Episode 8 Roar

On Roar today - there's a baby rhino like this on the way,

but the dad is being aggressive to the mum.

If they were sparring and it got out of control,

it could do a lot of damage.

Will the keepers be able to separate them?

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

-And I'm Rani.

Johny, I have a challenge for you.

In under 20 seconds, give me three facts about these Grant's zebras.

-OK, Johny, your time starts now.

-OK.

They come from East Africa,

out in the wild they're known to migrate in herds of up to 10,000,

-and out of all species of zebra...

-10 seconds!

-..they're smallest. Yes!

I've done it. What do I win?

Um...oh! You win this magical wand.

Rani, that's a stick.

Rubbish. Let's get on with the rest of the show.

Coming up - a beautiful baby tapir has a nasty infection,

and the keepers are worried that he might die of it,

just like his brother did.

Our Roar ranger hits the heights of the gorilla house,

but there are bigger dangers than falling off.

Keep walking along. That noise she's making means she's getting annoyed,

so we should stay out of her way.

And what on earth is going on in the Diana monkey enclosure?

Are they having a disco down there?

But first, we're off to the hoof stock section

to catch up with one of the park's cutest babies -

a Brazilian tapir.

Not long ago, our cameras captured these amazing shots

just after Wilma gave birth to him,

and we saw the little boy taking his first steps.

That was a month ago

and the little baby boy has got a lot bigger.

But he has also got diarrhoea.

That can just mean a runny tummy

but it can also be a killer disease,

and head of section Joel Bunce has good reason to be worried.

Wilma had a calf - her last calf was 11 years ago -

and unfortunately, it didn't form properly inside.

It appeared healthy when it was born

and for the first few weeks, it was great while it was suckling

but when it started to adapt to solid food, it couldn't digest it

and the food was staying in the stomach and, basically, going off,

so the calf was getting diarrhoea

and it lost a lot of weight and condition,

and unfortunately passed away.

So Joel's taking no chances with this calf

and, luckily, the medicine he's got from the vet

appears to be working.

At the moment, we're giving him a syringe of probiotic powder

mixed with water, and we syringe that straight into his mouth.

There we go.

That basically helps his gut bacteria adjust to all the things

that they'll pick up naturally in the wild and in captivity,

and also while his stomach's trying to adjust from milk to solids.

Although he's very dependent, still, on Mum's milk,

he is starting to eat a few solid bits now,

so we have to balance that and make sure that he gets enough of each.

His diarrhoea has slowed down.

Although it's still watery, he's not producing as much, which is good.

So, hopefully, we're winning on that front.

Once it slows down and the probiotic starts working,

it should start to form up and he should be a lot better.

But because the earlier calf died,

Joel's had the diarrhoea checked by an expert anyway.

We've taken a sample that the vets will check under a microscope

to see that there's nothing horrible that may cause a bigger problem.

We can only hope there isn't.

Joel will be keeping a close eye on him

and will let us know when he gets the results from the tests.

It's disco time down here at the Diana monkey enclosure.

Joining me is the man with all the moves - keeper Jamie Robertson.

How you doing, Jamie? You've got your disco ball -

give me your best move, then. Come on. Oh! I'm loving it.

So why have we got this here in the middle of the park?

The idea is that it's a visual enrichment.

A lot of the enrichment we use is food based,

so they get a reward of food for doing something,

whereas this is visual, so they can almost make out their reflection,

there's points of light that, as the wind moves, the ball moves,

so they can follow them. It's also in the cage. So lots of things to do.

How come we've put it out here and not in the enclosure?

Although this is fairly durable,

I'm not sure it'd stand up to them trashing it.

They could pick off the mirrors, which isn't a good thing.

Do you think it'd freak them out, seeing their own reflection?

It depends. Most monkeys, if they see a large mirror,

they seem to think that it is another monkey and do get stressed,

but if it's lots of small mirrors, they can't make out their reflection,

so they don't get stressed by it.

-Right, James, shall we give it a bit of a spin?

-Go for it.

-OK.

Disco on!

-Right... Oh, who is this, here?

-That's Icarus.

Do you think it's a bit scary for them to see the light?

It's something unknown, so they have to make sure they like it.

Ha-ha! They're going for it now.

See the little dance move there? Back flip.

I like it. They seem fascinated by it.

What do you think's going through their heads?

Don't know. It's completely unknown so it's completely

"What is that?"

They may see their reflection in their water bowl

-but that's as close as they've got to this.

-Have they got good eyesight?

Exceptional. They constantly need to look out for predators,

search for food,

so eyesight is one of their most important senses.

Would you say they're naturally curious or because of the predators,

they're a bit standoffish when they see things like this -

they're not sure about it?

they are very curious - that's why I thought I'd try this with them -

they're constantly investigating. You put new toys or rotten logs in,

they're looking through the logs, checking out the toys.

They've very curious to see if there's food there

or just play with it.

It seems to have gone down well with them. No dance moves yet, though.

-Shall we make up for that?

-Go for it - I'll follow your lead.

Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!

Rahh!

Today's Roar ranger is nine-year-old Lucy from Essex.

Oo-oo-oo!

This budding gymnast

is used to looking after her pet hamster, Gingernut.

But is she up for the hard work of being a Roar ranger?

I'm up for it, all right. I don't care if I have to clean out poo.

But being a Roar ranger doesn't always mean cleaning up poo.

Well, now I think about it, it usually does!

Let's find out which animal Lucy'll be looking after.

Oh, yay! Yay! Yay! I really love the gorillas.

They're one of the best animals in the world!

Lucy will be helping to look after the park's Western Lowland gorillas.

Originally from West Africa, they live in family groups - troops.

Sadly, they are critically endangered in the wild

but the park has the largest number

of captive gorillas in Europe - over 50.

So deputy head keeper Brian could do with a hand.

Hi, Lucy, I'm Brian.

Have you figured out what you're doing today?

I think I've got an idea.

You're going to pick up all their poo with your hands.

Not really. You're going to give them some food off the roof.

That sounds really fun.

The gorillas are vegetarians

and munch their way through 30 different types of fruit

and 20 kinds of vegetables every week.

We're going to feed the gorillas some grapes. And maybe a bit of lettuce.

But the grapes have to be prepared for these gourmet gorillas.

OK, Lucy, what we need to do with these,

just break them up into smaller bundles

so some greedy gorilla doesn't eat them all in one go.

While we're doing that, if you see any bad ones, throw them in the bin.

-I can't break that one. That's really hard.

-You're sacked.

Brian's only joking.

Ooh, that's definitely a bad one.

Eurgh!

Grape juice!

The snacks will be served on the roof,

but it's quite safe. The keepers come up all the time.

And, of course, Brian will make sure she stays away from the mesh

because the gorillas can reach through.

So she's in no danger.

I can see the gorillas coming out.

Stick to the middle and keep walking till we get to the top.

That's it.

We need to get the food out over a big area quite quickly

so that they don't fight about it.

-Right, do you want to give them their grapes?

-Yeah.

The roof-feed gives the gorillas some great exercise.

To get to the lettuce leaves, they have to climb high.

But with arms longer than their legs,

and many times stronger than a human,

swinging up to get them is no problem.

And to get the grapes that fall to the ground,

they have to forage through the deep straw -

just as they would in the wild.

-Who's that one?

-She's called Shumba.

Gorillas can make 25 different grunts, growls, whines and chuckles.

But the coughing sound is the one to watch out for.

Just keep walking - that noise she's making

means she's getting a bit annoyed, so we should stay out of her way.

-They're all fighting now.

-There is a hierarchy in the group,

so the more dominant animals think they should eat all the food.

Fortunately, most of the time it's just noise.

-Who's this?

-He's called Popper.

Aw. He's hungry.

He's always hungry. LUCY CHUCKLES

With all the gorillas happily chomping away,

our Roar ranger's work is done.

So what does Brian think of his helper?

She's done well. She's still got all her fingers and toes,

so everyone's happy. She's welcome back any time.

And did Lucy enjoy her day as a gorilla keeper?

It was so good, cos I love monkeys

and I love gorillas. They're just so cute.

It's been one of the best days ever.

# Bonkers. #

What did the frog say when it read the paper?

I don't know.

"Read it".

-BOTH:

-Miaow! Miaow!

-What does a burglar dog carry around with it?

-I don't know.

A wag bag.

Woof, woof, woof.

Quack, quack.

Woof, woof, woof.

Quack, quack, quack.

How do you get a pig to the hospital?

By ham-bulance.

Now, there's some amazing news from the kudu paddock.

Quite by chance, we spotted this baby just minutes after he was born.

And you can see, he's already up on his feet

and taking his first steps.

Even if he is a bit wobbly.

Greater Kudu are the second-biggest kind of African antelope.

You can find them all the way from Ethiopia

right down to South Africa.

Just three weeks after the new baby was born here,

head of section Joel Bunce, who we saw earlier with the tapir baby,

has invited me to come and see him,

as well as help hang up some browse for the adults.

Stick it up there to keep it as high as we can.

Yeah, got that.

-So you got a little boy.

-Yep.

Is he out and about these days?

He is out and about. Mum puts him in this little roundel here.

-It's nice and overgrown.

-Over here?

Oh, in there, right.

Obviously he's camouflaged.

She likes to put him where there's undergrowth and places to hide.

So he sits in there all day. We have to be very quiet.

He's up and about in the roundel,

so he's probably just waiting for Mum to come out.

Hopefully, when she does, he'll join her,

maybe have a suckle or maybe nibble on some browse.

It's quite hard to see him. He really is well camouflaged.

Yeah, his colour really blends in.

He's a sort of dull, browny-grey colour,

and that's perfect to fit in with the vegetation in there.

So the browse is in position.

Obviously, he'll want his breakfast,

-so shall we get out of here, so Mum can come over?

-Yep.

Hopefully, we'll get a closer look as well.

OK, the kudu are out and enjoying their browse

and we've gone to the area where the little baby was,

and as soon as we approached, he's bounced out

and gone off to Mum.

Is that him just over there?

Yeah, he's just going over to the herd now.

I'm actually really surprised at how big he is.

You said he was three weeks old.

Yeah, he was a particularly big calf.

We haven't had one that big for a while.

So... That's not bad for three weeks, is it?

We were really surprised before

when you led us over there and said, "The baby's in there."

Is this what they'd do in the wild,

just leave them somewhere, hiding? And how long for?

That's right, they'd leave them somewhere with plenty of undergrowth,

where their camouflage blends in,

and they hopefully wouldn't be found by predators.

It's the only way. If they were up with the herd

and had to run from something, hyenas or lions,

the calf wouldn't keep up and would be easy prey.

Well, it's great to see the little fella,

and I think at his size, it's probably not long

before he gets massive horns like his dad.

His dad is probably about seven or eight years old now,

so he's got a bit of growing to do,

but, yeah, hopefully he'll take after his dad and be that big.

I've got nothing else to do today,

so I'm just going to sit around here and watch his horns grow.

Down at the black rhino paddock,

there could be another little one on the way.

They've never had a baby rhino born here before,

but now keeper Helen Rhodes says that Rufiji is pregnant.

Rufiji will be a first-time mum. It's a learning curve for us,

and it should be great to have rhino babies for the first time.

Helen won't have far to go for advice, though.

Their sister park down the road has been very successful

at breeding black rhinos,

with a whopping 29 births over the years.

They've even returned some of them to Africa,

which is fantastic, because there are only 3,600 left in the wild,

so every baby born in captivity is very precious.

To make the news even more exciting,

Helen suspects their other female, Salome, may be pregnant too.

But there's only one way to find out for sure - collect her poo.

This isn't particularly nice,

but it is essential to find out if a rhino's pregnant.

The poo samples Helen is collecting will be sent away to a laboratory,

where the scientists will be able to tell from them if she is pregnant.

Ah, I love this job(!)

Helen had to do the same thing for Rufiji last year,

but she's now nearly halfway through her 15-month pregnancy.

It's been going well, but something very worrying has happened.

Vungu, the male, has started to threaten Rujiji.

We've found that at feed times, he's been quite aggressive

and she's been backing away from him,

so we think she's trying to separate herself.

In the wild, Vungu would have gone off to live on his own after mating.

They have a big paddock here,

but if he does decide to pick a fight with Rufiji,

he's equipped with an awesome horn.

If they were sparring and it got out of control,

it could do a lot of damage. That's the last thing we want.

It could be a disaster.

Rufiji might lose her baby, or even be killed.

So Helen needs to quickly get the pregnant cow away from Vungu

and safely into a separate paddock.

Rufiji, come in.

Good girl, come on then.

But Rufiji doesn't want to move, even if it is for her own good.

Helen's got a big problem -

a one-ton problem, in fact.

They can be extremely stubborn,

especially if we try to get them out of a paddock they're happy in.

Fij! Come on, then.

We'll come back to see if Helen can get Rufiji safely away

before a fight breaks out.

Pay attention out there, all you online gamers.

This is the moment you've been waiting for.

Today's very valuable cheat code is:

It really is valuable,

because it will unlock food and treats

for the animals in your online wildlife park.

Ah, the great outdoors.

The smell of fresh, clean air

and doing things like roasting marshmallows on an open fire.

We're not really in the great outdoors.

We're at the elly paddock

and that fire there is made out of elephant poo.

Which is not quite as gross as it might sound. Isn't that right, Sam?

That's right.

Tell us why we're cooking these marshmallows on some elephant poo.

We really wanted to see how well it burns.

Out in Africa, the local people use it to make their fires.

It's a better way, rather than to go and cut down trees and stuff.

So we just wanted to see how quickly it burned.

Wow, so it burns really well. Why does elephant poo burn?

If you think about it, elephants eat a lot of wood products, hay,

and most of what they eat comes out in their poo.

They have a fairly inefficient digestive system,

so when their poo's dried out, it will burn quite happily.

That's amazing. So as well as anything else,

elephant poo is quite good for the environment?

Definitely. It's got all the nutrients in it,

all the nutrients go back into the ground, so other things grow.

They transfer seeds everywhere.

So how many elephants are in the paddock?

We've got a herd of 14.

So when we pick up, we get roughly two dumper-fulls a day.

-That is a lot of poo.

-Yep.

Have you got a whole separate "poo team"?

Unfortunately not, no. We have to pick it up,

feed them, move them around. It's all us.

So if we opened up this dung pile here,

what would we find in it?

You would find bits of hay, orange, apple, beetroot,

anything that hasn't been digested. They could be whole pieces of fruit.

They pretty much poo out 40% of what they eat.

So what happens to the 60%?

-That goes as nutrients that keep the elephant going?

-That's right.

Whole industries, in the olden days, were built on things like coal.

If elephant poo is the new coal, I guess this is very valuable stuff?

Oh, definitely.

Probably each elephant will produce 40 to 50 kilos a day.

40 to 50 kilos per day... How much do you weigh?

I weigh about 57 kilos.

Wow, so almost as much as you in poo per day.

-Thank you.

-Sorry, not very flattering, is it?

Sam, thanks, I've learned something.

Who would have thought elephant poo could be so useful?

Come on, guys, another log on the fire.

Back down at the black rhino paddock,

Helen's come up with a plan to separate the pregnant female Rufiji

from Vungu, the male who's been threatening her and her unborn baby.

It's breakfast time, so I'm hoping that if I put the food out,

they'll come down and Rufiji will come first.

Fingers crossed, we'll see what happens.

Fij, you coming?

This is Vungu. Might cause a bit of a problem if he comes through first.

Fij, come on, then.

But Rufiji doesn't come on.

And as Helen feared,

it's the troublesome bull Vungu who comes through first.

And there's no way she can keep him in the smaller enclosure.

The problem now is because Vungu's in the paddock,

Fij won't actually come through the gates,

cos there's a big chance that he could actually go for her.

SNORTS

He's showing signs of aggression already.

That shows Helen a way to get him away from the gate

so the girls can come in.

Do you guys just want to walk down with me?

Come on, Vungu.

Fij, come on!

It works.

He's moved far enough for the girls to feel safe

about coming into the paddock as well.

So now Helen has got Rufiji in here,

all she has to do is get Vungu and the other female, Salome, out again.

He's definitely not in the mood to come when he's called,

but she knows one thing that he won't be able to resist.

A pile of bananas.

Vungu, come on!

Good lad.

Rhinos have very poor eyesight, but a fantastic sense of smell.

So they definitely know what's out there.

Salome, come on.

Hopefully, this time Rufiji will be last

and Helen can shut her in.

That's Vungu through.

This is Salome coming up behind him now.

Helen's plan's working.

Good girl, Salome.

At long last, all the rhinos are where Helen wants them.

Until the poo samples come back to confirm whether Salome is pregnant,

she'll stay with Vungu the bull,

because there's no chance SHE'LL get bullied.

Salome takes absolutely no rubbish off Vungu.

If that was Fij, he'd have chased her, roared at her,

but Salome doesn't care, she's really cool.

Mum-to-be Rufiji may have missed out on the bananas for now,

but at least she's safely in her own paddock.

Hopefully, she'll be happy. We'll observe her,

make sure she's not stressed.

In the wild, black rhinos live alone,

so it's perfectly natural for her to be by herself.

But with Helen on hand,

she'll be getting lots of attention throughout her pregnancy.

If you get her on her own, and she's not got the others bothering her,

she loves a good scratch. She's very friendly, really.

We'll catch up with the pregnant Rufiji's progress

later in the series,

and with luck, there'll soon be another cute little baby,

just like this one, playing in the park.

Before we leave, we thought we'd pop to the Discovery Zone

and meet keeper Chris

and one of the most endangered reptiles on the planet.

Hiya, Chris, you all right?

He's amazing, looks like something out of Jurassic Park.

What have we got here?

This is Brig. That's not the type of animal, that's his name.

He is a rhino iguana.

You've got to tell us, why's he called a rhino iguana?

It's quite obvious. I bet if you look at him, you can work it out.

Cos he's big and grey?

THEY LAUGH

-It's the horns, innit, right?

-All to do with this.

Where is from in the wild? I don't know anything about these guys.

He's a type of Island Iguana.

Comes from the Dominican Republic.

But there's plenty of different types

of Island Iguanas around the same area.

I can't believe how soft he is.

-Look at his eyes, he's really enjoying it.

-He is!

That's what rhinos do as well.

When he first came, he had a little bit of an attitude,

but over time, he's calmed down

and you can do that and he doesn't care at all.

We mentioned he's one of the most endangered reptiles on the planet.

-Is that actually true?

-It certainly is.

The Island Iguanas, as a group, are incredibly endangered.

Why is that?

It's completely down to introduced species.

People have introduced pigs and dogs onto the islands,

and these animals hunt the iguanas,

and they're direct competition for food as well.

-What's the future for Brigs now?

-Brigs is getting an old man now.

But we were hoping that we might be able to get a female for him.

If we do, that'd be fantastic,

but if not, he's quite happy here.

He's got his food and he has a bit of a scratch now and then.

What an amazing animal.

He is. Chris, thanks so much.

We're going to hang around with Brigs

while you guys check out what's on the next episode.

There's an emergency in the parks,

where a one-ton rhino's got his head stuck after being darted.

The only possible way to free him is to push from one end

and pull from the other. But can they do it before he passes out?

And the keepers are hoping that two pancake tortoises will mate,

but he seems a bit snappy.

That's all in the next Roar.

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