Episode 25 Roar

Today on Roar...

There's an emergency in the big cat reserve.

A lioness has been badly wounded,

so the vet and keepers must work quickly to save her life.

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

-And I'm Johny. Now, Rani,

what you call a deer with no eyes? No-eye deer!

-Tell me, what do you call a deer with no eyes?

-No, that was it.

-No-eye deer.

-Dear, oh dear,

let's just get on with the show.

-"Deer, oh deer", get it?

-Whatever.

Coming up...

We go on an undercover operation to get some amazing shots

of the most dangerous animals in the park,

Spot and Sonya, the hippos.

Our Roar Ranger is arranging a bird bath,

but it seems this lot prefer a shower!

And why has Rani got a cup of poo?

Jasmine the camel doesn't look amused. In fact,

she's got the hump!

First today, I've got to get something off my chest.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job and the production team

here on Roar, but I do feel they've let me down.

That's right, we've been at the park for a while now

and I've yet to see a single hippo.

Rani got to see one on our first day, but not me.

All I hear is excuse...

..after excuse! After excuse! Things have got to change!

I'm sorry, Mr Pitts. I'm really, really sorry!

Pull yourself together, man.

I've found a man who I know can help us out.

It's head of section, Mark Tighe. Mark, what's the plan?

As many cameras and you've got,

preferably one that we can leave static in the field.

They're quite shy animals and this lot aren't just having me on?

No, they are really quite hard to see, even in this sort of small area.

If you did get up close and personal with a hippo, is it safe?

Not at all, no. You know, they're incredibly dangerous.

They're really, really nasty animals

and they are an enormous size. They'll just flatten you.

You've heard the plan. Roll out!

Hippos are nocturnal feeders,

so they mainly come out during the night.

The team will take it in turns to film early mornings and late evenings

to see if they can spot them.

They have also got a special night camera,

which we'll put down by the hippos' wallow

to see if we can catch them coming out of the water to feed.

Will they succeed? We'll be back later.

Up in lion country, we've just heard that there's an emergency.

One of the lionesses is injured.

At feeding time, there was a fight over food

and Satellite has been wounded.

The keepers have got her into the night quarters

and the vet has been called.

Head of big cats, Brian, is worried.

Satellite has got a wound on her front left paw.

I assume she got it through fighting, because of the position where it is,

quite awkward to actually get a good look.

The cut is underneath Satellite's paw, so it's hard to see,

but it's very deep.

With an animal this dangerous,

Brian can't just put a sticking plaster on her.

But if he does nothing, the wound would get infected.

Safari park vet Duncan Williams has had a look

and knows they need to operate straight away.

We're going to have to knock her out with a general anaesthetic,

which is a little bit risky.

But she has to be fully out before we can do anything with her.

To get the drugs into Satellite, deputy head of the safari park,

Ian Turner, is preparing a dart gun.

It doesn't shoot bullets, it shoots darts.

If you look round the corner, Brian's making up the dart now.

Dart in, make sure it's fine.

It might look scary, but using this dart gun is the quickest,

safest and least stressful way to give Satellite this anaesthetic.

It'll hurt for a second. It's going to jump,

turn round and hopefully that'll be it.

Duncan, the vet, puts the anaesthetic

that will make Satellite go to sleep into the dart.

All right.

Brian must make sure he aims at the big muscle

on the top of Satellite's leg.

It's the best place to inject the drug.

The dart's in.

It will take several minutes for the anaesthetic to take effect,

so now the team must watch and wait.

Some animals can react badly to the drug.

If Satellite has had too little, the vet won't be able to operate.

Too much, and she might stop breathing.

It's a tense time for everyone,

so we we'll be back in the lions' den a little later.

What's the most famous ant scientist? Albert Ant-stein.

What's a donkey's favourite designer?

Dee-haw!

-How do you start a book about ducks?

-I don't know.

With an intro-duck-tion!

THEY LAUGH

Taking a ride on the Roar Ranger Express today is Toby.

I want to be a Roar Ranger because I really love animals.

Grr!

I would like to work with lions and tigers,

because I think they're really beautiful.

At home, Toby's used to animals.

He has a cat called Sam, a gerbil called Jimmy, and Ella the gecko.

But is there anything he's not keen on doing?

I think the worst job for a Roar Ranger is probably picking up poop!

Worst job? We think it's one of the best!

The Roar Rangers are always excellent pooper-scoopers.

Bleurgh!

But what's Toby's job today?

As usual, the answer's in the envelope.

"Toby, today you'll be a parrot keeper. Who's a pretty boy, then?"

Bwark, bwark!

I'm going to be a parrot keeper. Fantastic!

There'll be no pieces of eight today, just lots of hard work.

Keeper Amy works with all the furry creatures at Animal Adventure,

and she's a parrot expert.

She's got some tricks and treats planned for Toby today.

First off, he'll be working with the South American macaws.

These colourful parrots come from Central and South America.

Unfortunately, their numbers are declining.

The forests they live in are being cut down

and too many have been taken from the wild for the pet trade.

They are very intelligent birds

and have strong beaks to break open the nuts and fruits they eat.

One of the first jobs that we've got lined up for you this morning

is a bit of cleaning.

If you look around the enclosure,

the parrots have dropped lots of nuts everywhere

and they've gone to the toilet quite a bit on the path and on this log.

Uh-oh. "Gone to the toilet"? You know what's coming next, then, Toby.

Bleurgh!

So if we can get you to put your gloves on...

..and do a little bit of cleaning down here.

If I give you this scraper, you just need to scrape

all that poo off that log down there and get it as clean as possible.

It's always fun watching someone else do all the work,

even when you're a parrot.

Maggie's watching you, Toby!

One of the parrots might be getting a bit too close for comfort.

But not to worry, our trained keeper is on hand to make sure

Toby finishes off his job safely.

Matilda! I'll move her over, if you want, cos you're being a rascal.

Come on. Come here!

Come here, naughty-head!

Sit over there and behave yourself.

Matilda's probably the cheekiest one here,

and she just kept on looking at me while I was working.

I think the parrots are great,

because they're really colourful and really funny.

They all have their own individual characters.

Obviously, they're used to the trainers,

so when someone new comes into the enclosure,

they're a bit wary and they will try it on a bit.

With that mucky job over with, it's time for a bath.

Not for you, Toby, it's for the birds.

We'll join our Roar Ranger later on.

So, I've come up here today to give keeper Kev a hand

to feed some of the taller animals in the park.

-Who are we feeding today, Kev?

-Today we're feeding the Bactrian camel.

So, is this a camel's favourite food, or is it a treat?

They really do enjoy it. This is more of a treat than anything.

Why are we sticking them in these metal poles?

This is just so they can use the natural behaviour of browsing.

Rather than grazing off the floor, they can actually reach up

and use their neck muscles to eat from a tree,

almost like they would in a deserty-type situation.

These guys come from the Gobi desert in Mongolia.

It is very, very cold there,

which is why they get the very thick hair on them.

Kev, it looks like somebody is sniffing our browse.

-Who's this little lady?

-This is Jasmine.

-What's wrong with her hump?

It seems to be falling down. It's at a bit of a kilter there.

No, she's perfectly healthy. It's probably just full of fat and things.

-That's why it's tipping over slightly.

-You say "full of fat" -

I thought a camel's hump was supposed to be filled with water.

Isn't that like a water tank?

That's a bit of a myth. They're actually full of fat,

so when it's a very dry spell and there's not a lot of food around,

they can use that fat store through a lean time of food.

RANI LAUGHS

She's pulling the browse apart now!

-What is their digestive system like?

-When they take in twigs,

they don't digest it that well

and it comes through their digestive system fairly quickly.

So what you're left with is quite a sort of dryish lump of poo,

as it were.

That sounds really lovely, Kev...

Next thing you'll be telling me you've got some poo to show me!

It's funny you should say that!

Just down here, what we've got is just a cup of camel poo.

You know what? As normal, I have got me rubber gloves with me.

So, this is it, then. So, their digestive system isn't that good.

Not the fibrousy stuff. In here we've got bits of hay,

and in the desert, the nomads out there would use this

as a fuel to light fires and things like that,

-and they cook their dinner on it.

-Really?

So what happens to all the water?

Are they absorbing all the water to keep them going?

Yeah. They can go without drinking for a while,

probably three or four days without a decent drink of water.

And when they do drink, they drink litres and litres of it at one time.

Jasmine's loving her browse. Is she the only camel here?

No, we've got six here.

But because she saw it first, she's having first dibs.

-Should we get the other camels?

-I think it's only fair.

Back up in Lion Country, it's been an anxious ten minutes

since head of section Brian darted Satellite with an anaesthetic.

Duncan the vet needs to make sure Satellite is in a deep enough sleep

for him to look at the injury on her paw.

You really wouldn't want to go into the lions' den

if there was a chance she might wake up.

The keepers use a gentle poke with a broom handle

to make sure she is asleep.

She's all right, isn't she?

-Seems pretty safe, doesn't it?

-Quite safe.

Now that it's safe enough to get close,

Duncan can see that the cut is much worse than he thought.

Oh, what a mess!

He needs to work quickly.

Before he can stitch up the wound, he has to make sure it's clean.

This is just a saline, which is flushing out any debris, rubbish.

I'll get rid of any contamination that'll cause an infection.

OK. That's ready to stitch now.

Lions can sometimes react badly to the anaesthetic,

so as Duncan gets to work, Brian watches Satellite carefully

to make sure her breathing doesn't stop.

There's always a dodgy time when you're doing anything like this

that they possibly may not recover.

The other danger is that Satellite hasn't had enough anaesthetic,

so another keeper, Emily, regularly checks her eyes

and jaw reflexes to make sure she's not waking up too soon.

Although her eyes are open,

Satellite is actually completely asleep,

and she can't feel anything that Duncan is doing.

Overnight, she's licked it and licked it. That's one of

the big dangers, one of the problems with any of these wounds on lions,

because their tongue is so rough, they just lick and lick and lick

and they can rip the stitches out.

That's one of the problems we'll have now - we'll have to do this

and do it so that the stitches are sort of hidden,

or she'll catch them and pull them out and we're back to square one.

Suddenly, Duncan spots Satellite's tongue moving.

It could be a sign that this deadly predator is beginning to wake up.

The breathing's just got a little bit lighter.

Just check her jaw tone again.

Duncan needs to finish - fast.

With the operation finally over,

Duncan gives her a drug to wake her up.

But Brian can't relax just yet.

Very happy with how it's gone so far.

The only thing now is waiting for her to recover.

Sometimes, lions don't recover.

We'll be back later to see if Satellite does come round

from the anaesthetic.

OK, all you gamers, it's cheat code time. Today's secret code is rain10.

Type that in and see what you get. Happy gaming!

Now, a little while ago,

I set the team the challenge of getting me some great hippo footage.

-Here, Mr Pitts!

-And now it's time to see how they got on,

and who'll be keeping their jobs!

-I'm here with head keeper Mark Tye. Mark, how you doing?

-Hi.

-Now, how did they get on?

-Brilliant.

Yeah? Really? Seriously? OK, let's see what we've got.

That is absolutely brilliant. I've never seen one of these before.

-Pretty big, aren't they?

-They're absolutely massive.

How big would one weigh?

Anything between two and a half and three tonnes each.

Incredible. Now, I've met the rhinos before. Are they comparable in size?

-So I can get an idea of how big they are.

-Similar. A bit rounder.

-OK.

-A lot broader.

-Really?

-Yeah.

That is incredible. What are they doing? Are they grazing?

They are grazing,

which is quite unusual to see at this time of day.

Normally, they would be a night-time, nocturnal grazer.

-Can you tell the difference between them?

-It's really hard to tell,

-particularly when their bellies are masked with the grass.

-Right.

Normally, Sonia's the fatter of the two.

You need to see which one's belly's touching the floor.

-Ha, ha!

-When the grass is in the way, you can't tell.

But that's Sonia and that's Spot.

So, Mark, how long do they live, hippos?

Anything up to 40, 45 years has been known

in captivity, sometimes even 50. I think that'd be pushing it a bit.

These are doing pretty well, left to their own devices.

Now, we've got a lot of footage in the day here,

but you said they're nocturnal.

Have we got any night-time footage?

-We do.

-Oh, they've done well! Wow!

-Here we go. This was the little nocturnal camera.

-Wow! Look at them!

They are huge, huge animals.

Do you find they're more active at night, wandering around?

I've noticed them being more sluggish during the daytime.

Yeah, definitely.

It's actually lucky to see them out in the day,

but at night they're much more active.

Have they got any predators?

With being so big, I can't imagine anything would try and take one on.

I mean, a pride of lions may take on a wounded hippo,

but I think their chances would be slim

cos hippos tend to keep together in large groups

and they're pretty formidable.

What?! Can we just see that again? Did you see? It opened its mouth.

That is incredible!

-Look at those. Is that a tongue, or are they teeth?

-They're tusks.

-Tusks?

-Ivory tusks, which they use for fighting, primarily.

How wide can they open their mouths?

It's believed to be up to 150 degrees,

although I've never got my protractor out.

'150 degrees?! That's enormous. I can only open my gob 90 degrees.'

Why do they need to be able to open it so wide?

-Is there any reason?

-Purely for fighting.

If you look at the size of another hippo that it would have to bite...

A big stomach to get around! Right, OK.

Well, I'm so impressed with what the team have managed to capture -

some amazing footage of the elusive hippo.

-There's one thing left.

-Really?

-Yep. Minimise that screen.

-What's this?

A little surprise.

Look at that! Show-offs! They've even managed to get a badger.

That is brilliant. Well, production team, you can keep your jobs.

For now.

Back at the parrot enclosure,

Roar Ranger Toby has finished off his mucky duties for the day,

and he's now ready to meet some more of keeper Amy's feathered friends.

OK, Toby, this is Pickles. She's a lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo.

You can give her a little stroke if you want and say hello.

The sulphur crested cockatoo lives in the rainforests and woodlands

of Australia and New Guinea.

It rains a lot there,

so these birds love nothing better than taking a shower.

So what we need to do is just give Pickles a nice, light spray.

She's going to really enjoy it. A nice spray all over her back.

And she will put her wings out for you. Do you think you can do that?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? OK, there you go. All yours.

See? She's enjoying that. She's putting her wings up for you.

Well done - you're doing a brilliant job. Pickles is enjoying that.

Steady, Toby - it's a shower, not a monsoon!

-Why do you have to do this?

-Well, we don't do it every day,

but it is nice now and again for the birds to have a nice shower.

It keeps their feathers in really good condition.

It helps new feathers to grow through.

It's also a really good clean for her.

It cools her down, as well, on nice, hot, sunny days.

We do the same with all the big birds, all the big macaws.

Matilda's getting excited now. I think she's going to have a shower.

It's fun to see the animals up close.

I think Amy's really lucky to work with all these animals.

OK, well done, Toby. I think Pickles loves you!

So do you want to feed her a peanut for being so good?

There you go. She'll just take it from your hand.

There you go. Well done, Pickles.

How old do they live in captivity for?

In captivity, if parrots are well looked after,

they have been known to live about 70, 80 -

- on a very rare occasion, even 90 - years, so an extremely long time.

They have the intelligence as a four-year-old child,

so if you had a pet parrot it'd be like having

a four-year-old child for 70 or 80 years, so it's lots of hard work.

It's been a special day for our Ranger but, sadly, it's time to go.

So, Matilda, are you going to wave bye? Wave.

Oh, she didn't!

Not many people can say, "I've touched and fed a parrot,"

but I just did, and it was so much fun.

Matilda, what are you saying?

Yeah, I think Matilda thinks Toby did really well, as well.

Being a parrot keeper is great!

Over in Lion Country, it's the morning after Satellite's operation,

and big-cat keepers Bob and Brian have come to check up on her.

She's recovered well from the anaesthetic,

but still hasn't forgiven the keepers for knocking her out.

After the operation yesterday to stitch up her paw,

Bob's preparing medicine for her breakfast.

What I'm doing here is just preparing antibiotics to give to Satellite.

That's quite nasty-tasting, so you can't just put it in their mouths,

so hiding it in there, disguising it, is brilliant for us.

She thinks she's going to get a treat.

All she's got to do now is take it!

She's in a bit of a mood.

Go on!

Satellite has to take the meat with the medicine in,

otherwise any infection she picks up could be life-threatening.

The trouble is getting her trust back now with us.

After yesterday, knocking her out, she don't really want to come over.

Normally, with a bit of meat they'd come over.

It's just trying to encourage her back. A bit of trust.

Hopefully, in a minute, she may decide to come over.

Go on! Good girl! Yeah, that's a good girl!

Good. Go on.

Bob's charmed his way back into her good books...

..which means he can use the meat to get a good look at her paw.

What's this? Come on, darling. Come on.

Oh, good girl! Good girl!

That looked quite nice, actually. Nice and neat.

-Don't look like she's been licking it, does it?

-No.

All we need to do now is get her back out with the others.

But this may not be as easy as it sounds.

Lion prides are very closely knit families, but sometimes

if one of the pride is away for too long, they may not welcome her back.

In fact, they may attack her.

There might be a little bit of an argument between them,

cos she's got smells on her from us.

I hope that they don't go silly up there.

But we're here to try and stop them if they do.

Bob stays in the house to let Satellite into the enclosure.

Brian heads out in his patrol vehicle

to try and break up any fights.

It's a worrying moment. Will they greet her or eat her?

Luckily for Satellite, after checking out her new smells,

the rest of the pride seem happy to have her back.

But knowing these lions as he does,

Brian's still going to keep a close eye on them.

We are talking about cats. Sometimes they do have little disagreements.

As far as we can see, they've all settled down quite nicely.

Could you believe it?

It's that time again - almost the end of another show.

But first, we wanted to meet the park's beautiful Brazilian tapir.

-And the beautiful Ryan, as well!

-Thank you, Rani.

You've let us come down here to give Jessie a little cuddle and a tickle.

-Yep.

-She's going to love this. Do you enjoy doing this?

-We do, yeah.

All the staff like spending time round Jess.

A lot of the animals we look after

are semi-wild and you can't get close to them, but tapirs love attention.

Very tactile animals - they love contact,

-they love being stroked and groomed.

-So is it important to do this?

Yeah, it is, because if ever you have to do a medical procedure,

the fact that she's so comfortable around people

means that you can do a lot more than you could with, say, a giraffe.

So they're really sociable. Is there anyone here with her?

Not at the moment, no. We're just currently looking for a male.

We've found a male at another place in England,

and hopefully he should be here any week soon for her.

You might be out of a job, though,

cos the bloke'd tickle her. You'd be like, "I'm not needed any more!"

I know. It'll be hard, but I'll cope.

While we ARE still needed, let's give her another good tickle.

While we do, why don't you see what's coming up on the next Roar?

Oh, Jessie!

Next time...

the keepers think Rosina the rhino may be pregnant,

so they're calling in the experts to do a test.

The tigers might look like lazy cats,

but don't be fooled - they are excellent climbers.

But how high will they climb up this tree?

And a group of ferrets is called a business, but will the keeper

know HER business when this lot give her a grilling?

ALL LAUGH

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