Episode 9 Roar

Today, on Roar, a baby wallaby is found abandoned.

The keepers must step in to save his life.

But even with all this love, can little Joey survive?

Hello and welcome to Roar. I'm Rani and this is...

Johny, what are you doing?

Oh, hey, Rani. I'm just giving myself a bit of a pamper.

I found the most amazing mud

and I thought my skin could do with a bit of a treat, so I'm just...

You do realise that's a Kunekune pig enclosure and that's the mud

they wallow in, and it's probably not just mud?

Kunekune enclosure? Not just mud? You mean I'm...?

I think we should leave it there and get on with the show.

And quick! The pigs are coming!

Coming up, there's a new pride of lions up in the safari park,

and today, we're going to meet them for the very first time.

It's a big day for the new baby sea lion

because today is the day she gets her name.

And they say elephants never forget, but what about keepers?

Can this lot catch out the boss with some jumbo questions?

Oh, that's pretty nasty, actually.

But we're starting today up in Wallaby Wood,

which is home to over 30 Bennett's wallabies.

They are some of the smallest wallabies in the world

and originally come from

Tasmania and the coastal southeast of Australia. In the spring,

many of the females here in the park have young babies,

called joeys, in their pouches.

The little ones are totally reliant on mum for food,

warmth and protection.

But two days ago, the keepers made a shocking discovery

when they were doing the morning checks.

A young joey was on his own,

abandoned in the middle of Wallaby Wood.

And he was very distressed.

He was screaming and calling for mum,

but none of the females were responding to him,

no-one came and picked him up and got him in their pouch.

So, either mum abandoned him, maybe she was a young mum,

wasn't really sure what to do.

We're not really sure.

They had to step in to try and save his life.

For keeper Polly, it was a really worrying time.

The joey was very weak and she had never hand-reared a wallaby before.

It didn't look that great. He was shaking. He was cold.

And he was losing strength, really.

The keepers think that the abandoned joey is around five months old.

Usually, joeys stay in mum's pouch for up to eight months,

so this one won't survive unless he gets warmth and milk.

I still get worried that something could happen,

maybe that he would stop feeding or something.

He's still not totally out of the woods.

To give him the best chance of survival,

Polly has re-created, as best she can, mum's pouch.

At the moment, he's living in a rucksack with a pillowcase in it,

padded out with towels as well to make it a nice, secure pouch,

because, obviously, mum would have him in a pouch.

The first few days of hand-rearing a baby animal are always

the most difficult.

Will the little joey pull through? We'll be back later.

Keepers always looking for ways to keep their animals interested,

and one way of doing that is to introduce them

to new smells and textures.

Camel hair is always a favourite with the monkeys,

so today, we've come up with a plan to try it out on another animal.

I've come up to the new area with senior keeper Beth.

-And, apparently, the camels are losing their hair?

-Yes, they are.

-Are they stressed? What's going on?

-No, they're fine.

It's because of the warm weather. We're coming into summer,

so they've dropped their coats, which they'd do in the wild.

-Now, is that camel hair?

-Yep, that's camel hair.

So, we're going to tidy this up?

-Yeah, I just need to pick a few bits up.

-OK, now,

rhinos are just over there. Are we going to be safe getting out?

-If I just pop out, Rani, and you stay safely on the truck...

-OK.

Should I watch your radio?

So if anything happens, I can call for help.

-OK, Beth.

-OK.

-Beth is out of the truck. She's going to collect...

Yep, Beth, I've got your back. I've got my eye on the rhinos.

-Yep, she's safe.

-We've got a line of people watching us.

Oh! Yeah, I'm on the radio to them.

-OK, so has this just come off a camel?!

-Yep.

That could have easily come off a shoulder or leg or something.

It comes off in big clumps. It's something that we'd go along

and we'd pull it all off... That's a nice beard.

But it naturally falls off, as well.

At this time of year, they're basically nearly hairless.

It's what they'd naturally do out in the wild,

because they're from, like, Asia and it does get very, very cold

in the winter, but very, very hot in the summer.

They're really hairy in the winter, then they shed it all in the summer.

So what happens to this hair now? What is the plan?

Well, you know, we do have a lot of it, so sometimes we put it in

for the monkeys, sometimes we give it down to Animal Adventure,

see if they need it.

Why would they need it?

There's many things down there that might like a camel hair.

Well, we've got a ton of camel hair here.

I'm going to take this down to Animal Adventures.

Join us later and find out which lucky animal gets to play with it.

What kind of dog chases anything red?

A bulldog.

BOTH: Roar!

What do you call a gorilla wearing earmuffs?

Anything you like, he can't hear you!

Glup, glup, glup...

What do you call a deer with no eyes?

-I don't know, what do you call a deer with no eyes?

-No-eye deer.

Back up with the abandoned baby wallaby,

and it's feeding time for little joey.

If he's to survive, he'll need regular feeds, and lots of it.

You can't get wallaby milk, so Polly is giving the little one

the next best thing, puppy milk formula.

He does quite like his milk. Now he's got used to the bottle

and the rubber teats,

he really does go for it.

Polly feeds joey every three hours, day and night.

Sometimes, I stop half way through, for him to digest it a little bit,

and then have another go at it.

But he seems quite keen for it all now.

Done?

But there are also some yucky bits to being a foster wallaby mum.

In the wild, baby wallabies would go to the toilet

inside mum's pouch, which she would then clean out with her tongue.

Yuck!

But Polly is mum, and it's time to clean out this pouch.

He's generally quite good. If I get him out and he'll hop around,

generally he'll go to the toilet then.

Otherwise, he's quite clean. He likes cleaning himself a lot anyway.

Fresh towels go in and the pouch is ready.

But like most mums,

poor Polly is getting the runaround from the little one.

Joey! This way. Little one!

Baby boy! What are you doing?

That's it. Done?

Keepers try not to fall in love with their animals,

but sometimes it's hard.

I think he's just really cute.

Because he's got really big eyes, pretty long eyelashes.

His ears are too big for his body at the moment,

he needs to grow into them.

He's just really, really sweet.

Polly is doing everything she can for the young joey,

but will it be enough?

Hand-rearing can never be as good as a mum's care, the joey is very

young and very fragile. We'll be back later to see how he gets on.

ALL: Did you know?

Here's a parptastic fact.

Cows produce 18% of the world's greenhouse gases from their bottoms.

That's more than all the cars and planes put together.

But even though they eat grass too, kangaroos and wallabies produce

no greenhouse gases from their parps.

All thanks to a special enzyme in their tummy.

ALL: Now you know!

We've got a special edition of Ask The Keeper today.

In one corner is this lot. In the other is a celebrity,

Anne the elephant, whose story from circus to the safari park

we've been following on Roar.

They say elephants never forget, but what about head keepers?

We're fired up and ready to take on the big man, Andy Heaton.

It's time for Ask The Keeper, and this time, I'm going to ask all

on Anne the elephant.

You deal with big animals, but can you take on these four beasts?

-They're pretty scary, but I'll give it a go.

-OK.

Well, he seems pretty confident. Who's first?

Has anyone got a good question about Anne the elephant?

-James, go on. Make it good.

-Can the elephant swim?

Elephants can swim really, really well.

They're really buoyant, so they float really good.

They look really heavy, but they've got a great big tummy on them,

so they can. And they can swim long distances as well. In Asia,

they can actually swim between islands. They'll swim a long way.

-Where is she from?

-Anne?

Anne was originally from Sri Lanka

years and years ago.

It's an island off of India.

So that's where she actually came from a long, long time ago.

-How far do they travel in the wild?

-That's a really good question.

If they're travelling, say, because they can't find a lot of water

or anything like that,

they can maybe do 50km in a day on a big old march.

So they can cover big, big distances.

You'd get really tired trying to keep up with them.

How fast can she run?

Oh, well, Anne can't run very fast at all because she's an old lady

and her back legs hurt her a little bit,

but an elephant can run maybe 20 miles an hour.

That's about 30km an hour - faster than we could run.

And such a big animal. Any other questions?

-He's answering 'em all.

-What do they use their trunks for?

Elephants use their trunks for lots of different things.

It's like a big, elongated nose and lip.

So you can see Anne now, she's picking up a bit of sand

and she'll throw that on herself, like so, just to show us.

And what they'll do is pick up food from the ground

and pop it into their mouth. They'll also drink from it.

They'll draw water up their nose, up their trunk, to sort back there,

and then they'll curl their trunk up and put it in their mouth.

So they use it for loads and loads of things.

And smelling and touching each other... It's just an amazing thing.

Andy, all I can say is that you are on fire.

But it's now time to extinguish those flames.

It's time for the killer question.

Roar! OK.

You're a head keeper, Andy, so we've made this extra tough.

Right. Anne can get through maybe 25kg of fruit each day.

And to digest it, she has a series of complex intestines, right?

So, what I want to know is if you stretched out her intestines,

her large and small intestines, laid them out,

-how long would that be?

-Oh, that's pretty nasty, actually.

-Sorry.

-That's pretty nasty.

Hmm...

I'm going to say...

..that it's going to be about...

..about 800 metres.

800 metres?

Well, I can say, Andy, you might have known the answers

to the other questions, but you're way off on this one! It's 30 metres!

-Is that all?

-30 metres, yeah.

-OK. You said stretched.

-Yeah.

-You could stretch them a long way.

-Look at that, sore loser!

You didn't get that right, you were way off. But overall,

you did answer most of our questions. What do you reckon, guys?

We thwarted him with our killer question,

but overall, is it a thumbs up or thumbs down for head keeper Andy?

-ALL: Thumbs up!

-Thumbs up all round.

Nice one, kids! Yeah, I like that. That'll do, yeah.

Earlier on, I was with Beth when she collected a load of...

camel hair. Now, of course, Animal Adventure and the lucky

animal to get their hands on this is the ferrets,

and they're nibbling my feet right now.

Ah! Emma, I have got a whole bag of camel hair.

Beth just picked it up off the floor because the camels are moulting.

Look how eager they are to see it! Or are they happy to see me?

-I don't know.

-It's a bit of both, I think.

I was going to say it stinks and it's filthy,

but ferrets are pretty pongy.

-Yeah, especially boys.

-Especially boys?

-Yeah.

I think that's across the board. Only joking, Johny!

All right, so what are we doing with this fur?

For today, I think we're putting it inside some of their areas.

-But, look! He's fast asleep!

-I know.

Hopefully, it will wake him up a bit, he can have some exercise.

And then he'll make that into a nice bed for him.

So, if you could put some in the tyres, the shoe,

and also their beds...

-You lot, get out of there!

-They're already in there.

Oh, my goodness! Oh! There are ferrets everywhere!

They help themselves.

-They're going... They love this stuff!

-They do.

It smells really, really weird to them.

They don't encounter this in the wild, so...

-Why are they so interested, then?

-It's just a new smell for them.

They've got a good sense of smell, not a good sense of eyesight.

So, this is getting them going. It's keeping them awake,

giving them something to do.

They absolutely love this stuff! Look at that!

I suppose it is, it's really cosy, this stuff.

Yep. They like it to smell first,

and then they'll start using it as a bedding.

In about half an hour, they'll all be curled down in it, fast asleep.

OK, we've got loads of boys here, is there anyone in particular?

He looks like he's got a little wig on!

This one's Basil. He's having a nice sleep.

I was thinking of spreading this around,

but they are so loving their cosy, new bed.

-In the wild, obviously, they're not sleeping on soft camel hair.

-No.

What do they normally sleep on? Hello!

-Ferrets are a domesticated species.

-Right.

-They evolved from polecats.

In the wild, polecats would steal other animals' burrows

and they'd sleep down in there.

Well, I've got to say, I was coming in here thinking, "Oh,

"I've got to put the camel hair over here, over here, over here."

And, thank you, Mr Ferret, you've made it very easy for me.

I've left you the sack and they're as happy as can be.

So, on that note, I'll just leave them with a new bed.

Yep, they're quite happy.

Back up at Wallaby Wood and it's now two weeks

since the little joey was found abandoned by his mum.

The good news is that he's doing well

and the keepers have named him Joseph.

Of course, that gets shortened to Joey.

Keeper Polly has become foster mum to little Joey

and carries him around in his own pouch all day.

A rucksack might not be quite as good as mum's pouch,

but it's the next best thing.

Joey needs looking after 24-7,

so even when Polly's doing her other keeper duties, he stays with her.

But it's a tiring job.

To start with, I was looking after him on my own.

But it's really hard work,

especially while you're working as well.

So I'm sharing his care with another keeper.

Keeper Beth is an experienced foster mum.

She's had to hand-rear animals

before, including pygmy goats.

Tonight, it's her turn to babysit little Joey.

Whilst warming his milk, Beth gets a chance to make herself a cup of tea.

But, of course, Joseph gets his drink first.

With this little Joey, he needs 24-hour attention.

But he's very good,

he doesn't make a fuss, and he's quite easy to look after.

It's just, at the moment, it's quite a lot of feeding.

He's with us most of the time because you need to know

when he's sleeping and when he wants to come out.

When he wants to come out, you have to help him out

and make sure he's hopping about.

Yeah, he's normally with us most of the time.

Hand-rearing is a nice thing to do.

Obviously, it's not the ideal situation.

Every time, you want mother to rear.

It's the best for the animal and the mum.

But if we can step in and help, that's what we're here for.

But this wannabe wallaby still has a lot to learn.

And it's down to his two mums to teach him.

We'll start taking him up into the Wallaby Wood

so he can see other wallabies.

Because we don't want him to think that he's not a wallaby any more.

We'll come back later when Joey starts his first lessons -

grass eating and learning how to hop.

Right, all you gamers, pay attention for today's secret Roar code.

It's a hard one - rock9.

Type that in and see what you get.

Actually, that reminds me of a joke.

What's a rock's favourite transport?

A rocket! Happy gaming!

Now, so far this series, we've been spending a lot of time

with the new lion cubs who are very, very cute.

But there is another pride here at Longleat that we haven't met yet.

That's because they've only recently arrived.

ROARING

Did you hear that?

That's the park's brand new pride of lions,

and I'm about to meet them for the very first time.

I'm very excited, but I am a little bit nervous as well.

But luckily, keeper Stu is here to help me along and introduce me.

Stu, who are they? Who have we got here?

Well, who we've got here... We've got the two boys.

They're brothers. This is Henry.

And Hugo is the slightly larger male of the two.

We got them from Knowsley Safari Park.

That was about seven months ago. Then, about a month later,

we got the young females from Blackpool Zoo.

And Louisa came about a week after the other three girls came.

And she came from Bristol.

They're all here now and you got them from all over the place,

but they seem to be really content together.

-They seem like a pride unto themselves.

-Yep.

Was it hard to get them to gel?

Well, it was extremely straightforward.

Obviously, the boys were here first.

We gave them access out of the house.

But they didn't actually go into the section itself.

They just used the tunnel, the run that comes into the house.

So we got them used to knowing where to come back to.

We did the same with the girls.

Eventually, we mixed them in the house.

And off they went on their merry way.

It only took us a matter of weeks, I think.

Now, do you find there's much rivalry amongst the pride?

The brothers get along, but is there that boy-girl thing

like at school? "We hate girls." "We hate boys." That kind of thing?

They do, very much so, especially when they're fed.

You've got to keep an eye on the boys because they tend to hoard the meat.

Stuart, they're pacing around now.

Is that cos they know they're going to be going out?

Is it like when you say to a dog, "Fancy a walk?" And they go,

-HE PANTS

-You know, really up for it!

Exactly that thing. They know their routines.

-Yeah, they're ready to go now.

-Right.

So, what do you want me to do?

What I shall do is open up the main slide there.

Once that's open, if you can just flip that latch there over,

then pull that slider out? And then they should be on their way.

-OK, Johny, when you're ready.

-OK.

So, that's open, and then I just pull this?

-Yeah, just pull that. Yep, that's the one.

-Ooh!

Wow! Look at that!

They've gone... Look! They're all out together!

That is an absolutely beautiful sight! Look at that!

The lions have really bonded. They seem like a proper pride.

It's been brilliant getting so close.

It feels like I've made some new friends... I think.

The baby wallaby abandoned by his mum has been going

from strength to strength.

Thanks to the love and care of foster mums Beth and Polly.

He's eating well and getting stronger every day.

But he still faces two big challenges.

He's got to learn how to hop

and he's also got to learn how to eat grass,

because when he's weaned of milk,

grass and other plants will be his main diet.

If he were still with mum now, he'd still be in the pouch

a lot of the time, while she's hopping around or she's grazing.

He might pop his head out, maybe start mouthing grass a bit.

He's not ready to eat grass yet,

but he would mouth it, get used to it, work out what it is.

He'd be copying mum as well. At the moment, I've been picking grass.

He's been eating it. Well, mouthing it.

He hasn't managed to eat anything yet. He's still just on milk.

Oh, Joey!

The next challenge is the hopping.

It's something that wallabies and kangaroos are famous for.

With their large feet and powerful hind legs,

adult wallabies can hop two metres high and reach speeds

of up to 30mph.

But for baby Joey,

even one little hop

would be an achievement.

SHE CLICKS HER TONGUE Come here.

But will he manage it?

Come on, Joey.

Good boy!

Let's see that again!

It may be a small hop for us,

but it's a giant step for Joseph.

So how does Polly feel now about looking after the little one?

This is my first time hand-rearing, and it's hard work.

But it's nice, I do enjoy having him.

He is really sweet. Now he thinks of me as mum,

like, him following me and things.

It's really nice that he thinks of me like that.

It's nice that he sees me as someone he can depend on and have to

follow me round and stuff.

So that's really sweet, I like that.

And we'll bring you all the news of young Joseph throughout the series.

Now, last time on Roar, we followed the story of another cutie,

the baby sea lion that was born down here at Half Mile Lake.

For a while, it was touch-and-go if she would survive,

as there were complications

with her birth.

Head keeper Mark had to step in to cut the umbilical cord

between mum and baby himself.

Since then, she has just got stronger and stronger.

Keeper Sarah has asked us down because it's a big day today.

When there's a new baby in the park,

the talk quickly becomes all about the name.

I know, so we popped down to Sea Lion Beach to find out

from Sarah what this little sea lion pup is called. Sarah?

Well, after much consideration, we've decided to name her Renie.

-Nice name! So this is baby Renie.

-This is indeed baby Renie.

-She's almost three weeks old now.

-Three weeks old, and look at that!

-She's learned to swim already!

-Yep, they do pretty much from the get-go.

After a week or so, they'll accidentally fall into the water.

The main time it happens, they accidentally just fall off the edge.

But they are born with the instinct to move the flippers about and swim.

The only thing they're not born to do is to hold their breath underwater.

That's what they actually practise doing when they're out swimming.

So does she tend to stay close to the edge so she can get out

-from holding her breath? And does she get quite tired?

-Yeah.

She won't wander too far from the edge so she can get back quick.

They do get tired pretty easily, pretty quickly.

But she will spend the next few weeks practising

and practising on holding her breath. Hopefully, in a few months' time,

-she'll be wandering out with the rest.

-So, where's mum in all this?

-Jo-Jo?

-I think she's over there, getting some fish from the boat!

-She's not protecting the little baby.

-No, no.

She's old enough now that she can leave her to her own devices

on the beach. She's never too far away.

Obviously, the boat's not too far away.

But mum does need to feed through the day

so she's able to produce enough milk to feed pup at night.

So she'll follow the boat and, every now and then, pop back

-and come and check on the baby.

-She's a proper little cutie, Sarah.

-Thank you so much for letting us pop down to see you today.

-Absolutely.

Unfortunately, time has run out.

But from myself, Rani, Sarah, and little Renie,

it's time to say goodbye, and we'll see you on the next episode of Roar.

Here's what's coming up...

Next time on Roar...

Our ranger may be a karate king, but how brave will he be

when he meets Nico, the silverback gorilla?

I'm just amazed, because he's a lot bigger than I thought.

They're small, they're fluffy, and they're as cute as cute can be,

but how will the meerkat babies get on when they face the dangers

of the outside world for the very first time?

And Diego the tegu is licking his lips over the buffet breakfast,

but will he be a salad or a raw meat man?

That's all on the next action-packed episode of Roar. Don't miss it!

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