Episode 5 Roar

It's yet another exclusive for Roar -

we're bringing you the first ever pictures

of a brand new baby gorilla.

And they don't come any cuter than this.

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

-And I'm Rani.

Let us introduce you to the breathtaking gelada baboons.

Now this species are the most peaceful

and least aggressive of all baboons.

They spend most of their time foraging for food.

And when it comes to food, these guys definitely like their greens,

they're partial to a blade of grass.

That's right, during the wet season, when the grass is greener,

it makes a whopping 93% of their diet!

Euch!

I said THEIR diet.

Thanks, guys.

While Johny tries out his new diet, here's what's coming up...

There's a new tamarin in town, but will the other monkeys welcome her,

or drive her out?

Slightly nervous about the whole ordeal,

we only have one group of tamarins,

so we don't have an awful lot of experience with mixing groups.

Tamarins, although they're small, they can be ferocious.

We all know that lions are fierce,

but we find out how incredibly strong they are too.

-Oh, it's going.

-It is going, isn't it?

-The chord?

-Yeah, she's destroying it.

And the head keeper finds himself tied up in knots

on Ask The Keeper.

Do you know it's name...

in Latin?

Um... Ah!

But first...

it's a big day down at the tamarin house -

a new breeding female has arrived from another collection,

but how will the rest react?

No-one can be sure whether they'll be nice to her,

or very, VERY nasty.

Red bellied tamarins are small primates

who live high up in the canopy of the Western Amazon Rainforest

in South America.

The family here have had babies before,

but head of section, Matt Ford,

tells us that, sadly, the mum died during the winter.

Currently, we have got the adult male left and his son and his daughter.

The dad is seven years old, the boy is now three

and the little girl's is only one. They clearly need an adult female,

a new mum, if there are to be any more babies.

But how will the family feel about the newcomer?

The problem I can foresee is with the females.

We're bringing in an adult female, completely unrelated to our group,

and she'll want to be dominant, basically.

Whilst the daughter is still quite young,

she has been the only female in the group for a while now,

and might want to keep it that way.

But she'll be up against a new female

who is older, bigger and stronger than her.

Slightly nervous about the whole ordeal,

we only have one group of tamarins,

we don't have a lot of experience mixing groups.

Our pair came established when we got them,

this is a very new thing for us.

I am hoping that it goes OK.

Tamarins, although they're small, they can be ferocious

and could do a lot of damage to each other.

I don't want our resident female to be injured,

so we'll have to see how far we can leave it

before we might have to separate them off if it goes bad.

Matt's decided to mix the monkeys in three stages.

First, the daughter is going to meet the new female all on her own,

so the keepers only have two to deal with if the meeting goes badly.

So, will they be friends or fight to the death?

No-one knows.

The new girl's in the outer enclosure,

this is the big moment.

How will they react?

They open the slide and the daughter comes straight through.

They don't go for one another and Matt's delighted.

The behaviours that we've seen are very, sort of, subdued.

The female from our existing group is scent marking, um...

and the new female's going over and scent marking.

That's basically saying that they're both happy with the territory,

and they're not getting aggressive. HIGH-PITCHED SQUEAKING

The high-pitched noise they're making is a friendly vocalization,

nothing aggressive, and they're following each other around

which is good.

So, the first introduction has gone well

and Matt can now move on to stage two -

bringing in the boys.

We'll come back shortly to see if that goes peacefully.

Layla and Jabir, the park's Barbary lions,

are used to getting their own way.

But not today, folks, because keepers Chris and Jess

have come up with a way of making these lairy lions

work for their food.

-Isn't that right, guys?

-It is.

How you doing? So, what is this contraption, then?

This is a pulley feeding device, that's what we've called it.

Um, but basically, inside this tube, here, is a garage-door spring,

a very sturdy thing and...

Well, we've both tried to pull it as hard as we can

and we can't budge it at all.

So these guys might pull this out to get the meat?

Well hopefully not. What we're hoping is that they can pull it

and get a little bit of give on the spring,

but not so much that the spring ends up in a straight line.

-OK.

-OK? The idea is they pull on it and get resistance,

so it feels like the food's fighting back as it would do

if they were taking down prey in the wild.

When lions go in for the kill,

they sink they're claws and powerful jaws into their prey,

then use their enormously strong neck muscles to pull it down.

'The keepers here have never tried to simulate that tussle before

'and I think their contraption may be a bit puny.'

Now, guys, you two have had a go at it,

but I've got to say, I'm pretty strong, so let me have a go.

I'll show you how it's done.

Here we go!

Have you got it that side? Have you got a good grasp on it?

I'm holding it tight.

Let me just do that again.

It's definitely not going anywhere! Wow!

It looks good, but where do you want to hang this up?

We've got a couple of places around the enclosure we can hang it,

but as I'm sure you really want to see what's going on,

we're going to hang it over here.

So, if you wan to help us out, Johny, and grab the rear...

That's a heavy piece of meat, wow!

I mean, would they come across...

I guess they'd hunt big animals out in the wild,

-would they be able to tackle this?

-They're not due to be fed today,

this is actually just a snack for them.

Um... And so, because they do eat such huge pieces of food,

we don't feed them every day, but we want to see if this works

and so they got a little treat today.

So, that's in position.

-Will they know it's here? Will they come up, do you think?

-Definitely.

They know we're here, Layla's always watching us,

she knows where the food is.

Jabir's not so clever, he's always pacing, going,

"Oh! Where is it?" And he comes out and he's like, "Oh."

And by that time, Layla's cleared off with it, so...

-He's not the brightest, is he?

-Do you think they could fight over this?

Possibly. Although, in theory, the male should really take the food,

but Layla... She's actually quite a large female lion,

and so she does hold her own when it comes to the feed.

So, Jess, are you sure that this will...

definitely stay put,

are you sure that the lions won't be able to take it straight off?

Who knows?

This is the first time we've tried, so we don't know,

-but hopefully, it will.

-I can see the lions pacing back and forth

and before they get any ideas about US being their food

-I think we should get out, what do you reckon?

-Good idea.

And while we do, why don't you watch the rest of the show

and join us later on to find out

what these two lions make of our contraption.

Where does a reindeer go if it looses its tail?

I dunno.

The retail shop.

Woof, woof! Woof, woof!

What do you get if you cross a sheep and a kangaroo?

-I don't know.

-A woolly jumper.

SHE CHATTERS LIKE A MONKEY

What happens when two giraffes collide?

I don't know.

A giraffic jam!

We have a particularly brave group of Roar fans here today.

Which is lucky,

because they're about to face a pretty scary creature.

It's Ask The Keeper time now here on Roar, and the keeper in question is,

-head keeper actually, Rich Barnes! Hiya, Rich.

-Hello.

Now this lot, they're very clever, they are,

and they have got some great questions for you.

-But the question from me is - are you feeling confident?

-Always.

What have you got in your hand, first of all?

OK, this is an indigo snake.

His name's Indy, nice and original.

So, who wants to start us off?

Go on then, Georgia.

Does it live in trees?

Good question. Well, because snakes don't have legs,

lots of people would assume that this would be a hindrance,

something that would stop them getting around,

but it doesn't

and snakes pretty much inhabit every single conceivable place -

up in trees, on the ground, in water...

But this particular one stays on the ground for most of its time.

-Um, can I touch it?

-You can touch it, yeah.

-It's really soft.

-Yeah, it feels quite nice, doesn't it?

-It's really warm, as well.

-Warm?

-Why's it warm?

-Well, she's come out of quite a warm enclosure.

Although it's not particularly warm now the sun's gone behind the cloud,

as long as he stays on me, he'll take in warmth from me.

Technically, they are ectothermic,

which means they take their heat from surroundings,

so if they're on a surface that's warm,

they'll take that heat in as well.

How do you know whether it's female or male?

With some of the more primitive snakes,

length of tail is a good indication,

the number of scales on the tail.

But also they have little vestigial legs on the back,

which are the remains of prehistoric limbs.

But on these ones, they don't have any of that,

so the only way we can tell is that...

You can see there's a slight difference

in the way the scales go there? This is what we call the vent

and down there is where the snake's sexual organs

and where it goes to the toilet are.

And basically, what we do is we get a probe, push it down here, and,

depending on how deep it goes,

determines whether it's a male or female.

If it goes quite deep down, then it's a male.

If it goes not so far down, it's a female. OK?

Is it poisonous, and if it is, is it lethal enough to kill a man?

I shouldn't be standing this close, then!

There's a couple of points to that question.

Firstly, there are no poisonous snakes in the world,

they're all venomous, not poisonous.

And the difference between a venom and a poison

is that a venom has to go into your bloodstream,

whereas a poison can be ingested,

taken in through the mouth or the skin or a number of ways.

So, firstly, no, he's non-venomous,

but he does have a couple of tricks up his sleeve.

That is, he's part of the King Snake family,

which means that part of his diet consists of other snakes

and he's able to consume and to have immunisation from the venom

of rattlesnakes and water mocassins and things like that.

So he's able to not only defend against them,

but also eat them, if he feels like it.

-Does he have good eyesight?

-Their eyesight is quite poor.

There are a few snakes that have better eyesight,

but this particular one would rely on its other senses, which are what?

What do you think its senses are?

-Smell.

-Yep, smell. You can see his nostrils there.

He's got no ears.

He's doing something now which is quite obvious.

-Is it his tongue?

-It's his tongue. That's his main sense,

and he'll rely on that most of all

and that will help him find all his food,

find his way about, find other snakes.

Rich, so far you're doing really well.

In fact, you're doing extremely well.

We need to catch you out. Guys, huddle up, shall we?

Let's come up with a killer question for him.

THEY CONFER

Shall I ask that one? All right, brilliant.

-You should look worried, Rich Barnes.

-I am worried, yes.

What have you conjured up?

We've had a think and here is our question for you.

The indigo snake, do you know its name...in Latin?

Uhh...

Ohh... I should know this!

You SHOULD know this, head keeper Rich Barnes!

I can't... It's not in my head at the moment, no. Go on, then.

-Drymarchon Corais.

-Drymarchon, that's it.

Well done, us, we caught Rich Barnes out with a killer question!

So, apart from not knowing the Latin name for the indigo snake...

I just misplaced it in my brain today.

Yeah, we believe you(!)

I've had a very hard intellectual day, I'll have you know, so...

Yes, OK. What do you think, then, for Rich - thumbs up or thumbs down?

Oh, Cain's giving you grief over there!

One thumb sideways! You know what, Rich? I think you did all right.

-Just work on your Latin.

-Yeah, all right.

OK, Make sure you join us next time on Roar for more Ask The Keeper.

Earlier on, the new adult female tamarin,

who's been brought in to help start a new family,

was introduced to the young female here. Fortunately, it didn't fight.

Now it's time for stage two, bringing in the two males,

who might be much fiercer.

They show no sign of leaving the back room though,

so the little girl goes in to get them.

Suddenly, the enclosure's full of monkeys rushing all over the place.

The good news is that none of them are fighting with the new female,

and Matt think's that we may have something to do with that.

Having yourselves here and me and my fellow keeper in the shed

has actually helped because it's distracted them a bit

from the actual situation. We'll just have to hope that when we leave,

it won't go into fights and things like that.

Just in case it does,

we have a camera rigged up to record stage three.

What happens when we've all left?

We'll come back later to find out whether the new female

has been accepted by the other tamarins.

Or not.

Earlier, we set up a feeding contraption

to test out the Barbary lion's strength.

I'm here with keeper Jess and keeper Chris, who's just over there,

and he's ready to release the lions on your word.

I'm ready when you are.

Chris, come on then!

Let them out! Release the beasts!

Out they come. Who's come out first?

This is Layla, the one we thought would be first on the meat.

Right, Layla's the female.

Oh, she's tried to take it away.

Do you think they'll get angry at not being able to grab the meat

and take it where they want?

No, I think it'll just make them work for it,

that's what we want them to do.

Layla would usually grab the meat and run

because she doesn't want Jabir to get it.

Obviously now she can't.

So she's doing what we thought she'd do and eat it there.

That meat is just there waiting

and I'm surprised Jabir hasn't challenged her for it. Why's that?

Generally, when we feed these guys, you put a couple of pieces out.

She is always the first to the food

and he spends ages trying to find the other piece.

He probably thinks there's another piece out here.

Look at this, we've seen her strength now.

She's given it a right old tug. It's holding up so far.

She's not really doing what we were hoping, though.

What were you hoping?

We were hoping she would be...

Doing that!

You can see, actually, it's going.

That is amazing, look at the strength!

We've all had a go at that. Look at this!

She's actually pulling it away!

Don't destroy...

That's amazing!

I cannot believe what I'm seeing.

-It's going.

-It is going, isn't it?

-DO you think it's going to go?

-Yeah, she's destroying it.

Could the string bounce and hurt her?

Other places have had this kind of issue

and all that's happened is that the string has ended up

as a straight piece of metal.

That was an amazing display of strength.

Jabir is very clever. Is he trying bite the top of it to release it?

Actually, he's not very clever!

(THEY LAUGH)

You're right, he is trying to bite the top of it,

but we're not entirely sure why. It's not food.

Probably because he doesn't want to go near Layla and still wants food!

What would happen if he went over and tried to get the meat from her?

We've had situations in the past where he's tried to do that

and he hasn't tried again since.

He's got a few scars on his nose and they're all from her.

We've been testing out their strenth today and they are very powerful,

but why do they need to be so strong?

They are naturally strong.

In the wild, they'd use their muscles to pull down their prey,

pull it to the floor.

Being here, they don't get that.

That's why we try and think of as many ways as possible

to stimulate them like they would be in the wild.

If we hang that higher up, she'll have to pull it

and she'll be using the same muscles she would

to pull down natural prey in the wild.

Look at this, this is hilarious.

Jabir has just laid down

and is he waiting for Layla to finish and then he'll have his food?

They've actually swapped roles.

Normally the male would eat the food and the female would be next door.

Complete role reversal.

That's funny! Do you think Layla will know to save him some?

Definitely not. Layla will eat as much as she can get.

They're both quite big at the moment because they eat as much as they can.

She won't save any for Jabir if she can help it.

Will you use this again, Chris?

Yeah, definitely.

We put it down lower this time

just because it's the first time we've used it.

But we'll put it up higher next time so the entire meat's hanging down,

in which case she will be pulling on it to get it onto the ground.

Next time you should put two in because poor Jabir, look at him!

He's just waiting for his feed.

I tell you what, while she enjoys her food,

I think I'm going to get out of here and leave you two guys

to go in there afterwards and get your device back.

Good luck.

It's always fun to see the young gorillas playing around,

because, well, they're just adorable.

And there are more of them than ever at the moment,

because four have been born here this year alone.

In the last Roar, we met a delightful youngster

who was just two months old.

But today we're going to meet an even younger one,

who's barely two weeks old, for the very first time.

This is the largest gorilla enclosure in the world,

which is just as well, as there's a family of 15 living here.

No, sorry - make that 16 now,

because of Daddy and Mummy's latest pride and joy.

Head of section Phil has invited us to meet the new arrival.

So far, mum and baby are doing really well,

healthy and happy.

Just like a human mum, she was pregnant for nine months

before having the baby in the small hours of the morning.

We didn't see the birth - day she didn't have the baby,

and the following morning she did.

She gave birth during the night, no-one saw it.

The new-born baby only weighed two kilos,

that's about five cans of baked beans.

But just two weeks later,

the tiny gorilla is already beginning to blossom.

We can see that the baby is gripping on well,

and that's mum's coping OK with the added responsibility

of holding baby and moving around.

But is mum cuddling a little son or a daughter?

Mum is keeping that a secret because she's very camera-shy.

We don't know what sex it is yet,

we haven't been able to see the relevant parts of its anatomy,

cos mum's been holding the baby in so tight and close.

She's been very protective.

The baby will need to be quite a lot bigger

before mum will let it go and play

with its boisterous brothers and sisters,

as sometimes they can go too far.

Growing up as a gorilla can be a pretty hard life,

they have to learn pretty quick how to duck and weave.

They get the odd knock and bite.

That's all in the future, but for the moment,

this little baby is just happy, healthy and simply adorable.

Exciting times ahead, and hopefully it will all go well.

We'll be sure to bring you more news on the Gorilla House

as the baby grows up.

Stand by, Roar gamers, because it's time to give you today's cheat code.

grass2 is all you need to type in to your online game

to get treats and food for your animals.

And don't forget to check out our exciting new enclosure,

where you can look after animals from the british countryside.

Back in the tamarind enclosure,

our secret camera has been running for a couple of hours now,

to see how the family would get on with the new adult female.

Keeper Matt was worried that a fight might break out.

Because we were around while the introduction was taking place,

we put a camera in to shoot footage of the group when we had left.

We've now watched the footage and it's very interesting to watch.

The tamarind here is the daughter,

the female in the doorway is the new girl.

Right about now they nearly get into a bit of a scrap.

The existing female chases her about

and then goes back to the rest of the group.

This is a stressful situation for the new one.

It's the young female that's doing all the chasing,

which we expected.

She's protecting the group, basically,

cos the females are quite aggressive.

She's just chasing her around saying,

"I'm the female here, you're not meant to be here."

So, the young daughter is winning the battle for dominance,

But the whole point of introducing the adult female

was to establish a new breeding group.

The adult male has bred well in the past,

but if he's going to have any more children

he needs the new female to come out on top.

For the moment, though, he's keeping out of it.

From the footage, the two males don't seem to want to be involved in it.

They seem to be staying in the back rooms

and the young female keeps coming out

and being quite aggressive.

But the two males are kind of being wooses.

Eventually the dad does come out

and asserts his position as the dominant male.

The existing male actually comes head to head with the new female,

they actually freak out a little bit, scream at each other.

Although he is the dominant male of the group,

he is nervous of the new arrival.

Right, we've just gone on a few more minutes and this bit's interesting.

The new female chases some of the group members away.

So she's obviously getting a bit more confident with the situation.

She's suddenly realising, "Hey, I'm the bigger animal.

"I'm not going to be pushed around by this young female."

So it really shows that she's a strong female.

She'll be a good breeding female, she will be able to control the group.

We're very positive of the outcome now

and hopefully we will breed them again

and the group will become as a family group should be.

We'll come back later in the series

to see if the red-bellied tamarinds do all settle down

into one, big, happy family.

Now we've nearly come to the end of the show

but we've just got time to pop up to the safari area.

If you've been watching in the last few days,

you'll know that a new giraffe called Harris has joined the herd.

So we've come out with Nick to see how Harris is getting on.

He's doing really well. He was a bit nervous to begin with,

nervous of the big space and all the other animals,

-but he's settled in nicely.

-You've got a rhino here as well,

so, not nervous about the rhino at all?

No, he's not. And the rhino's behaving himself, which is all good!

I think the rhino wants some food as well.

-Have the rest of the herd accepted him?

-Yes, almost straight away

-they were trying to get in with each other...

-Oooh!

-Ooops!

Ooh, dear! Is he all right, Nick? Did he hurt his head?

No, he's all right, he's OK. He'll come straight back for some food now.

That's good. It's always expect the unexpected out here with the rhinos.

-Yeah!

-Harris is back, straight into the food.

I'm presuming that he's got those horns to protect himself

when things like that happen!

Well, they are obviously for, sort of...

fighting. When they're big adult males, they whack each other

with those to try and sort of, you know,

defend each other.

Or possibly to fight over food!

No, that's there for sort of defence against adult males

when they're sparring each other.

I can see they're all down for their food here. How is Harris coping

with the rest of the group? Is he able to fight his corner

to get enough food? Cos he is a bit smaller.

He's been doing OK, yeah.

The rhino's back again. Yeah, he's been doing OK.

He gets his fair share.

When we come out here in the tractor, we put an extra bucket of food out

so that it spreads it out, the fight for food, a little bit more.

He's certainly looking healthy, so is it all right if we stick around

-and get to know him a bit better?

-Yeah, no worries, no problem.

And you can check out what's coming up on the next episode of Roar.

Now, you watch your head!

Brown hyenas are lean, mean and very rarely seen, even in the wild.

The only ones in Britain are here in the park.

And the keeper has to go in with them, despite the danger.

And the biggest tigers in the world are hungry for red meat

so we lay a trail for them.

But will they be able to hunt down their dinner?

Don't miss it!

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