Episode 25 Roar

Today on Roar, to give the tiger cubs a challenge

their dinner's been left in a tree.

But now it's stuck, so will they ever be able to get it down.

Hello, and welcome to Roar.

-I'm Rani.

-And I'm Johny, and this is Sandshaw,

one of the golden-bellied mangabeys.

Now, adult male mangabeys

make a sound that biologists call a whoop gobble.

The whoop gets the attention of all the other mangabeys in the area

and the gobble, well that tells everyone where he is and who he is.

That's right. I'm going to demonstrate

-how to do the whoop gobble right now.

-Really?

Yeah. Whoop gobble. Whoop gobble.

See? Clearly said something there.

Johny, that was terrible. Let's just get on with the show.

Coming up today, pinatas for the monkeys and papier mache prey?

I'm going to find out who comes up with these daft ideas.

How about this one? Meat flavoured ice lollies.

-Eww!

-Look at that. Looks lovely doesn't it?

But will the dhole wild dogs reckon it's really cool?

And tapirs always poo in their pool.

So is Diego the new baby

having a swimming lesson or getting toilet trained?

Last year there was great excitement when the Siberian tigers,

Tug and Ingrid, had twin girls. And it was great fun watching them play.

But right now it's feeding time for the twins and guess what?

They've grown.

Today, head of big cats, Rich Barnes, has a surprise in store.

These are the two tiger cubs born last year.

This is Bira, the confident one, and her slightly bigger sister, Cinder,

just over there in the corner.

They're just over a year old,

they've just had their first birthday,

they're not far off the same size of Mum,

give them six months, it'll be difficult to tell

which one's mum, which one's the cubs.

In the wild, tiger cubs stay with Mum until they're about two,

while they learn to stalk and kill their prey.

There's no hunting here at the park,

but the cubs do have to learn how to fight for their dinner.

They've been eating meat for some time,

completely off Mum's milk probably six months ago.

They'll give the adults a run for their money when we put food in.

They'll try and steal it off the parents and they'll certainly

take a bit as their own and run off with it.

They completely change from being cute little tigers

to being savage beasts that people recognise as being tigers.

It's good for the youngsters to work for their food,

and today Rich has planned a new challenge for them.

Tigers can climb trees but, up until now,

Bira and Cinder haven't had much reason to practice,

but a big chunk of meat each should get them going.

This is the first time, don't want to have them not be able

to get it at all, so have not made it too, too difficult.

Hopefully they should have the tools and the know how to run straight up

and grab these bits and sit down and eat it themselves,

so shall we get out?

Time to release the twins.

Cinder is straight out.

She's soon spots lunch...

up she goes.

Easy peasy.

Yeah, as you saw, that didn't take much from her

to get up there. They're pretty athletic, pretty able already.

She didn't just run up, grab hold of it and then try to tear it off,

she understood that she had to disconnect it

from what it was hanging on to.

Now I guess we can just put it higher

and give them more of a challenge.

Cinder has her lunch, but what about Bira?

She's being a little bit slow today.

There's a good girl.

Come on then, go and get it.

You see that bit? It's up there.

I think she's seen it.

Here we go.

Up she goes.

You see those massive claws digging in?

Perfect climbing those trees.

The cubs weigh almost 100 kilos,

so just imagine the strength of those claws.

But now Bira's got a problem

She's coming down.

Cinder tries to show her how it's done,

but it's not so easy.

Dinner is well and truly stuck.

Time for a rethink,

and then another try,

and then another. And another, and another, and another.

They've both now been taking it in turns to get this last bit off

and they've both gone up several times,

sometimes both together like this,

and clearly there's not actually enough room for them to get up.

It's quite amusing to watch them have a go at it.

Eventually the twins give up

and sit down to share their first piece of meat,

but there's trouble brewing because Mum and Dad are about to come out,

they're very hungry and they are not good at sharing.

In my spare time I love getting involved with art and craft.

The man I'm about to meet shares a very similar passion,

except what he does has a very positive outcome

for animals at the park.

It's Mark Jones from the education department. Mark, how are you doing?

-Nice to meet you.

-What have we got going on here?

Today we're making some pinatas for the primates,

so basically we've got a balloon, flour and water,

paper over the top until it dries nice and hard.

Fill it with food, seal it over and give it to some of the monkeys.

The monkeys will try and pop this balloon,

get inside and get the food that they want?

Exactly, yes. Just making a bit more interesting,

-a bit different for them.

-Why make it so hard?

We talk about enrichment on this show, but what does it mean exactly?

Well, in the wild life's not that easy for the animals

so if they are in captivity then we want to make things

a little bit more difficult for them, not too easy.

-Can I help make these animals happy?

-These ones are empty,

-if you want to pop some food in that.

-Brilliant. Some of these nuts.

What sort of things have you made in the past?

We can make all sorts, really, it just depends on your imagination.

So some of the things we've done, as I say, are things like the pinatas,

we've got little hessian bundles here

that we do for the gorillas and the mecaques.

Where it's just some hessian sacking, straw,

food inside and then seal it up.

And you do 50 of these, chuck them all in, scatter them round the place

and the gorillas have to go round and find them.

What's the most impressive thing that you've every made?

I've noticed this which is really impressive

and then this thing. What's this?

It's a work in progress but is going to be our papier mache bison.

We've done this before, this is our second attempt.

We've put it in with our Canadian timber wolves.

So we've put it in with the six boys and they actually spent five hours

going around it and checking it out

and sort of stalking it before they actually went in for the kill.

It was really nice, it took about two days to make,

the fact that it took them five hours to use it

and stimulating all that nice natural behaviour,

that's definitely one of our main success stories so far.

Is anything you've made

become a permanent fixture in any of the enclosures?

Yeah, we've got a few puzzle feeders.

They're down at the gorilla enclosure

if you want to go and have a look at them.

The gorilla keepers keep them in place

and every now and again they top them up

and it gets the gorillas using tools to get the food out.

-What do they look like?

-A bit like one of those games you played with

as a kid. The gorillas use a stick to knock the food along, out the hole,

down to the next level and all the way down to the bottom.

There's a hole in the bottom they can reach in and pick food out.

There's little traps in it, so they can't just knock it along,

they have to work it around the trap and then down.

-It seems they really enjoy it.

-Yeah. It gets them testing

their intelligence and their tool use skills.

It's something that's really testing them.

I can't wait to see this put into use, so when it's finished

can we come and check it out when it's done?

-You certainly can. You can come and help me finish it.

-I will do.

We'll see the papier mache bison in action on another episode

of Roar, when it's the lion's turn to show their hunting skills.

How long will they take to go in for the kill?

Today's Roar Ranger is 12-year-old Katey from Edinburgh.

At home Katey's got a pet rabbit called Toffee,

but most of the animals here are bigger and dirtier than that,

so is she up to the challenge?

No matter what, if it's poo or anything, I'll just go for it.

So let's see what she gets.

Katey, today you are a tapir keeper.

Watch out for the little one.

A little one.

I wonder if that's a baby.

There are different kinds of tapiers

and Katey's going to be helping with the Brazilian tapiers.

They come from South America where they live deep in the dense jungle.

Here at the park there's a breeding pair, Tommy and Wilma, and yes,

they have a new baby named Diego and he's just seven weeks old.

But before Katey can meet him, keeper Helen has a mission for her.

-Hi, I'm Katey.

-Hi, I'm Helen. Pleased to meet you.

Today we're going to be working with Brazilian tapiers

and I'm afraid we've got quite a big job to begin with

so I hope you're ready for it. We're going to clean out their bed.

-Nice.

-Ready? Come on then, let's do it.

So basically, all this bed has to come out

and go on the back of that tractor.

It's quite smelly.

I've just got to pick it all up and try not to drop it.

Dropped some already.

Tapirs love their bed and spend over half their time snoozing.

Trouble is they also wee in it

and, as they drink around ten litres of water a day,

that means there's a lot of soggy straw to clean out.

Straw is surprisingly heavy, weighed down by all the wee.

And while the tapiers wee in bed, they poo somewhere else.

In their pond.

Which is pretty disgusting

because the pond isn't just their toilet, it's their swimming pool.

Meanwhile, back inside,

our Roar Ranger has finally got their bed made.

Do you think the tapiers will be happy with this?

Yeah, I reckon they'll be well chuffed with this, yeah.

Yeah, it's really good.

Lovely and clean and nice and fluffy for them.

Right, that's all the hard work over,

-are you ready to hide some fruit up?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? Cool.

Tapirs are herbivores, so they eat leaves, fruit and vegetables

and these three scoff about 40 kilos of it every day.

So where's the best places to put the food?

Well, we've got three tapiers.

One very small one who's only seven weeks,

and then we've got Wilma who is 15 and then Tommy who's nearly five.

They're all different sizes, so if we put them at different places

they can each get some. The little one can get some off the floor

and they'll hopefully share it.

Bread, banana.

What's their favourite food?

These tapiers particularly love bananas and apples and bread,

so everything you've just thrown out is pretty much a favourite

so we should be in luck.

I've got a bit of apple here

so I might hide it in here to make them work for their food.

That's it, all finished.

So Katey's cleaned their house and served up lunch,

but will the tapiers come anywhere her?

Find out later on.

Now, we might all complain about it from time to time,

but the British weather does sometimes get quite hot

and when it does, it's the job of the keepers to keep the animals cool.

And you don't get cooler than Mr Ben Warren. Hiya, Ben.

-Hi, Rani.

-Ben, I've got to say, that ice bucket was very, very heavy.

Now, I've dragged it all the way to the dhole enclosure,

it hasn't defrosted, what's the plan, Stan?

-Well, we're going to put it in an area round here somewhere.

-Right.

Tip the ice out, then see what the dhole do with it.

Now, I've not seen any dhole just here but I can see them in the trees.

We've been in here a few times but we have some pups now. Is it dangerous?

Is mum protective over the pups, are we OK?

No we're absolutely fine.

Mum knows what goes on.

They just stay out of the way normally. Yeah, we're safe.

We're good. OK, lovely. Now, we've got these ice buckets.

What is this on the top? You've just completely ruined them.

They could be quite nice,

you could put that in a glass of cola or something.

We've put meat on the top,

which will be the bottom once we tip it out.

-OK.

-We'll rub meat over again just to get them interested.

Do you want me to drag this further?

I want you to go around the enclosure twice...

Ignore him. Ignore him.

-Right, let's go.

-Let's go.

Look at him lifting it with ease.

Ben, wait for me. Wait for me.

Right, hang on, I'm going to catch up .

We're giving these ice buckets

because it's a scorcher of a day today.

-Very warm.

-We're both quite shiny out here in the sunshine.

Do the dholes get hot, where are they from?

They're from Asia, all across Asia,

so they can cope with cold climates and extremely hot climates.

So is this going to bother them?

Our dhole here are used to the climates in England and today is

a particularly hot day, so I'm sure they'd feel it a little bit, yeah.

Let's get this one out.

It's funny you say that, I'm Indian and my family's from India,

but I was born in this country

so my body isn't adjusted to the climate in India.

-Eww!

-Look at that. Looks lovely, doesn't it?

I'm going to rub some meat over it to get scent on it.

You're not getting on MasterChef, you know?

-I think I'm doing a good job. Would you eat that?

-No, I'm vegetarian.

OK, now I know if you get an ice cube

and put it to your tongue your tongue can stick to it.

Is there a chance the dholes are going to come to this

and are they going to get their tongues stuck to the ice?

No. This has been outside now for a little while

so it's starting to defrost a little bit.

When they lick it, you can touch this now, it's very smooth

and it will just be like water.

Have you ever given them ice buckets before?

No. This is the first time we've ever done this

so this is a bit of a test for us.

Right then, Ben, our ice buckets are in place, the sun is shining,

the dholes are poised and ready.

-They are actually watching us, aren't they?

-Yeah they are, in the distance.

Do you think, when we get out of here,

they'll come over and suck these ice cubes?

Well, it's the first time, I honestly don't know.

We'll see what happens.

Ben doesn't know what's going to happen, neither do I,

so why don't you join us later in the show

and find out if the dholes love their ice lollies.

What's a cow's favourite TV show?

Doctor Moo.

Raaar! Raaar!

Why did the chicken go in a hot bath?

To lay hard boiled eggs.

Buck, buck, buck!

Why was the elephant banned from the swimming pool?

Because he couldn't keep his trunks up.

Back up at the tiger enclosure,

twin sisters Cinder and Bira are sharing the one piece of meat

they managed to get down from the tree.

The other piece is still up there and, try as they might,

they just haven't been able to get it down.

But now the parents, Tug and Ingrid,

are being released and they're very hungry.

Pretty sure Ingrid will finish off what the cubs haven't got.

Hopefully the cubs will see her, watch her do whatever she does,

and maybe that will encourage them to do it the same next time.

Ingrid, go and show them how it's done, will you?

And they're off.

Mum spots the meat and up she goes.

But she can't get it down either.

And while everyone else is looking up, Dad pinches the kids' bit.

He's got the right idea, just wait until everyone is preoccupied

then go and steal it off your daughters and get the easy meal.

You might say that Tug's the clever one.

Well, you missed out there, girls.

In the wild, tigers survive by using their wits and their strength,

but in this family it looks like Dad Tug's got the cunning

while mum Ingrid's got the power.

There you go, brute force in the end.

Ingrid had obviously sussed it.

She'd realised a bit about how to get it off, then she waited until

the bottom was clear of the cubs and then she ran up there

and just grabs hold of it and used a lot of force,

knowing she'd probably win in the end, then legged it off,

and the cubs chased after her.

So now Mum and Dad have all the meat and they're not so good at sharing.

But, of course, Rich would never let the cubs go hungry for long.

We'll just chuck a couple of bits in so they've got some food today.

But good exercise and we'll do it again

and I think it's quite encouraging

to see that they were really up for it, really wanted to play.

Every day the youngsters are growing and learning something new

so it shouldn't be long before Cinder and Bira

are as strong as Mum and as sneaky as Dad.

OK, I'm still with keeper Ben Warren

and we're outside the dhole enclosure.

Now, if you take a look in there, those two white mounds,

they are actually ice buckets. We placed them in there earlier on.

So, Ben, it's not so much cool for cats today, it's cool for dogs.

It's not even that really, is it?

It could be. We've placed them in there

but so far they haven't come over yet, have they?

We've just left them.

Now, the trick is we've smeared those lovely ice buckets

with some meat and blood so hopefully they'll come over with the scent.

So, you know, obviously we've been in there, do they get quite nervous?

Yeah. Anything different. They're very timid little animals,

so we're right beside their enclosure still

and they'll probably just wait for us to walk away.

Do you feel let down that you put all this effort in for those ice cubes

and the dholes have ignored it?

No, no, not at all. We have to do everything once.

They're very timid, we've just dumped something

in the middle of their enclosure.

They'll take their time to come up and work it out,

this is a huge process.

We can do this five times and build them up.

Then eventually they'll know what we're doing,

this will be a perfect situation, they'll come running over.

So just through repetition, by putting it in there,

they'll feel safer and eventually

they can cool down on a hot summers day.

-Yeah.

-I like the way you're thinking. Ben, thank you so much.

Are you going to leave those ice cubes in there?

-Yes. That's theirs now, unless you want it.

-No I don't want it!

But if our cameraman wouldn't mind, maybe he could stick around

and if they do come over we could get some shots. Would that be all right?

Yeah, no worries at all.

Ben, you're a star. Is that all right with you, cameraman?

Sure enough, later on the dholes come over to take a look.

And now they're used to the idea, maybe next time it's really hot

they'll be queuing up with everyone else to get their ice lollies.

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

is the only one where you get your very own animal park to look after.

And before you go check it out, make a note of this,

rock56, that's today's cheat code.

You'll see what to do with it when you get there.

Have fun and happy gaming.

Back with the Brazilian tapiers,

our Roar Ranger Katey has been having a busy day.

She's cleaned their house and spread their lunch all over

their enclosure and now Tommy, Wilma and little Diego are coming out.

This will be the first time that Katey's got to meet them.

It's exciting watching it and he's gobbling up all the food I put out,

especially all the bread.

Here you go, this is Tommy.

Katey is allowed to get this close

only because she's with keeper, Helen.

He's actually really soft. The fur is quite smooth as well.

Here, if you rub them really hard you end up with black fingers.

-It's a natural oil they produce to protect their skin.

-Uh huh?

So if you rub them really hard it all just comes off in your hand.

Which means you have to wash them really hard too.

Here's the little fella.

At just seven weeks old, Diego needs a lot of care and attention.

He was a little poorly when he was younger

and is still getting some medicine.

I'm just going to give this little fella some probiotic.

-Why do you need to give him that?

-When he was about a week old

we noticed that he had some really runny poo,

so it's just something to settle his stomach and make sure that

he's getting the right things and make his poo a bit firmer,

and we think it's worked but we've still got,

we're going to keep him on it a little while just to make sure.

And at last the youngster is close enough for Katey to reach.

There you go, that's probably the closest you'll ever get

to a seven-week-old tapir.

-He's so soft.

-I know.

Compared to the adults they're really, really soft.

When will he start to look more like the parents?

Probably about eight or nine months he'll lose his stripes.

He'll slowly start losing them about eight or nine months old,

and by the time he's about a year he'll be pretty much fully brown.

-It's a shame really.

-Yeah.

-A shame they have to grow up.

-So cute, isn't it?

-It is.

It's amazing to be this close to them.

It's just so lovely being next to him like this. He's just so cute,

and so soft to touch.

Time to leave the tapiers in peace.

So how did Katey do?

Katey's been really good, really helpful.

We've mucked out the tapiers which she was really fast at

and actually did really well, and she's also had the privilege

to touch the baby tapir which most people don't get.

So hopefully she's really enjoyed it

and had a good day being a Roar ranger.

It was amazing as well getting so close to the little baby tapir

who is really cute, and getting to stroke them was brilliant,

so I really enjoyed my day working with the tapiers

and I wish I could do it again.

Now, how could we say goodbye to you guys today

without popping up to the Javan Langur enclosure.

And luckily for us, we've managed to catch keeper Liam

before he releases them for their dinner.

-How are you doing, Liam?

-Hi.

-Hiya.

OK, we've got an empty enclosure but I can see the food is out ready,

-you're going to be releasing them.

-Yeah.

-Now, we know Mangrove,

he's the dominant male in here, is he going to be the one coming out first?

He probably won't, he is the dominant male

he is also the oldest one so he's a bit slower.

It'll probably be one of the younger females out first.

-Will they save him some food as he is the dominant male?

-Yeah.

As soon as he gets on those benches he'll push the others off

-and he normally gets a bench to himself.

-Really?

Wow, a whole bench to himself.

He's probably big. Shall we release them, we'd like to see them out here.

-Yeah, sure.

-Do they tend to come out quite quickly?

Yeah, you can see, here they come already.

Yeah, that's one of the females straight out already

and one of the younger males just behind her, that's little Nipper.

What sort of food have we got?

These guys are leaf eaters, the majority of it is all green based.

There's some lettuce out there, lots of beans, also some aubergine.

There's a little bit of fruit, it's star fruit today.

-They can only have a certain amount of fruit.

-Why?

Their digestive system isn't built for eating fruit, it messes them up

and causes them to have nasty tummies, upset stomachs.

So they eat lots of leaves, that's pretty much what we give to them.

Little treats are things like fruit and stuff.

Oh, OK, it's a treat, they do like the fruit.

Yeah, they love it but it's got to be unripe

or stuff that'll react well with their stomachs.

-Do they often fight over the food?

-They definitely do, yeah.

-They're obviously quite calm at the moment...

-Yeah, they are.

There is a hierarchy within the group, if one of them gets food

before another there can be fighting,

a little bit of trouble can erupt.

They were just squeaking, what were they saying?

That was them just communicating with each other.

It's obviously a little youngster there

and one of our sub-adult females as well

and they're just sort of communicating

to each other during feed time. It's an exciting time for them.

You know what they're saying?

"This food's good, Johny, and I've loved today's show."

"Now get out of here, we want to eat in peace."

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

I've got to stop this accent. Terrible.

Next time on Roar we're starting something special,

a series of amazing reports, Back To The Wild.

Last year three baby gorillas who were hand-raised in the parks

were returned to a remote region of Africa.

Now one of the keepers who raised them is on an epic journey

deep into the jungle to discover how they've survived

and to find out if they remember her.

So, whatever you do, don't miss it.

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