We Live in a Zoo My Life

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MUSIC PLAYS

My Life.

Hi, I'm Milo and I'm 13.

And I'm Ella and I'm 11.

BOTH: And this is our zoo!

We call it home.

We've hundreds of animals right on our doorstep.

We get stuck in and help the keepers.

This is basically like cat food for them.

This doesn't feel like a chore to us because it's actually fun.

'As part of the zoo's fight for conservation,

'we often travel around the world

'learning how we can save animals from becoming extinct.'

It looks like a big cat's hairball.

LAUGHTER

'Join us on our adventures as we head to Portugal

'to track endangered wolves.'

'And find out how we get ready for some new arrivals, the marmosets.'

'We'll show you what life in a zoo is really like.'

HOWLING

BOTH: We live in a zoo.

'We have lived in the zoo with our dad for as long as we can remember.

'We share our home with tonnes of animals,

'from big cats to meerkats.

'It's always exciting.'

'For most people who come here, it's a fun day out,

'but for us, it's our life.'

We really did want it to be a place

that people could come to be happy and have a nice time.

We are just right in the centre of everything.

There are the wolves right next to us.

So if they have a fight, we can definitely hear them.

The peacocks are dotted around.

It's quite noisy being in the middle.

We live in the middle of the zoo.

Our neighbours are the big cats.

Josie the lioness,

Vlad and Stripe the tigers,

Ceetah the cheetah, Sovereign the jag and Leslie the lynx.

Then there's Fudge and Hayley the bears,

and Carlos, George and Raul, the Iberian wolves.

And, of course, our smaller animals, like Zorro the coati,

plus loads of birds and reptiles.

We moved in here eight years ago.

The zoo was going to be closed

and the animals who lived there

would either have been re-homed or put down.

We saw the house that's behind us and we said,

"Ah, this is a big house, it's got a lot of land around it.

"It's perfect!"

And we saw that it also included lions, tigers, wolves.

And since we'd fallen in love with it,

we just wanted to keep the animals alive.

We wanted to keep it going as long as possible.

My friends sometimes ask me, "Where do you live?"

And then I tell them I live in a zoo.

They just sort of look at me and they go, "No, you don't."

'This is our house, where my dad runs the zoo from.

'It's a bit chaotic as we're in the process of doing it up.'

This is the office, where my dad works.

Then up here is the attic, basically.

My dad sleeps up in that half.

And then this is our kitchen slash sitting room.

-Slash dining room.

-Basically... Yep.

And we've got the sitting room on this half

and then we've got the kitchen on this half.

Mum loved it here.

'Not long after we moved into the zoo, our mum got very sick and died.

'So now it's just the three of us. We miss her loads.'

If my mum was around, she would have sorted out the house totally.

Maybe had a no-shoes sort of rule.

Ella really wants the normal sort of house.

Just less spiders, I guess, would make it a bit more normal.

I personally really love just to learn

as much as possible about each animal.

To be able to have an animal there that I can learn about,

I can look at. And I just really love that.

'As with any zoo, there are always jobs to be done.

'Mostly in the evenings, weekends, or school holidays.

'We like to get stuck in and help out.

'Today, we are cleaning out the reindeers.'

No, no, no, no, not the poo, not the poo.

Well, we don't really get pocket money for this.

We do this part for free.

And it's just sort of part of the family's job, really.

It doesn't feel like a chore. It's more fun, actually.

We don't really care about the smell. That's OK.

'I tend to leave the poo-dumping to Milo.'

'We help educate our visitors about all the cool animals we have.

'Today, we are talking to people about Millie,

'our Giant African land snail.'

Can anybody guess how many teeth they have?

28? Not quite. Nearly.

These actually have a quarter of a million teeth.

'For us, it's really important that the animals

'don't get bored with their life at the zoo.

'That's why we use a technique called enrichment.

'It's all about finding new ways to encourage and stimulate

'the animals to behave like they would naturally in the wild.'

If you feed an animal and just leave the food out,

it just makes it really easy for them.

They always know where to find the food and they just get bored.

If you hide the food or scatter it about the enclosure,

they have to work and find the food.

It makes them work more, it makes them use their brains a bit

and just makes everything less boring for them.

'Today, we are creating new feeding toys for the animals to eat from

'with one of the keepers, Holly.'

We're in the enrichment room at the moment.

And basically, in here, we have things like puzzle feeders

and even catnip, just to make the animals' lives more interesting.

I think Milo's going to do the monkeys

and then I'm going to do the tapir.

Would the green, like, ball, would that be strong enough?

There is that massive blue barrel, like that one.

-It's got big holes in it right at the bottom.

-OK.

It's that one just there, yeah.

Could we use fruit?

Yeah, yeah. We've got monkey nuts

and we've got some soft fruit in the fridge downstairs.

Wow! Do you think they'll like cinnamon?

Yes. Anything that's really smelly.

Are you going to want to hang it,

or are you going to want it on the floor?

-Yeah, I think hanging maybe.

-Yeah.

Because then stuff can drop out.

Milo, smell this. It's so good! I wish I was a tapir.

I do like jam. Mixed together,

I'm sure it tastes very similar to maybe jam on toast.

Well, basically, I haven't designed this very well

and all the fruit is falling out.

The crowning jewel!

I think they are going to get really excited

and start rolling it around and licking a lot of the jam.

They'll definitely enjoy.

So, basically, I have got this enrichment device

and I have just got lots of fruit on the inside.

And hopefully, they will be smart enough to know

that they have to take stuff out to get the food.

They've got the banana. OK, it's working so far.

Luckily, the monkey does like it

and she seems to be enjoying the fruit and the jam.

Conservation is a big part of what the zoo does.

These are our Iberian wolves

and they are endangered at the moment

and they're from the Spain sort of area.

Hunters do kill wolves so they can sell their fur and so on.

Our wolves are missing a female at the moment,

which means they can't breed.

But we're hoping to change that.

So we are going to Portugal to hopefully bring back

a captive female

and also track some wild wolves.

But it's not going to be easy getting an Iberian wolf

because they are a rare and protected species.

Basically, what we are trying to do is just get their population up here

so that we can start breeding.

Find out later how we get on.

'One of our favourite things to do is race Ceetah the cheetah.

'It takes a while to get her attention.'

No, it's not working.

She normally lies around all day in the sun.

It's good for her to, like, run around and chase us,

maybe stalk us a little bit.

'You would think if I was Ceetah's next meal,

'she would be up a lot quicker.'

We try and keep her up and active with the dogs.

No interest.

LAUGHTER

'It takes a few runs to get Ceetah's attention,

'but she has finally taken the bait.'

It tires you out quite quickly. You can tell that she's so much faster.

That is just trotting.

It's incredible.

One of the many perks of living in a zoo

is that you get to go to the no-go areas that the public can't go

because it might be a bit too dangerous.

You need to know what you are doing when you're working with animals

like Vlad and Stripe, our Siberian tigers.

It's a good idea to train the animals

so that you can do quick checks and it's very useful.

I am trying to feed Vlad

some...just bits of meat.

I am trying to get higher and higher

so that he can eventually stand up and we can see his full height.

Partly for enrichment, but also

so that the keepers can give him some checks

and they can see his pads and things like that.

'Our next job is to trim the bears' toenails.

'Hayley and Fudge have been at the zoo since we first moved in.

'Clipping their claws is a really tricky task,

'but it needs to be done regularly.'

There's one.

It may look like Colin is being very rough with her,

cutting off her claws,

but you can see the thickness of the claw here.

So you really need to put your entire strength

into just cutting one claw.

And so, to her, that was a bit annoying,

but really, that strength hardly felt like anything to her.

As they get older and less agile and their claws start to grow,

they can end up getting foot problems

and that kind of thing could kill them in the wild.

'It's the summer holidays and we've been working really hard at the zoo,

'but there's a burning question that we need to ask our dad.'

So, when are we actually going to Portugal?

Are we actually going?

We are actually going.

We have managed to pin down Professor Fonseca,

who is in charge of where all the wolves in Portugal end up.

I don't really believe you until we actually get there.

'We've got our fingers crossed that we will get to Portugal,

'but there's someone who works at our zoo

'who knows everything about Iberian wolves.

'He's even lived with them in the wild.

'Sean's got some great tips on how to behave around wolves.'

There are a succession of what we call calming signals.

The first one is like an over-exaggerated sigh.

Narrow eyes or closed eyes, or even slowly blinking

is also a great calming signal for them.

Each wolf has its own signature howl,

so every member of this pack would have their own howl

that represents their position within the group.

Today, I am going to practise my Beta howl.

It's a long, drawn-out howl that goes up and down.

HOWLING

And I'm going to try to howl like the dominant Alpha,

short and high-pitched.

HIGH-PITCHED HOWLING

'We love doing these howls.

'They make us feel closer to these amazing animals.

'And they seem to love it, too.'

'You've been watching too much Wolfblood, Ella.'

'Ooh, Rhydian!'

'We spend so much time with our animals

'that we develop strong bonds with them.

'We get to know their personalities, just like you do with a family pet.'

They just really love having their chin rubbed.

Even though the animals, they can be so happy and healthy one day,

but then the next, they can suddenly get ill

and then they maybe have to go.

It's hard saying goodbye to the animals if you have to.

That's the downside of living in a zoo.

This is Sovereign, our jaguar.

And he's in a very bad mood today because we knocked him out

not that long ago to give him an operation and a checkup.

And we discovered that he's quite ill,

so we're giving him a rest right now.

Sovereign is famous at the zoo as he once escaped

and is one of our wilder animals.

We always clean out his enclosure with two people just for safety.

And someone thought they'd impress

by cleaning the enclosure out themselves.

He got out into here and then out of the door

and jumped into the tiger enclosure.

Tigers are much bigger than jaguars,

as Sovereign soon found out.

They just knocked him flying because they're

so much stronger than him.

And we did eventually manage to get him back.

But right now, our beloved Sovereign is very sick.

He's got feline leukaemia. And he would eventually die from that.

Because Sovereign is in so much pain,

the vet has said that putting him to sleep is the kindest thing to do.

It's definitely the best thing to do for him with his leukaemia.

And he's just been a very big part of the zoo.

We'll miss you, Sovereign.

Whenever an animal dies, it brings back sad memories for us.

When we were very young, we lost our mum.

It's really tough not having her around.

Well, I do miss my mum a lot,

but because I was so young, I don't remember her properly.

When she was in her late 30s,

she got diagnosed with a brain tumour.

It was a type of tumour that kept growing.

By the time she was 40, she sadly died.

ELLA CRIES

I can remember her face and different moments,

but, yeah, it is sad that we can't properly remember her.

Well, I don't really have a proper memory of her.

Ella, you've got bogies.

I saw a video of her

and I didn't actually know what she sounded like until then.

I think it's always good to have that.

We came to this beach when Catherine was very ill.

I remember her laughing at you when I spat ice cream.

LAUGHTER

We were all eating ice cream underneath a tree

and what I used to do is I'd bite the bottom of the cone off.

I chose to... "I wonder what would happen if I blow?"

And I blew and the ice cream just flew out and hit him in the chest.

And I remember my mum laughing quite a lot at that.

Yeah, I always think of her when I come here,

that she'd seen it and appreciated it.

We've had many happy moments with Mum here.

It's also a great place to unwind.

Don't trip. Don't pull me over!

Basically, we want to bring him out,

who hasn't surfed since the 1900s.

He's a bit rusty and so we just want to have a family day out

to get away from the zoo, just do a bit of surfing.

It's kind of hard. You're just about to get up

and then the board goes sideways and then you fall off.

What have I done? Huh!

Did I knock Ella?

-I didn't feel any massive bump, so...

-Well, I did!

I just saw no Ella. I was, like, "Where's Ella?"

This beach holds happy memories for us

and it's one of my favourite places to go surfing.

But we can't stay long

as there is always work to be done back at the zoo.

For any animal, it does need a lot of work

to make an enclosure perfect for it.

This is currently our racoon enclosure,

but they are going to be moving as we hope to get some new marmosets.

The black-tailed silvery marmoset comes from South America

and grows between 18 and 28 centimetres.

Although small, they can jump really far.

We thought with all of these trees that the racoons never really climb,

it would be great for two marmosets.

They can jump a very big distance.

If we cut the trees and make it a smaller tree,

it will prevent the marmosets from jumping and escaping.

'We measure the tree to put a protective covering on it

'to stop the bark being chewed.'

So tree one is six feet.

Eight feet. Five-and-a-half feet. OK?

This is where the agouti are going to live.

It will become like a little hobbit mound.

How warm will it be inside?

This will be really warm for them.

I'd really like it in here.

I didn't think we'd do so much preparation for them.

'It's going to be a few weeks before we're able to introduce

'the marmosets to their new home.

'We've got a holiday to go on first.'

Let's go!

'Yes, it's finally here. We're off on a road trip to Portugal!

'And we're really excited to be camping in the wild.'

There is a bit of uncertainty about

whether or not we will actually get one of the wolves.

We're not quite sure.

'It's an early start and there's a long way to go.'

'We're driving 36 hours from the UK to Portugal.

'Portugal and Spain border each other

'and are known as the Iberian Peninsula.

'This is where the Iberian wolf gets its name from.'

Look at this!

So, this is where we are staying?

This is where we're staying.

Oh, yes!

Come on, fellas, we've got to get the dome up before it gets too dark.

Lift it nice and carefully and put it down to the side,

where we won't tread on it.

-There we go.

-Thank you, Milo.

So we sort of know what we are doing.

We are all just working together

and we have our own little jobs.

How long does it normally take?

35 minutes...from now.

It normally takes just about...

-30 minutes from now.

-Ten minutes.

-When it's half done, let's start.

-Do you think? When it's done!

-Yeah.

# How am I going to be an optimist about this? #

I am a little bit worried that we won't make it in time for dinner.

'This is our home for the night

'and hopefully, we can cope with Dad's snoring.'

Quite surprising how fast we did this.

And I am surprised that nobody actually timed us.

Nice and tight, Milo.

So we've had a really long day so far.

We are just looking forward to seeing all the stars.

-And then we're going to go and track some wolves.

-Really lucky.

HOWLING

After a good night's sleep, we are ready for the day ahead.

Part of the reason why I am really interested to be here is that

we can really learn about all the different ways to help wolves

and we can bring back all the information

and spread awareness, really.

'This is the part of the holiday I've been looking forward to most.

'Tracking with wolf expert Duarte and his dog Zeus.'

What will we be doing today?

Today, I am going to show you some basic wolf-tracking techniques.

So, when you do spot a wolf, how does it feel?

It's just amazing. You have been struggling for days and weeks.

And when you actually spot one, it's an incredible feeling.

'Duarte says it can take weeks to see a wolf,

'so our chances of seeing a wild wolf today are slim.'

So, do you want to go and try to do some tracking?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? OK. Zeus? Come on!

'As wolves are very shy, it's safe to go tracking

'as they won't come out to attack.'

And now he is staring to look for scat.

What is scat?

It's wolf poo. We label them and then we freeze them.

So, you have a poo freezer?

At the lab, yeah. It's full of wolf poo.

'Zeus is trained to sit down once he finds wolf poo.'

-He found it!

-And he just found it!

'We can then pick up the tracks from a wolf.'

The dog with this nose was able to find it

and now I must give him the ball.

Bingo!

It's really nice to see one minute he's sitting really still

and then the next, he's running around, catching a ball

and he's just so excited and proud that he's found some poo.

LAUGHTER

Look, this is a really good example of old wolf poo.

So this is a wild boar.

So, why is it just hair?

Sometimes it's just hair and bones

because wolves mainly digest everything they can.

So they take all the energy from the food as they can.

-It looks like just a big cat's hairball.

-Yeah.

DUARTE LAUGHS

What's that box there?

Oh, that's a camera trap we set.

If an animal crosses, we get the picture from that.

So, if we walk past, will it take pictures of us?

Yeah. We can get a selfie. Do you want to?

-You think so?

-Yeah.

-So let's pass.

-Yeah.

Yay! LAUGHTER

Now we're just passing...

LAUGHTER

We're the wolves now.

On this left side, we have Portugal, on that front side.

And on the right side, we have Spain.

In Portugal, the wolf is totally protected.

It's totally illegal to hunt wolves.

So, what happens when the wolves go across the border?

If they start to cause livestock damages on the other side,

they can be shot.

So, how is it possible to try and persuade the Spanish government

to stop killing the wolves?

I think we need to work more on co-existence techniques

between large carnivores and humans.

Such as livestock, guarding dogs,

electric fences and non-lethal methods to prevent wolf damage.

'After a break, we continue tracking for the wolf.'

Could we howl now? Because we have been practising.

We're not very good, but I have been taught the Beta howl

and Ella has been taught the Alpha howl.

THEY HOWL

-I've run out of breath.

-I think it's really good.

You're going in the right direction.

'Unfortunately, our howls don't seem to be attracting any wolves.

'It's disappointing not to see a wolf, but the good news is

'if they are this difficult to find, it should help keep them safe.'

'We head off to meet Sylvia, who runs a conservation project

'giving local farmers puppies.

'And once grown, they scare the wolves away.'

Oh, he's so cute!

So, why are you giving her to the shepherd?

Because George has been having

many damage attacks from wolves.

Last year, he lost 40 sheep, which is a lot.

Do you really hate the wolf?

HE SPEAKS PORTUGUESE

'George tells us that he has had real problems

'with wolves killing his livestock

'and this is why they are sometimes considered a pest.'

Having him around, but not attacking his sheep.

LAUGHTER

-You'll be very useful.

-Yes.

Today has been a really cool day.

We started off the day with just tracking with Duarte.

Seeing the dog sniffing all the poo out.

We finally got to meet the adorable puppy

that was being given to the farmer and it was just amazing.

-Oh!

-Yeah.

I thought it was great that the farmer said

he didn't have anything against the wolf,

he didn't want the wolf to be hurt or injured.

Let's go and find some dinner.

Yeah, you want to get some dinner?

'Next morning, we are off to the Grupo Lobo Wolf Sanctuary

'to find out if we can get a female for our pack.'

Do you want to see our centre?

'Professor Fonseca is a world leader on the Iberian wolf.'

That is not so bad.

'We leave Dad and the professor to talk while we go off

'and look for wolves in the sanctuary.

'But it's not easy. This place is huge!'

The people who volunteer and work here are so lucky.

They get to sit here for hours, really.

I wouldn't get bored, would you?

I would never get bored!

-There's one, there's one!

-Where is it?

-There, there, there!

-Where's there?

-There.

-Where is there?

It's very specific. Oh, it's gone!

It feels really, really good

to be finally in Portugal climbing up a tower

and searching for wolves this way.

It's just really, really good.

So, what have you been doing today?

We've been looking at wolves.

You have seen wolves? Because I haven't.

-Six or five wolves.

-I've been talking about wolves.

How did it go?

We can't get a wolf from here,

but he does know of some other wolves that are moving

which he could give to us in the next few weeks.

He's the best-placed man in Europe to get us a wolf.

I can't really believe that Portugal is coming to an end, the trip.

Thinking back, we arrived here after about a 20-hour ferry trip to Spain.

But then when we got to the destination, it was really cool

to just be able to hang out with wolves around us sometimes.

Sometimes there was all poo around us.

And the dogs.

The views, of course, were amazing.

Even in the drives.

-And, of course, Duarte's dog.

-And the tracking.

Everything, I think, is my favourite. I couldn't pick.

Holiday is over and we're back at the zoo.

But it is good to know Professor Fonseca

is on the case to find our pack the female wolf they need.

After us going to Portugal

and doing all that hard work, research and things like that

and we didn't come back with one, it's quite disappointing,

but it's good to hear that we will be getting one soon.

But the good news is our marmosets are about to move in.

They are put into the vet rooms to settle in.

-They're so cool!

-They're so tiny!

It can be really stressful for new animals to arrive,

so we are just going to put them in the holding pen,

which can be quite tricky.

If we put them in here, it's warm, it's quiet.

It really calms them down.

They have to stay in their indoor enclosure for four days

before they can be released outside.

'But before they can move into their new home,

'our racoons need to move out to a new enclosure.'

They're not scared of the box.

No, no. they're not scared of the box. This is why we do it.

So when we want to shut them in and move them, they won't be stressed.

'That sounds great in theory, but the racoons have other ideas.'

# Because the players are going to play, play, play, play, play

# And the haters are going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate...#

'Four days later, it's time for the marmosets

'to move into their new home.'

It's really great to see the marmosets finally out.

I thought they would be more wary,

but they have climbed right to the top

and one of them has fallen down and scampered up again.

I would love to have more monkeys and apes

because they are my favourite.

In the future, I think I would quite like to be a vet

and I could help with the zoo.

The conservation at the zoo is really important

because it helps rare animals stay alive.

It's really important to keep animals around because

a world without animals really isn't worth living in.

So we really want to keep conservation going.

'We know we're incredibly lucky

'to live with so many amazing creatures.'

'And the best thing is, we never quite know what new animals

'might be coming to join our family next.'

'That's our life living in the zoo.'