Episode 34 Roar

On Roar today, there's trouble up in Wolf Wood.

Frida the she-wolf is dangerously ill.

The keepers and vet will do everything they can to help her,

but will it be enough?

-Hello, and welcome to ROAR. I'm Rani.

-And I'm Johny.

-And I'm Johny.

-No, Rani, I'm Johny.

-No Rani, I'm Johny.

-Rani, what you doing?

-What you doing?

-That's... Oh, I get it!

You're being a parrot and you're copying everything I'm saying

and being really annoying!

Being a parrot, being really annoying!

Being a parrot, being really annoying!

Let's just get on with today's show!

Being really annoying! Get on with today's show!

Being really annoying!

It's a bird show today.

Whippet, the tiny Boobook owl is learning how to fly,

and I'll be there for his very first attempt.

Oh, my goodness!

Oh, please don't fall, please don't fall!

And I'll be meeting a bird that can do an obstacle course

quicker than a soldier.

And Roar Ranger Ethan is a keen magician,

so the sea lions show him a trick or two.

How to make a fish disappear!

But first, we're going up to Wolf Wood.

There are 12 Canadian Timberwolves here,

led by top dog Two Tips, and she-wolf Frida.

Together, they are the alpha male and alpha female,

and are in charge of the pack.

This means they have their pick of the food, have the best sleeping

spots, and most importantly, they are the only ones

who breed and produce young.

The alpha male and female are born into the position, but they must be

physically and mentally fit enough to remain leaders of the pack.

Frida is ten now, and has been the alpha female for six years.

During that time, she's had eight pups.

Deputy head of section Bob Trollope has looked after her since

she herself was a pup, and she's definitely one of his favourites.

But recently, Bob has noticed that Frida is not her old self.

Something is wrong, and he's worried.

Frida, in the past week or two, has been doing some strange behaviour,

circling in one direction, not walking properly,

finding it difficult to eat, drink,

and we're obviously concerned about her.

Bob has brought Frida into the wolf house,

and called in Safari Park vet Duncan to have a look at her.

Has she got a head tilt?

More of a turn one way, rather than tilted.

She tends to sway off to the left.

Frida is a hugely important member of the wolfpack, but she needs

to be at full strength if she's to continue as the alpha female.

Does she get bullied at all?

Yeah, I think they've been picking on her slightly,

but then she's also been picking on some of the other ones.

She always turns to the left, yeah, she can't go to her right.

All the signs are, really, she's got some brain problem.

If she's got a brain problem, really,

there's not a lot you can do for that, I'm afraid, Bob.

It looked really difficult, drinking.

She was trying to drink with her head on one side,

and she was just dribbling it all back out again.

If Duncan is right, and Frida's illness is being caused by a

brain problem, then the team will be faced with a difficult decision.

If it progresses and gets worse and worse, it's just a sign that

whatever's causing the problem's getting bigger, and in that

situation, the kindest thing for her would be to put her to sleep.

So do you think we're at that stage now, or do we let it...

I don't know, really. What do you think? How is she coping?

She seems to be getting wobblier, but...

I don't know. Well, how quick would it deteriorate?

Well, she's changed quite a lot in the last week, hasn't she?

Yeah, I think so.

These are the hardest decisions that vets and keepers ever have to make.

If they can make an animal better, they will,

but they love their animals and don't want them to suffer.

They're faced with some tough choices, and need time to

think about them, so we'll come back to Wolf Wood later on.

Now, earlier in the series I was introduced to

one of the cutest animals in the park, Whippet here, the baby owl.

Now today, I believe, it's a special day for Whippet,

-is that right, Jimmy?

-It certainly is, yeah.

We're going to try and get him

to fly to you for the very first time in his whole career.

Now hang on, seriously. Has he ever flown before?

Because how old is he now?

He is now, he must be about 12 or 13 weeks old,

so the initial flights are only little baby bumps around his aviary,

you know, so he'll bounce from perch to perch,

so we want to ask him to do bigger flights now, and train him

to come to us for food, so we can use him in the displays.

I love that you say we're going to ask him.

OK, Whippet, we're going to ask you!

No, obviously, how are we going to do this?

He's due his breakfast, OK, so that means he'll jump to us

for little bits of food, OK, so I'm going to give you a little glove.

We'll just teach him where he needs to sit,

and then we're going to ask him

to come to you for a few little bits of food.

I never think of birds taking their first flight.

You just presume they can do it.

Yeah, in the wild they have to branch out from trees,

and eventually learn to hunt on their own, so it is maiden flights.

He'd be doing it in the wild roughly about this time,

-so we're going to teach him to do it today as well.

-OK.

What I'm going to get you to do, Rani, is almost have him so the back

of your fist is facing him, then it's a nice, clear perch for him.

That's it, and then if you turn round

and stretch your arm out this way.

-How close?

-If you look at him at the moment...

-His wings are open!

He's opening his wings because he's having a shower.

Because it's raining, he's having a bit of a bath and shower,

which is really cool, because he's never done that before.

-He's having a bit of a wash.

-Look at the wings underneath!

The colours underneath are amazing, aren't they?

Yeah, he's quite colourful,

and underneath his wings you can see his feathers are still growing.

-Yeah.

-So they almost grow in like a little tube.

I've got to say that he has changed,

because he was a bit more fluffy the last time I saw him, a bit lighter.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So he'll go a bit darker,

the little feathers around his head will eventually go.

Oh, my goodness. Look at him!

Let's see if we can get him to do a little jump, now.

You stick your thumb down, like this, and then...

Here you go, Whippet.

You did it!

Well done! I feel really proud of him!

-I feel very proud as well, yeah!

-Do you feel proud as well?

-I do, I do!

Whippet, the hand-reared Boobook owl has done brilliantly for his

first flight, but Jimmy reckons he can do an even bigger one.

Will he manage it? Find out later.

Our Roar Ranger for today is 10-year-old Ethan.

This budding magician is mad about animals, even the less exotic ones.

My favourite animal is a goat.

GOAT BLEATS

But what animal will he be working with today?

As usual, we're giving Ethan just two clues to help him guess his job.

Clue number one, a boat.

Clue number two, a loudspeaker.

River cruiser. I know it's a river cruiser.

This is one of those intercoms. You speak into it.

Kkkkrr! This is the captain. Kkkkrrr!

So, I feel like we're going on a river cruiser,

and I'll be the person speaking on the intercom.

He's confident, but is he right?

He is!

Right!

Yes! Sea lions!

In the wild,

California sea lions are found all along the West Coast of America.

These incredible hunters can dive to depths of 274 metres

in search of their prey.

That's more than 2 and a half football pitches straight down!

Not only will Ethan be helping with the sea lions, but we are also

giving him one of the hardest Ranger challenges we've ever set.

Being a presenter on the Jungle Cruise.

If he is to pass this challenge, he'll need some help, so we're

sending him off to see deputy head of the lake section, Sarah.

-Hello, my name's Ethan.

-Hi, Ethan, I'm Sarah.

I'm one of the keepers down here at the lakes,

and I hear you've got a bit of a mission today.

-Yes.

-You need to learn some things about the sea lions.

-Yep.

Well, you've come to the right place.

She's got four of the sea lions in for a feed this morning.

..and noisy old Buster.

FOGHORN

Demonstration over, it's time for Ethan to get stuck in.

You're very lucky today,

because as you've got that bucket of fish in your hand, I'm going

to ask you if you could possibly feed one of the sea lions for me.

But throwing a slimy fish whilst wearing a glove is not

the easiest thing to do.

Whoops!

Don't worry, Buster'll get it!

Slippery start over, he's right on target.

To keep things simple for his presentation,

Ethan is going to focus on just two of the sea lions, Buster and Nancy.

How can you tell which one is which?

Buster will be the easiest one to tell from the boat,

because he's the biggest sea lion we've got,

so just the biggest, loudest sea lion, that's Buster.

If you see on the top of his head, as well, he's got that little lump.

Only the boy sea lions, when they get older, get that little lump.

It's called a crest.

Big and loud. Well, that seems easy enough, but what about Nancy?

This one's Nancy, here. She's one of our oldest sea lions.

As you can see, she's got really short whiskers there,

-compared to the other ones.

-What are their whiskers used for?

Well, erm, for starters,

a really cool fact is the official name for them is vibrissae,

for their whiskers, but what they are is they're really sensitive,

and they actually use them to detect the fish.

That's really cool, I'm definitely going to use that.

-They are so cute.

-They are very good.

I think, can I have another fact?

Do you know how much the sea lions weigh?

Er, Buster there, approximately, I would say weighs somewhere

between 250 to 300 kilograms in weight, quite a heavy boy.

At 300 kilograms, Buster is six times heavier than Ethan.

Ethan's head must be swimming with information.

Question is, will he remember it

when he's faced with a boat full of visitors?

Join us later in the show to find out.

A little earlier, I was with falconer Jimmy,

where we saw Whippet the Boobook owl do his very first little flight.

Now Jimmy reckons he's ready for more.

So, what are we going to do now?

He's done his first jump, and there was a bit of arm, wing movement.

Yeah. We're going to ask him to do a little bit more,

and so what we do is we do very, very short jumps first of all,

and then we try and increase the distance, OK, to make him

do a little bit more work, but at the moment he's snuggling into Paul.

So, we'll go a little bit further away, so we've got about...

-Is that too much?

-No, that's good, that's good.

So, we'll get you to hold your arm out again, Rani, and then...

Oh, my goodness!

JIMMY WHISTLES

Please don't fall, please don't fall!

Did you see that?

That was proper, like, three or four foot as well, wasn't it?

-Yeah, definitely. Right, shall we try the big one?

-Oh, no.

-Is he ready?

-Yeah, I think so.

-I don't want to push him too far.

-No, he's all right, he's all right.

-Yeah? I don't want him to get...

-I'm so nervous for him!

-Made him do it for the first time ever.

OK, so we're going to go for a final one, OK,

and we're going to make it a fairly big one.

We don't want to push him too far,

so we always want to end on a positive note.

OK, so we'll go a little bit further back.

So, is it tiring for Whippet? Because he's only little.

Yeah, I suppose it is, really.

It's his first baby flights, really, so he's

building muscle, and eventually, over the next few weeks, he'll

get fitter and fitter, and then we can increase bigger distances.

OK, so we'll get you to hold your hand out.

If he looks like he's not going to make it, should I run closer to him?

We might be able to help him.

I don't want him to fall, please don't let him fall!

He shouldn't do. Whippet!

JIMMY WHISTLES

Whippet!

JIMMY WHISTLES

Ah, you see. He's really thinking about it, isn't he?

-His head's going, his head's going.

-Come on. Here we go.

He's thinking about it.

Yes! Well done!

You clever, clever boy!

Look at those big eyes, he's saying, "I am so proud of me".

Well, Jimmy, thank you. Genuinely, thank you so much.

I can't believe, Whippet, I was here,

-we were here for your first flight.

-First-ever flight.

And, you never know, one day,

you could be flying above all the crowds here.

Yeah, he'll be wowing audiences in a few weeks' time,

so it won't take long now.

Now we've got these initial flights, we're kind of cooking on gas, now.

-High five!

-High five!

-Excellent, good stuff.

-And for you as well. Well done!

What's a shark's favourite game?

Swallow the leader!

Meow!

-What do frogs like to drink?

-I don't know. What do frogs like to drink?

Croaka-Cola!

Oh, oh, oh, aaaah! Aaaah! Aaaah!

How does a fish get to school?

By octobus!

Back up in Wolf Wood, Safari Park vet Duncan and the keepers

have been discussing what to do about Frida the poorly wolf.

Her health has been getting worse very quickly recently.

They're not sure what is causing it.

It may be a brain problem, or even heart disease.

I don't exactly know what's wrong with Frida,

but she's got some problem in her head which is causing all

these neurological problems, and it's obviously progressing quite

quickly, because she's got quite a lot worse in the last week,

and if we don't do anything she's just going to get a lot worse,

and the risk is, because of the pack animal nature of wolves,

the other wolves will probably start picking on her,

so I think, on balance, the best thing for her, really,

is to put her to sleep, before any of these nasty things happen.

Of course, animals can't talk,

so when they are very ill sometimes the kindest thing is to

put them to sleep, so they don't suffer lots of pain.

When you have an animal, you care for it,

and unfortunately sometimes you have to make that question of

is it worth letting her go on, and we've decided that it's not, so

it's a bit of a sad day, but we will have to put her down, I'm afraid.

Bob has known Frida since she was a wolf pup,

so he feels her death more than most.

But he's also a very experienced animal keeper,

and knows sometimes this is the kindest thing to do.

Frida will be missed, but she won't be forgotten.

Frida was a very important part of the pack, being an alpha female.

It's always a loss losing any of our animals,

but a major role as an alpha is obviously a big loss for the pack.

She's been a breeding female for a number of years,

which is an important role, obviously.

She was a character, we loved her.

I think she had a really good life here.

And we'll catch up with Bob later on,

to see what happens to the wolfpack with Frida gone.

Now, earlier in the show, Rani had an incredible experience

when little Whippet, the Boobook owl, did his first ever flight.

Well, now I'm heading down to see Jimmy the falconer

for another first.

A bird I've never even heard of.

Jimmy, what is a caracara, first and foremost?

It's a really unusual bird.

It's really closely related to falcons, so a really, really

fast species of bird of prey, but it doesn't really look or act like one.

There's about 12 different types of caracara

in the whole world.

Which caracara are we going to be working with today?

He's a striated caracara, OK, and the striations are just

basically the little gold flecks around his neck, and they live

on the Falkland Islands, so they're only on a few scattered

islands around the south tip of America, and he's called Sirius.

OK, and I guess, today, we're going to be seeing how

intelligent they are, so what are we going to do?

What we've basically done is we've hidden food around the

rocks, because in the wild they'll feed on bugs and beetles and

insects, crabs and crustaceans, you know, you name it, they'll eat it.

Really?

Then, hopefully, from the rocks, he'll work his way down to

the plant pots, so we've hidden a few little bits of food underneath

those as well, so he's got to actually flip over the plant

pot to get the bit of food.

Wow! We've got a bin here, what's all this about?

On the Falkland Islands, you will find dustbins.

There's people there who stick a dustbin out the back garden,

and caracaras have learnt that there's food inside these.

All they've got to do is raid them.

-And now we've got the socks.

-So, they're attracted to the colour red.

Not many birds of prey can see in full colour,

so the different colours of socks should hopefully prove every

single time, when he picks the red one,

and we can change them round, so you can swap them round.

Why would it pick the right one?

Is it because it looks a little bit like meat,

or a juicy berry or something?

Yeah, it'll be meat, so it's the colour of meat.

So, here we got an animal that's not only an amazing hunter,

super intelligent, but can see in colour, unlike other birds,

and is just the main, uber-predator of its kingdom?

I can't wait to meet this bird, so can we bring it out?

-We can, we certainly can.

-Excellent.

Well, join us later on in the show to meet the amazing caracara.

I know I'm looking forward to it.

OK, here's the cheat code you've been waiting for.

Type that in and see what it gives you.

New treats, animals or enclosures.

You'll find the brilliant Roar game on the CBBC website. Happy gaming!

We're back on Half-mile Lake, where Ethan is about to undergo

one of the hardest tasks we've ever set a Roar Ranger.

To present to a boat of paying guests!

He's looking nervous. Before his big challenge,

there's just time for some top tips from the professional, keeper John.

Now, when you're talking to the public,

you've just got to make sure you try and give them eye contact,

make sure you try and keep eye contact with them.

Try and speak as clearly as possible.

Don't speak too fast, because a lot of people,

-when they start off, they speak too fast.

-And no one hears.

Yeah, and no one hears, it just sounds like one great big blur.

It's almost time for Ethan's big moment,

And the sea lions have turned up in force.

How on earth is he going to tell one from another?

There's Buster, but will he recognise him?

All right, Ethan, I think you're up.

We're ready for you, so I'll just introduce you,

and then I'll have the microphone over to you, all right?

Come on, Ethan, you can do it!

Ethan is going to tell you all about the sea lions,

so I'll pass you over to Ethan now.

All eyes are on him.

He must stay focused if he is to succeed.

Hi, I'm Ethan,

and I'm here to tell you a couple of facts about the sea lions.

If you look carefully over there, you should see Buster.

He weighs around about 200 kilograms onwards.

Yes! He's off to a flying start.

You can tell sea lions, male from girl,

because the males have lumps on top of the head, whereas the girls don't.

Great fact, Ethan!

Buster's been joined by Nancy, but will Ethan be able to recognise her?

And there's Nancy.

You can tell Nancy because of her very short whiskers,

if you look carefully.

The technical name for whiskers is vibrissae.

Yes! Another killer fact!

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

With the tour over, has John been happy with Ethan's performance?

He actually did really well for his first trip.

I'm quite pleased with how it went. It could have gone worse.

The fact that he's gone off to learn his own facts is fantastic,

it's what we like to see.

Because I was standing there, and literally, pffffff!

Like a bullet, it just comes out of nowhere.

Apart from the giraffe, that's the biggest animal I've ever seen.

Go, Buster!

BUSTER BARKS

Earlier on in the show, head falconer Jimmy told us

about one of his favourite birds, the caracara.

He thinks this bird is incredible.

So incredible, he's set up its own assault course to prove how

intelligent this bird is.

It's Sirius the caracara, and we're ready to meet him.

-Jimmy, are you ready?

-I'm ready, I'm ready.

-Let the bird out, then!

OK, Sirius.

Looking forward to this. Here he is. This is Sirius the caracara.

Hello, Sirius!

Oh, he's gone straight over to the rocks, that's incredible!

So he's got the meat here, he's going over, he needs to go over

to these rocks and try and knock them out of the way, look at this!

So, he uses his feet to flip over the plant pot.

Most birds of prey will use either their feet or their beak.

He uses both, which makes him a bit of a special bird of prey.

That's incredible!

So his feet have got a little bit of dexterity, then, in a way?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, he certainly has.

We'll see if we can get him back down to this rock over here.

So, we want him to put his head under these...

He's actually got to stick his head in and almost shift the rock

up to find a little bit of food from underneath.

There are all sorts of bugs and beetles and insects,

and then this one, he's got to pull the rope to move the rock.

Look at that! That was incredible to see him, he did pull the rope,

though, didn't he?

Yeah, yeah, he will do, yeah. So, we've got the burrow, next of all.

-OK.

-And then we'll come back to the few others,

he's going to have a quick look over there.

So, if you hide food all over the arena,

so he never knows where the food is going to be every single day.

Now, we know these are intelligent birds and they would do

things like this in the wild, but have you had to do any training

with him to do this kind of stuff?

Not really. What we'll do is we'll set him a task and let him

work it out himself. It keeps him busy and keeps on stimulated,

so hopefully we can get him to go through the burrow.

Hello, mate!

-So, we'll get him to jump on down.

-So he's having a little...

We do have a camera inside this tunnel,

so hopefully we've got some amazing shots of Sirius going through

that tunnel and picking up his meat.

So he's done that, he's completed that task.

-Yeah, he's perfect, so we go to the dustbin.

-The dustbin, OK, excellent.

-This should be good.

-We'll set this dustbin out for him,

we'll take the lid off it, and he should just...

-Straight in!

-Not a problem.

I don't know if you caught him, but he looks at you,

then at me, and was like, "Come on, then, what's next?"

-So we've got the washing line next.

-He's gone straight over from it!

So, in order to get a reward from me,

he knows he's got to steal the red item from the washing line.

To actually pick it off the line?

-Oh, there you go, he's pulled it off!

-And he'll run away with it.

I tell you what, Jimmy, it's been brilliant hanging out with

Sirius, and this is the first time I've seen a caracara bird.

-Yeah, they are pretty unusual.

-And he really has impressed me.

I tell you what, I think he's got a higher IQ than me!

Now, it nearly is the end of the show,

but before we leave you today we've come up to meet up with

keeper Bob and find out how the wolves are doing.

Now, Bob, there has been some sad news, hasn't there, because

the alpha female of the pack, Frida, has recently passed away.

Was she a bit of a character?

She was very much a character, and obviously, in the pack,

she was very important, and it was a great loss.

So what kind of things are we talking about?

Tell us some great things about Frida,

because you knew her really well, didn't you?

Yeah, well, she was one of these mischievous wolves.

If there was going to be any trouble,

she would get in there somewhere along the line!

So, how are the rest of the pack reacting now,

because she was the only breeding female, wasn't she?

-So she was mummy to a lot.

-She was mummy to most of them.

-Really?

How many pups did she have over a time?

Well, she had several litters over a few years.

Unfortunately, for the past couple of years she didn't breed,

but maybe that was something to do with her problem.

So although she's gone, Bob, her legacy lives on in the pack,

through the little ones.

-Very much so, yeah, very much so.

-So what are the plans now, then?

Well, as the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens,

and it opens it up to a whole new bloodline coming in, if we want to.

All we've got to do is move the young female on,

because obviously, being her daughter,

we don't want to breed from her,

because she is related to the other males, so we could get, possibly,

a new female in, unless they swap the young one for a new one.

-Wow!

-That's awesome! Some pups may be on the way!

-Maybe.

Well, we look forward to that.

It really is sad news about Frida, but great stuff to look forward to.

-Thanks very much, Bob.

-It is.

That's all we've got time for on today's show, but here's

a sneak peek of what's coming up on the next episode of Roar.

They may be deadly, ferocious, and loud,

but lions play like pussycats.

So what will they make of our two big red balls?

The cheetah is the fastest land animal on earth,

but are they quick off the mark at feeding time?

And the competition is fierce to find our new champion.

Who will be crowned the park's laziest animal?

You can see they're all working flat out to win it!

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