but, as they are so endangered,

it's even more important and it's just really great to see.

-It's what we're here for.

-Adam, congratulations.

What an amazing achievement.

I reckon they look content and chilled out

so we should leave them to it.

We'll check on them later in the series to see how they're doing.

I always think it's really difficult

to pick the cutest babies in the parks.

Because, with over 400 different kinds of animals here,

there are just so many to choose from.

But it's hard to imagine anything sweeter than the baby capybaras,

which grow up to be the biggest rodents in the world,

and live in most parts of South America.

The babies change really fast.

Shelley Ansell is one of their keepers.

We had three babies born.

At the moment, they're only the size of your household guinea pig.

It's an average-size litter. They can have up to six.

That's a good litter for mum, as well.

It means the babies haven't got to fight for their food.

There's enough to go around.

This brings our main group up to ten.

In the wild, you could have groups of up to 150,

so ten's quite a small number,

but, for this paddock, it's a nice size.

Capybaras are born ready and raring to go.

They come out, they're spitting image of mum and dad.

Eyes open, running around. Four days old, they're up, playing,

climbing all over mum and the other babies we've got.

They come out ready to run around because they are prey animals,

they've to be ready to run from anything that'll eat them

and keep up with the rest of the family.

In the last four days, the babies have come on really well.

We've seen them running around, chasing each other.

They've been playing with the other youngsters,

suckling from mum, which is always a good sign and nice to see.

It's going really well.

In the next few months, they'd grow slowly.

Six months old, they might be sitting this big.

Once they get to mum and dad's size, they'll be sitting next to me,

pretty much level.

So, yeah, it should be really good to watch then develop.

There'll be lots of new things to watch them do.

Right, let's see how it's going with the attempt to get some new babies

in the rhino paddock.

They've let the bull, Kingo, in with two females - Vuyu and Yagga -

hoping that they'll mate,

although the keepers are worried they'll have a fight instead.

So far, though, Kingo has been quite interested in Yuvu,

but he's been ignoring Yagga

and she's the one that head keeper Paul and his team

are really worried might suddenly cause a fight.

This is going to be the test for Yagga.

Paul, how's Yagga?

'She's just standing there, happily eating at the moment.'

Kingo's six feet from Yagga. She's not backing down or snorting.

She seems quite chilled out.

So Yagga doesn't seem interested in Kingo,

but Vuyu's being very friendly to him.

That could mean she's ready to get pregnant,

and bull rhinos have a genius, if slightly weird, way of checking.

It's called flehmen

and it means smelling and tasting the female's wee.

He tends to lick the urine up and test it.

He'd stand there looking like an idiot - his mouth open, lip up.

He'd be testing to see who they are, whether they're ready for mating,

and just checking them out, really.

That's normal adult behaviour for a bull rhino.

A lot of other animals do it.

It may seem yucky to us, but Kingo's clearly happy with it,

because they start rubbing noses.

They do that for a while - rub faces, then they might start knocking horns

and play-fighting for a while, then Vuyu will hopefully stand for him

and he'll mate her. That's the plan.

I think she's ready for mating and Kingo certainly looks ready.

So...we could have a mating this morning.

If Paul's right, there's a fair chance that, 15 months from now,

there'll be another baby rhino, like Grumeti, toddling round the paddock,

which would be fantastic.

So far, Vuyu's quite sociable with Kingo.

She's stood for him but there's no mating yet.

Give it time, hopefully have a mating by the end of the day.

Just got to remember exactly what you're supposed to be doing.

And I'm pleased to report that, a little while later, they DID mate,

and now she's expecting a calf. Everyone is really pleased

and looking forward to hearing the thunder of tiny hooves again.

It's nearly the end of the show, but not quite.

We've managed to squeeze out an extra couple of minutes

to help head keeper Simon Jeffery with the colobus dinner feed.

Hiya, Simon. I can hear the trees a-fluttering.

Are these colobus monkeys hungry, at all?

I think they might be. They're always hungry.

They're not shy, at all. Look at this.

Are they quite a brave monkey? More importantly, are we safe in here

with so many hungry mouths to feed?

These are a very confident monkey, but we are safe.

They're not aggressive towards us at all, which is why you're in here.

Brilliant. That's good to know.

As we can see, they're all around us. Is there a hierarchy at all?

Can only the head colobus come down first for food?

There is a hierarchy, but all of them will come down to try and eat.

-Ooh!

-Whoa!

-THEY LAUGH

He must be one of the bosses.

Usually, the head male will stand in the background

and wait for the others to come down and feed,

-and keep an eye out for predators.

-That's really nice.

-It's just first come, first served for the others?

-Yeah.

-Perfect.

Will they save the leader some food, because they know he's the leader?

Generally they're in an area where there's enough food.

He can come down and get what he needs

once one of the others finishes and takes his place.

Thank you for letting us pop down.

We've got some serious feeding to do.

Whilst we do that, check out what's on the next episode of Roar.

Here you go.

The wild dogs have some puppies. But where have they hidden them?

Monkey medicine.

Do the capuchins use herbs to make them better,

or do they just like the taste?

And slithering snakes.

We'll meet all the latest arrivals

in the creepy-crawly world of the Discovery Zone.

Don't miss it.

Subtitles by Zoe Short Red Bee Media Ltd

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