Episode 4 Animal Park

Over the years, we've tried to bring you closer than ever

to the animals here in the park, and today,

we're trying something a little bit different.

Yes, we've invited a top cameraman, who's worked on some of the BBC's

greatest wildlife shows, including Planet Earth,

to see what he can get with his very specialist equipment.

Now, getting a killer shot of these guys, the lemurs,

isn't that difficult. Even Kate and I could do that.

But today, we're going to find out how he gets on with some of the

fastest feeders on the planet.

I think I might swap my Labrador for one of these!

-Seriously. Or I'll just paint her tail.

-Aw!

All this week, we're bringing you the latest goings on from the park

for our Easter specials. Coming up today:

It's the annual weigh-in for these mighty giants,

but how do you weigh a rhino?

-SNORTS AND GRUNTS

-I don't think he's too happy about having his weight taken today.

We discover the lengths the keepers go to when they step in

to raise the animal orphans.

This isn't just a nine to five job, being a zookeeper, that's for sure.

And the vital TB testing continues across the park.

But what will be the outcome?

Obviously, we're hoping for a clear result and that TB's not an issue.

That's the hope.

Now, I've been lucky enough to come behind the scenes

to meet the two newest additions to the carnivore section.

Yet to be shown to the public, somewhere over here,

we have a beautiful Eurasian or European wolf called Alyeska

and hiding in the back there, prowling, is Django.

Now, tell me a little bit about these guys.

They're obviously from Europe and Asia.

How do they differ from the timber wolves that you've already got here?

So these guys are a little bit more tawny in colour

than the Canadian wolves.

The males tend to be sometimes a little bit larger.

Is there any specific reason that the male is hiding

in the back there? Have they already got unique character traits?

Yeah, they've both got their own characters.

Soon after she arrived with us, it quickly became clear that

she's the more confident character out of the two.

She'll investigate things new first and once he's seen her

safely encounter with something, he might come in after,

so she's actually the braver one of the two.

John, are you hoping that these become a pair

and actually mate and you have young cubs here?

The plan is that these two effectively become our new pack of wolves we have here.

We're slap bang right in the middle of breeding season at the moment,

which generally runs from about January to April.

So hopefully, if these two get on and have lots of little

youngsters, they'll be the next generation of wolves.

Guys, thank you so much for introducing me

to these magnificent creatures.

The public are in for a real treat, that is for sure.

There you go.

There's a lot of hungry mouths to feed here,

with over 1,000 animals calling the park home.

In Animal Adventure, lead keeper Kim has her work cut out.

This section houses the widest range of weird and wonderful species.

Catering for them all individually is no mean feat.

Feed time down here at Animal Adventure can be

a massive operation, so there's so many different animals

and there's so many different types of food.

Some of it's fruit and vegetables,

some of it's live food, some of it's meat,

so obviously it takes us an enormous amount of time to get it all ready.

And obviously, we're feeding continuously throughout the day.

Kim's worked here for 12 years, but she's never actually seen

properly how some of the animals feed.

There's one or two that fascinate me in a way,

that it's so fast and it's so secretive sometimes,

that it will be really cool to have that option to be able

to watch them properly and see exactly how everything works.

To see exactly how these super fast feeders actually eat,

we've called in world-class cameraman Louis Labrom.

He's filmed everything from komodo dragons in Indonesia

to jumping vipers in Mexico.

His state-of-the-art camera is capable of capturing

high speed action and showing it in slow motion.

Sometimes, wildlife film-making can be a real challenge.

You tend to spend a lot of time waiting around

for not a lot to happen.

Luckily for me, today, the animals are already here, they're handled,

so we're going to get them out and we're definitely going to see them.

That's a dead cert. And the only hope is that they're hungry.

Louis rigs up a mini studio.

Then it's lights, camera,

action!

Kim has the first creature at the ready.

-Oh!

-SHE LAUGHS

I've got a huge... I've got a massive phobia of frogs.

Well, this is a toad. This is Michael.

And Michael is a cane toad.

-Yeah. If you could just...

-He's very cool.

-That'd be great.

Oof!

Cane toads prefer their food on the move.

They press their tongues to the roof of their mouth to release

a sticky substance, then flick it out to trap their prey.

A flick of the tongue lasts milliseconds,

so their prey would never see it coming.

But Louis's camera is capable of showing the action 60 times

slower than real life. So we'll see every detail.

Oh, dude, come on!

Michael just needs to catch his runaway dinner.

I think he has stage fright.

You just don't want it, do you?

Next.

Even tame wildlife can be incredibly difficult to film.

Sometimes, they're just not in the mood. Sometimes, they're not in the right environment.

Sometimes, they just aren't feeling it on the day

and you can't do anything about it.

So you've just got to sort of wait and see. Optimism.

Maybe the next contender is hungry for fame.

This blue winged praying mantis will stalk its prey and grab it

with its strong front legs.

-Yeah, I think we got that.

-Go!

Yeah!

-That's amazing!

-Right.

The mantis grabbed its prey in a fraction of a second,

but Louis's camera has captured it in super slow-motion.

-Here we go.

-Oh, yeah.

So, she's spotted it. She's just lifting up her head.

You'll see her front legs start to come out any second.

There she goes. Ready?

The mantis extends its claws and grasps the cricket.

Oh, that's so cool!

Then bites its head off, before devouring it.

-She's like, got it, it's done.

-That's amazing.

Last to go under the spotlight is Bullseye the chameleon.

Just chill there, bro.

This is the animal Kim is most keen to see in action.

I'm so excited to see this.

The fact that we're going to get to see her so close up

and so slow is just going to be fabulous.

A chameleon's tongue is extremely long,

up to twice the length of their body.

And very sticky.

They fire it out with four times more force than a fighter jet.

Kim's at the ready with a yummy cricket.

Hopefully, I'll catch this.

It's very quick.

(Come on.)

He doesn't seem hungry.

Maybe he's in the mood for a waxworm.

Let's see how he goes with this.

Oh. No.

No.

Next time, Bullseye.

And it's nil points for Bullseye.

It's really unfortunate that some of the animals weren't going to do

it today, and unfortunately, that's the very nature of what we do.

Wildlife film-making is incredibly difficult.

The Blue Planets and the Planet Earths,

so much time is invested in it because you never can be too sure

whether or not the wildlife's going to do what you want it to do.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't,

but unfortunately, today just wasn't our day.

Louis's determined to get Kim the chameleon footage she's after.

So he'll be back to give it one more try.

We'll be showing you the results later on.

The first animals to be introduced here 50 years ago were the

park's iconic lions.

The original group was made up of mostly young males.

Nowadays, the females outnumber the males.

In the wild, it's these hardworking lionesses who do the hunting

and the keepers are always coming up with ways

to keep those hunting instincts primed.

The latest scheme is to pit them against one another in

a game of tug-of-war.

Jean's joining keepers John and Caleb,

as they prepare to put it to the test for the first time.

So, we've got a long length of rope that weaves between the big loop

we've got on the top of this pole and then we're going to have

a grabbing device that they can kill, basically, on both sides.

-And you're hoping to get a battle.

-Yeah, yeah.

I suppose this is going to test all their natural instincts cos

with lions, we know that they like anything new, anything fun,

they like to explore and they're actually watching us over there.

So they know that something's going on.

And we've also got lion log cam down here to get some great

close-up shots. I'm excited about this.

-Let's get in the car.

-OK, let's do it.

-They're on their way.

-And here they come. They're on their way.

-They're taking their time, having a sniff around.

-Yeah.

Just exploring this new toy that's been left out for them.

-They're just sniffing the log cam.

-Someone's getting high up there.

That's great, isn't it?

Yeah, Pepper likes to jump up and pull on things.

Yeah, I think Malaika's got hold of the other side now as well.

-They're splitting into two teams now, which is exciting.

-Yeah.

-What's happening here?

-That was Sweetpea trying to...

She wants control of it. That's what Sweetpea wants,

so she's trying to get quite feisty with the others.

And that aggression has come from the fact that it did suddenly move,

so they think that it's getting away.

They'll only stop when it stops moving,

or they think they've killed it,

so as long as someone else is playing on the other side, they're just grappling to try and stop it.

So that's what Sweetpea's doing. She's putting all her body weight into it.

She's got it on the ground, so in her mind,

she's actually killed it already

and the other one at the top's pulling it.

They're starting to work together, those two on the left-hand side.

So one of them's got the bulk of the weight on the ground

and pulling the slack up and then the other one's trying

to gain a bit of an advantage, pulling down.

So they would work together in the wild,

so if one of them sort of can control the weight,

then the other ones start to help pull them down as well.

They can hold them there for quite some time, can't they?

Yeah, they have been known to hold on to buffalos and things

for anything up to an hour to try and bring them down.

-So it's a group effort in the wild, with the females.

-Yeah.

Is there one that will do that initial attack

and then the others get involved?

Yeah, so what we've noticed is they all sort of have almost

a different body shape, so you'll get some lionesses with really

big shoulders and are really good at pulling,

and then you'll find smaller lionesses like this one

on the side of us now, they're better at chasing,

so they prefer to chase,

so they would kind of herd prey and then you find the bigger,

more muscly ones are designed to grapple with it.

This is a better tug-of-war now. We've got Ghost on one side.

You are not going to win against these two.

Look, they're just, like, digging in. They're not going to move.

He's one of the stronger individuals in this group,

so if one of those two lets go, there will be a change in the...

-What's the chances of one of those two letting go?

-Not a lot.

-Yeah, slim to none.

-But you can see, they're just holding it.

Sweetpea's now having a rest, but she's holding it between her paws.

-Yeah. She is not letting that prey go.

-No.

The tug-of-war has been a huge success and it's been great

to see the power of the pride up close.

This week, we've been following the vital testing for TB,

a killer disease that threatens a lot of the animals

on the park and surrounding farmland.

Many of the endangered species are at risk.

So the veterinary team launched the biggest screening operation

in the park's history.

So far, the lions, thankfully, have tested clear.

Yeah, another pass.

Today, vets Chris and James are at the cheetah house.

They need to perform a skin test on all of them.

The only way they can do that is to sedate them first.

Anaesthetising animals always carries a risk.

But these tests are vital to find out if any of the animals

have been affected.

Obviously, we're hoping for a clear result and that TB's not an issue.

That's the hope, that's what we're hoping for.

If we can get to that place, then restrictions and things

can be lifted and the park can just get on with life.

The cheetahs are in the clear.

The last of the carnivores to undergo testing

are the park's three tigers.

They first arrived ten years ago.

They were just a year old and sisters from the same litter,

named Soundari, Svetli, and Shouri.

Legendary tiger keeper Bob Trollope was put in charge of their care.

It's really enjoyable to have young tigers again, you know?

We're seeing things now that we haven't seen for years,

like a lot more playfulness, climbing up trees, it's great.

And it means that they're happy.

Bob was devoted to the tigers and loved introducing them

to new things. I spent a great day with him,

building their first paddling pool.

That is such a lovely sight, isn't it?

-Well, you can see how well they get on together.

-Yeah.

They are playful, but they don't mind each other's company.

Being solitary animals, you'd expect them to sort of have

their own sort of area, but as you can see,

these lot sort of enjoy their own company as well as the others.

Very sadly, Bob passed away in 2014.

He's much missed, but the way the keepers care for the big cats today

is largely due to his legacy.

-TIGER ROARS

-You OK?

-Yeah.

Svetli is the first of the three sisters to be sedated

for her skin test, and time is of the essence.

We darted over 20 minutes ago.

We've probably got 20 minutes or so before we need really

to be away from the tiger.

It'll start waking up.

Go.

She's put in her pen for the anaesthetic to wear off.

But moments later, Svetli starts convulsing.

She's still breathing.

But she's just clearly had a fit.

This is an unusual and worrying reaction to being sedated.

Vet Chris must act fast to start trying to bring her round.

Do you want to get that into a dart?

That's the reversal.

The team aren't sure what's caused the fit.

It could be a number of things going on.

There could be something going on in its head,

there could be something going on with its liver.

Equally, it may be that as she's coming round,

she's just over-stimulated.

Will you just keep an eye on its breathing for me, John?

Head of safari, John Merrington, has years of experience.

He monitors Svetli while the team

move on to their next patient, Shouri.

I'm going to do the bits I need to in the cage with this one.

Right.

Svetli should be starting to come round now.

Just sticking her tummy out now,

so it looks like she is starting to come round, so hopefully,

it's all good news and she'll be right as rain in a few minutes.

There's just Soundari left to be tested.

TIGER ROARS

But then, Svetli's convulsions start again.

Chris can't examine her without giving her more sedative,

but that could trigger further fits.

There's absolutely nothing we can do.

We're not going to go back in with a fitting tiger.

The risks are too high. We can't...

By the time they're waking up, you'd be crazy.

And to be honest, I just wouldn't let anyone do it.

Full stop.

To help keep her calm, Chris is trying to keep her eyes covered.

We're just having real issues with her. She seems to...

She's coming round and it seems to be the stimulation of looking

to get up that is bringing on this fitting.

The team make the house as dark as possible.

Absence of stimuli, hopefully, will help her recover that little bit

smoother, so we're just giving her as much peace and quiet

as we can, so hopefully it's better for her.

Chris performs Soundari's test by torchlight.

Lovely. Everybody out.

The team won't leave until all three cats are up and awake.

But they're still very concerned about Svetli.

All they can do for her is wait and watch.

They're hopeless when they're under anaesthetic and we're helpless

as well cos we can't go in with them.

She could jump up at any minute, so she's still a dangerous animal,

so we can't rush in there and help her. It's down to her to recover.

But it doesn't make it easier for the keepers that work there

every day to watch.

We spend all our time with these guys.

We get quite attached and it's just seeing them fit,

it's really not nice to see. I haven't seen it before.

It's really horrible. It really sort of gets you.

If that was your pet, you'd want to go in there and just sort of

soothe it and stroke it and just make sure it's all OK.

Obviously, we can't do that with those.

So it's hard to have to be hands off and just watch

a monitor and make sure that everything's OK.

But then, the unthinkable happens.

Svetli's just passed away, I'm afraid,

which we're all really sad about.

It could be anything. There could be something going on in the brain.

Could be something going on in the liver.

Multiple things that can lead to these fits.

I think, unfortunately, we're dealing with an older animal

and with these sedations,

there's nothing risk free and it's just such

a shame that we've got, you know,

this endemic disease in the area that we're having to risk

these animals for to try and get on top of it.

We'll do some tests and stuff on her now and investigate fully,

see if we can find exactly what the root cause of the fits were.

And at least get an answer.

For the keepers, dealing with the untimely death of the animals

in their care is the most difficult part of the job.

And when those animals leave behind babies,

it often falls to the keeper to take over.

Back in 2003, we followed the progress of keeper Bev,

who became a surrogate mother to a baby wallaby after its mother died.

When you're hand rearing any animal, a wallaby,

you have to try and get to feed off a bottle and of course,

this is not natural for a wallaby,

so it's sort of a gradual thing that you've got to do,

by letting them know the milk's in the bottle, really.

The joey needed to be fed every two hours.

Look at this tiny little thing.

Wow!

-So, you've been given the job of mum.

-Yes, I have, yeah.

So far, so good.

-And is it basically a 24 hour job?

-Yeah, so far.

-Really?

In the night, yeah.

Bev named the baby Kimberley and set about providing her

with round the clock care.

In the wild, Kimberley would have remained in her mother's pouch

until she was ten months old, so it was quite an undertaking.

It's just like a human baby cos you've got to get up,

you've got to feed it. If she gets too dirty,

we've got to give her a quick wash to make sure she's clean.

It does take a lot of time, but it's worth it.

Under Bev's loving care, she continued to thrive.

When she was six months old, Kate paid them a visit.

And look at this! Come on, show your face.

Let's have a look at you.

She's such... Look!

Hello!

Look at you!

Oh, Bev! She's looking so well!

She's grown quite a lot since I've had her. She's got more fur as well.

So she's doing really well.

Bev had even created a makeshift pouch for Kimberley.

-So, she lives in this rucksack?

-Yeah, this is her home, basically.

-In the rucksack, yeah.

-And do you carry her around wherever you go?

-Yeah, everywhere I go, she goes with me, on my back basically.

-Really?

She comes home with me.

What if you have to go to the supermarket or something?

She comes along as well, yeah. You get a funny few looks as well.

-I bet!

-It's good, yeah.

You are just gorgeous, aren't you, Kimberley? Yes.

Eventually, it was time for Kimberley

to join the rest of the wallabies.

Come on, Kim. Off you go. Go and see your friends.

But whenever Bev came to visit, she was always guaranteed a cuddle.

Today, the art of parenting in the park continues.

-WHISTLES

-Come on!

Keeper George is mother hen to these flamingo chicks.

So these are four Chilean flamingos.

They range from about one month to two months old.

And we've been hand rearing them from day one, basically.

So, every day, we get them out for a walk.

It's always nice, obviously, when the sun's shining,

but it's very important for their leg development, basically, because they are a long legged bird.

-SHE WHISTLES

-Come on!

We just walk them around here.

Sometimes we'll run a little bit with them,

then they get their wings out as they get a bit bigger,

so, yeah, it's great fun. It's great fun. Highlight of my day.

In the wild, not all the chicks would survive.

In order to give every chick the best chance,

the keepers take all the eggs away for artificial incubation.

When they're ready to hatch, they put some back with the parents

and keep the rest for hand rearing.

Come on then.

These chicks really do see George as their mummy.

When it comes to feeding,

they respond to her as they would an adult flamingo.

You'll see that he's looking up as he's being fed and that's

completely normal. So they'll beg from their parents.

This is how they'll get fed from them.

They get a bit enthusiastic, but we kind of... Oh, there we go.

These youngsters need feeding around the clock.

So George needs to make sure

her brood are looked after day and night.

This isn't just a nine to five job, being a zookeeper, that's for sure.

Oh, I love working with these guys, yeah. It's great.

We'll be catching up with these chicks later on.

-SHE WHISTLES

-Come on.

All of the animals on the park have regular health checks.

As part of this, they often need to be weighed.

Just pop her in the bucket. And she's 4.5 kilos.

Not so much of a challenge with the smaller animals.

But today, it's the turn of Injano the rhino.

Jean's mission is to find out how on earth it's done.

Now, this is not something that's going to happen on

a set of bathroom scales!

How are we going to go about weighing a rhino?

-We've got a much larger set of scales!

-Good to hear it, yeah.

As you can see just behind you there.

Which hopefully, he will put all four feet on and we'll get a really accurate weight from him.

I don't think he's too happy about having his weight taken today.

So I'm just going to pop some nuts down to hopefully keep him in place.

So, you'll encourage him through here, he'll stand there.

-Fingers crossed, yes.

-Right, how do we call him in?

Um, if you want to do it, if you just pull that bit down there

and then pull the handle and the door should slide.

Come on in.

He's quite impatient cos he's ready to go.

Come on in, pop on the scale there.

Good rhino. There we go.

Right, so we've got him on here.

So, your average car is probably around 1,000kg.

I would say he's bigger than that, so let's take a look.

Ah! 1,970. That's almost the size of two family cars.

-He's a big boy!

-He certainly is.

-Yes.

-Are you happy with that?

-Yeah, very happy.

That's a good weight for him.

Males can roughly be between sort of 1,800 kilos to

about 2,500 kilos, so he's pretty good.

He's quite a good weight.

And what are you feeding him to help him maintain this weight?

We give them grazer pellets,

which we mainly use as a reward for doing things that we want

them to do, so I've just given him some there,

so that he comes on to the scales nicely.

And then we also feed them hay as well.

-So not a huge shopping list for your rhinos.

-No.

And his weight looks great,

so I think that's rhino health check done.

During the winter months,

the veterinary team carried out a mammoth screening operation.

After an outbreak of bovine TB on the estate,

all susceptible species had to be tested.

Without the all clear, the park and the nearby farms were under threat.

This is a nightmare. Your business just grinds to a halt.

Go on, up you go, hup!

One of the local farmers, Steve Crossman,

is unable to trade while his farm is on lockdown.

If his herd test positive this time,

it could mean the end of his family business.

He's had the vet there all day and he's just been given the result.

That's the last one and if the bull's good,

we've had a clear test, so we're back in business.

Thank God for that!

That's really good.

We're lucky, we're back in business,

we can sell some cattle now and put some food on the plate.

Ha-hey!

In the park, they've reached the end of their mammoth operation.

All the big cats are TB free.

Total relief, honestly.

It has been very stressful, I'm not going to lie.

Really, really stressful,

so it's just a total relief that we've managed to sort this out now.

TB testing is a long-term issue,

but keepers and farmers on the estate are optimistic

they're now controlling the spread of the disease.

But of course, it came at a terrible price.

The death of Svetli is a shocking loss.

Darren Beasley, director of animals,

understands the pain the team must be feeling.

One of the worst things is when all your planning and all your care

and all the keepers' love doesn't matter

because something outside of your control happens.

The vet's investigation showed she had an underlying heart problem.

There was nothing that could have been done to save her.

It turns out that she had a heart attack, heart failure,

she had a large lump in the middle of her heart.

She's probably had that from pretty much the day she was born

and I hope the keepers just take that thought and say actually

Svetli could have passed away chasing a car

through the safari park or laying in the sunshine.

It was supposed to be and it happened.

The other two, they're our priority now. They're living.

They need the love that those keepers give them and we'll do that.

I've got a good bunch of keepers in there that will give

those tigers everything that they deserve.

Three months have passed since Svetli died.

I've gone to meet my old friend and keeper Ian Turner to find out

how the remaining tigers are getting on without their sister.

Can you let the tigers out, please?

I love this moment.

-Where are they?

-Here they come.

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

-Here they are, look at them!

-Straight towards us, look.

Oh!

Oh, my goodness! Ian, they're looking so well.

-Yeah, I know, they are.

-They look fantastic!

I was slightly worried because of the sad loss of Svetli,

and, I don't know, having not seen them for a while,

I did wonder whether they were going to be looking

a little bit decrepit, but they're not at all!

-No, they're looking fine.

-Absolutely not at all.

They look amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Svetli obviously must have hit everybody incredibly hard.

-And out of the blue.

-Yes.

-Out of the blue, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Have you noticed any sort of effect on them, not having Svetli around?

-They've had a little bit more grumpiness between the two sisters, more than normal.

-Yeah.

Other than that, they've played around and been as normal, yeah.

I mean, I suppose because tigers by nature are fairly solitary

-creatures anyway, aren't they?

-Yeah, that's right.

-So they're coping pretty well.

-Yeah. They're fine.

They're wandering around in the paddock at the moment and everything.

How about the team? How are the team coping?

Because everyone must have been devastated when Svetli went.

It was a major shock.

And obviously, it's like losing a member of the family,

-without being funny.

-Well, yeah.

You've looked after somebody for ten and 11 years,

fed them breakfast and looked after them, it's always a big shock.

Yeah.

And it was.

I suppose I can't help thinking anyway of lovely Bob Trollope,

also not with us any more.

And he was so instrumental in this whole section of the park,

but particularly with the big cats, particularly with the tigers.

-Is he much missed?

-Oh, tremendously.

-And this sort of thing always brings it back.

-Yeah.

-You know?

Yeah.

What about the future now?

-I think the future plan is to bring in new tigers.

-Right.

-So we can physically breed.

-OK.

Which will be really good.

-That would be tremendously exciting.

-Yeah.

If you don't phone me the second that you know that there

might be tiger cubs on the way, I'll never forgive you.

That'll be fine. I'll do that.

Ian, it's always a pleasure to see them. Thank you very much indeed.

Look how magnificent they're looking.

Earlier, we were with Animal Adventure keeper Kim

and top cameraman Louis.

Kim wanted to see close up slow motion footage of the eating habits

of some of the animals in her care.

-I think we got that.

-Go!

-The praying mantis was caught on camera.

Oh, that's so cool!

Kim was desperate to see a chameleon in action.

But once Bullseye was in the limelight, he lost his appetite.

No.

No, not in the mood.

Today, Louis's back and he's

determined to get some killer footage.

Nothing has really changed about the set we've got here.

We've still got the camera, we've still got the lights.

I just think we got unlucky with the animals that we had last time,

so I'm really excited to be back and I can't wait to just bank

those shots and finally go home with a smile on my face.

Kim has selected a chameleon she reckons will give them

a winning performance.

Obviously, last time it didn't work as well as we'd hoped.

We didn't get exactly the right amount of footage and the

feeding behaviours that we wanted.

So hopefully, she's just poking into shot herself now,

this little lady is going to do the job.

So she's our little five-month-old chameleon.

We're hoping that her being younger and obviously

a bit more voracious, she's going to eat a bit more food.

She seems to in her daily life,

so fingers crossed she does it for Louis's camera today.

So, Kim, we're all set up and ready. Let's get her on set.

-Let's let her settle in and see what she does.

-Definitely.

We've got some crickets. So I'll see what she's up to.

OK.

-She's definitely interested.

-Mm-hm.

Very cautious of her surroundings.

This is usually what they do in the wild, isn't it?

Yeah, they naturally have one eye on the food and one eye on you.

So, her mouth's open.

And she keeps extending her tongue, but no strike just yet.

The cricket's escaped.

Yep.

Oh, she's...

No, she's decided she's not going to go for that one.

Here we go, here we go.

She's just getting ready.

Ah, cool. Did you get it?

Got it.

-Wah!

-Excellent! Fabulous! Well done!

So we're just going to have a look back at that cos I just want

to make sure that I got it, for good measure,

because I'd hate to leave and not have the footage.

No, exactly.

OK, so here we go. We can have a look through what we've just shot.

-Cool.

-Let's get to the good stuff.

-If you notice, you're looking at her eyes, look, they haven't moved.

-Mm.

She's continuously watching.

She's not looking around with her eyes any more.

She's just locked in and she's moving her head into position.

Yeah, making sure that it's the direction she's going to go.

She's incredibly patient.

-Here we go.

-So, tongue's a bit further out.

It's amazing how just that tongue rolls ever so slightly further each

time, but she's not going to waste her energy going for a false strike.

-She's going to wait and wait until the perfect moment.

-Yeah.

Which is looking like it's now.

-There we go.

-Wow!

-Wow! Look at that!

-Amazing!

This bit that you can see going back into the mouth there,

-that's all muscle.

-Mm.

-So that's the bit that will grab on and grasp the food properly.

And when it actually grabs on, it's incredibly sticky, isn't it?

-So as it grabs, it then clamps and rolls back into itself.

-Yeah, yeah.

People expect obviously the same as you would see on a cartoon,

that it rolls back in, but that's completely wrong.

A chameleon's tongue is propelled with incredible force.

In car terms, it's the equivalent

of going 0-60 in one hundredth of a second.

-So that's very cool.

-Oh! We got it!

-Yeah!

-Amazing! Happy!

-And it's a wrap!

-What an amazing thing to film.

I'm just super happy and almost quite sad to see her go.

You can always come back and say hello again.

Earlier, we met keeper George taking these four-week-old flamingos

for a walk.

-SHE WHISTLES

-Come on!

They will eventually join the thriving flock of 70 birds

at Flamingo Lake.

The biggest step towards independence

happens at eight weeks old.

Today, these chicks are moving house.

We've hand reared these four Chilean flamingos.

We're at a point now that we can put them out with the flock

and we do that with like a soft release into the rest of the group.

Flamingos don't respond well to change.

So George keeps the process deliberately slow.

The chicks will spend two weeks getting used to this house.

Then, when they feel secure, the doors are unlocked

and they can join their fellow flamingos in the lake outside.

But this door is key to the process of familiarisation.

It means that from here,

they get a bird's eye view of the rest of the flock.

OK, so I'm just going to pull this one across for the day.

So here they can see the other group that are just behind you and

they can see what they're going out into, basically.

Two weeks later and the chicks have just been released.

Jean's with George, who's keeping a close eye on how they're getting on.

-So, they just came out today?

-They have, yes.

That's exciting. How are they settling in?

Yeah, so they're a bit sketchy at the minute.

They haven't actually eaten their breakfast.

Even with some of the grey birds, when they lift their wings,

I can see a flash of pink under there.

Yeah, so they actually start getting pink plumage come through within

a couple of months, and, yeah, it'll start developing under their wings.

The last to go is kind of on their heads, so you can even see like the

previous year's babies cos they're still a little bit grey on top.

When will they turn pink?

It takes a good two years to fully develop their pink plumage.

Two years? Wow!

Watching their behaviours from here,

they kind of all walk together in one direction.

Is that something the chicks will start learning,

-to copy what the other birds do?

-Yes, definitely.

-The drive for them to be part of the flock is really strong.

-Mm-hm.

-It's like a natural instinct.

-Exactly.

Exactly, so they'll look for other birds and they feel safe in numbers.

It must make you feel great when you see the new chicks fitting in

so well with the rest of the flock and then seeing them getting

in to routine, especially when you've hand reared these birds.

Yes, that's what you want when you hand rear any animal.

You want them to be... live a normal flamingo life.

You want them to go on and breed in the future in five years' time,

so yeah, that's fantastic.

So here's to these chicks becoming full blown pink flamingos.

-Let's hope they enjoy this. Get them fed.

-Definitely.

As any parent will know,

it's not always easy putting your kids to bed and this evening is

no different because I've joined David up at the lemur enclosure

and it doesn't look like they're that keen to go inside.

We've got one or two hanging around.

But the first thing I want to know is about the weather.

Now, Madagascar's down near Africa.

It's a lot warmer than we have down here.

Is it fair to say, David, these are fair-weather creatures?

Yes, these guys definitely do prefer the sunshine and warmth.

They are primates, so like us, they don't deal well with rain,

-not a big fan of it.

-And is it fair to say though that they have adapted pretty well,

-these guys, to the British weather?

-I would say so.

They do tend to spend a lot more of their time outside nowadays

-than when they first came.

-Despite the overcast skies today,

it doesn't look like they're that keen to go to bed.

-Good luck.

-Thanks, Ben.

In the meantime, here's what's coming up on tomorrow's Animal Park.

Out of the Batcave and into the clinic.

Can this tiny creature survive his injury?

Finding something that isn't fixable might actually mean

a different ending for tomorrow for him.

-Hold it, hold your line.

-Operation Wolf.

Can this posse of keepers round up one of the world's toughest

-long distance runners?

-We've got one wolf in the paddock

and then one's broken through the line behind us.

And after a jam-packed week of animal antics,

Jean has mastered the art of animal keeping.

They are going mad for this food! They're loving it!