Episode 14 Animal Park

LION ROARS

Hello and welcome to Animal Park. I'm Ben Fogle.

And I'm Kate Humble. We're at the East Africa Reserve with the pygmy goats.

Earlier this year some of the females had a liaison with a rather frisky billy goat.

This is just one of the results.

There were three kids born this year.

The first time there's been any babies here at Longleat for seven years. It's a great success story.

And we've got lots of other stories for you coming from the safari park and the estate including...

There hasn't been a baby eland in the park for eight years,

but could that be about to change?

Oh, my word! Goodness me!

'I'll be meeting the world's largest rat,

'who can grow up to a whopping 2.5 ft long.'

-That's about the size of a cat.

-Yeah, big tom cat!

And visiting Kenyan ranger Patrick gets up close and personal with the parks' big cats.

Feeding a tiger, hand feeding.

That's unusual.

But first...

In the same section as the Ankole cattle and Bactrian camels,

live Longleat's seven female eland.

Eland are the largest and most aggressive antelopes in the world.

Standing almost two metres high at the shoulder,

they can weigh up to a ton,

and are armed with fearsomely sharp horns to protect themselves from predators.

There hadn't been a male eland in the park for eight years.

So, nine months ago, head of section Tim Yeo

decided it was time to bring in a new bull.

He's only a young fellow at the moment.

But...it's yet to be seen

how quickly he will start to breed with the cows.

Certainly, this is going to be very interesting,

letting them out together.

TIM WHISTLES Come on, good lad. Come on.

The bull, named Zambezi, is just coming out of adolescence.

With seven older and more experienced females around him,

Tim could only hope that he wouldn't be overwhelmed and that love would blossom.

# The moon above is shining bright

# Come on boy the time is right

# Here I am

# Take me in your arms and love me... #

It's lovely to see him out. I think he is very happy to be out.

I think we can just start to see that now.

He's running along with them,

eager to join in with them.

From a human point of view, you feel he's enjoying himself.

Zambezi seemed to be getting on well.

But the eland's gestation period is a long one,

so Tim had to wait patiently to find out

if his labours would bear fruit.

Today, nine months on, Tim's spotted something remarkable.

One of the elands seems to be ready to calve.

Most animals do their best to conceal themselves when giving birth,

so it's very rare for keepers to see the actual delivery.

But today we're incredibly fortunate.

The eland goes into labour in sight of our cameras.

Enclosed in its amniotic sac, the calf,

which can weigh up to 25 kilograms, emerges head first into the world.

After cleaning the calf, the mother eland and her baby lie low,

just as they would in the wild to avoid predators.

We've actually not had any births

for about eight years now.

It's wonderful to see them.

It looks a really healthy calf.

It's a bit wobbly on its pegs

but it's trying to find Mum's teat to feed.

She's very attentive

and licking a lot.

That's wonderful.

So far, so good.

But Tim must keep a watchful eye on the calf,

as the first days of life are always tricky for young animals.

This baby's next big hurdle is to be accepted by the rest of the herd.

Earlier this year, deputy head warden Ian Turner took a group of staff to Kenya,

a wildlife hotspot, where many of the species kept at Longleat

roam free in their natural habitat.

The keepers visited the Kigio Conservancy,

a wildlife reserve covering 3,500 acres.

One of their hosts was Patrick Lengilili,

a park ranger and tracker from the local Samburu tribe.

-Here we go.

-Ah!

-We've got some tracks here.

Patrick's worked at Kigio for eight years.

There's not a lot he doesn't know about African wildlife.

-Is that him?

-That's him there.

To strengthen the links between Longleat and Kigio,

the park has invited Patrick to pay them a return visit.

-Nice view of the whole area.

-Nice view, yeah.

Now Patrick has come to Wiltshire, on his first ever trip abroad.

The park's most famous animals are the lions.

Although there are plenty of lions in Kenya, there are none on the Kigio reserve.

So today, Bob Trollope is taking Patrick on his feeding round

to give him a privileged view of Africa's greatest predator.

The lions should be waiting.

-What we do is simulate a hunt.

-Yeah.

So the lions have to work for their food, as they would in the wild.

They've got to chase the feed wagon a good distance

-before they get their reward, which is this...

-I see.

It's to try and mimic as much as we can the wild.

Because we're not allowed to put live prey in here for them, this is the nearest we can get to it.

-So, Patrick...

-Yeah.

-If you want to start picking this meat up...

-Yeah.

..and chuck it out through there, then they will grab it.

-And that's it. Up through there.

-Shall I now?

Yes, please, yeah.

How much do you normally feed these guys?

We work it out to be about 60lbs in weight per lion.

-So it's not every day.

-Not every day, no.

-It's so they don't get used to it and wait for it.

-Yeah.

-We can surprise them when we feed.

The feeding truck also allows the keepers to get a close look at the lions' condition.

-Good boy.

-Happy.

Now we can check him quite closely, all his claws, his mouth.

And he has a good look.

-He's very greedy, he tries to get more than one.

-Wow!

THEY LAUGH

WOLVES HOWL AND BARK

Next stop on Patrick's tour takes him up to Wolf Wood

to feed the park's pack of Canadian timber wolves.

Though they're less dangerous than the lions,

Bob's keen not to get between the pack and its dinner.

-If we get back in here, Patrick, then we'll just move away.

-Yeah.

They will come in and feed.

Bob is an expert in the complicated social dynamics of the wolf pack.

You can see there's a bit of a frenzy at the moment.

They're all eating together.

-But it's a very complex pecking order.

-Yeah.

You normally find that the alpha male, which is the top dog,

-is the one who will get the best place on the food.

-Yeah.

You normally find that some of the younger ones

will stay on the outskirts,

cos they're not high enough up the order to be able to get in there and feed straight away.

Earlier this year, alpha female Frieda

gave birth to a new litter of cubs.

Luckily for Patrick, they have recently emerged from their den into the open,

as they are gradually weaned from their mothers' milk onto meat.

The whole pack will eat as much as they can.

They'll go back to the den.

As they approach the den site, the pups will run out to meet them.

-They will sort of beg for food.

-Yeah.

Every one of them will regurgitate a little bit of food for them,

-so that they can feed on that.

-Wow.

Then when they're a little bit older

they will come closer to the meat and be eating the meat themselves.

There's one coming over now.

It's been a fascinating experience for Patrick,

to see how Bob's careful feeding regime

encourages the animals to display their natural behaviour.

All over the park, keepers strive to make meal times as natural as possible for each species.

For the giraffes, that means replicating the thorny acacia trees

they browse on in Africa, by hanging bundles of tasty leaves high off the ground.

I'm out in the East Africa Reserve with head of section Andy Hayton and warden Ryan Hockley.

Earlier on we put out some browse. Who do we have eating now?

We've got Teresa, Imogen and Chikoola,

and Caroline the camel waiting for anything to drop.

It's a perfect opportunity to see just how a giraffe eats.

What's the process that they go through?

This is quite a thorny bundle of browse up here.

What they're doing, you can see the ends of their tongue coming out

and gently wrapping around the few leaves they are taking each time.

That's presumably why they're so very long,

so that they can strip as many leaves as possible.

They need to be able to wrap round a whole branch sometimes if necessary.

Bearing in mind the size of a giraffe, how much does one have to eat per day?

I think they need to eat about 35 kilograms of food a day.

-Which must be a huge number of leaves, seeing how slowly the process takes.

-That's what they do.

They spend the majority of their day eating because it takes so long

to work through the acacia, because it's monstrous thorns on there.

They have to constantly eat and eat.

I think females feed for about nine hours a day

and bulls for about 12 hours.

Acacia has a lot of water in it as well,

so they don't have to drink that often.

Presumably, it's the same with their neck - they have such long necks,

so they can reach the places other animals can't.

Yeah, originally everyone used to think that was the reason for developing such a long neck.

Nowadays, the line of thinking is it all stems from the males.

The males use their head and neck to spar,

to find out some sort of hierarchy as to who's going to mate with who.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago the males were the bigger neck,

and therefore being able to swing harder, were winning fights,

mating and passing their genes on.

So over thousands of years, these longer necks were developing,

not necessarily for browsing, there's plenty of browsers in Africa without necks like that,

but more to do with the genetics of bigger,

longer-necked bulls winning fights and passing their genes on.

Ryan, what about the youngsters? There's a little one behind you.

Obviously far too small to reach that sort of browse now.

Do the parents ever help, do they rip bits off and drop them down?

Not that I've seen, Ben.

What will happen is the younger ones will act almost like the camels in a similar way.

They'll stand there. Anything that falls, they'll bend down and pick it up.

When we first hang it, obviously, it's fairly low to start with.

They might come in and take the first few low hanging bits.

The adults work so fast on it, that within minutes, you're way up on the browse line

and the youngsters can't reach it.

Andy, they really do seem to love this browse.

How often do you bring some of these out?

We do this daily in the summer.

It's a lot of hard work going out collecting it and getting it but...

-Satisfying to see.

-Yeah, you see the animals out here doing what they should do.

It's what it's all about. It's nice to see.

Andy, Ryan, thank you very much.

We'll leave the giraffes to enjoy their browse.

Back in Big Cat Country,

Bob Trollope is taking visiting Kenyan ranger, Patrick Lengilili,

to fulfil one of his lifelong ambitions.

They're going in to meet the tigers.

-Here we are. Do you want to come along here?

-Safe to get inside?

-Yeah, fine.

-This is a male tiger.

-Yeah.

-He's slightly bigger than the female.

-Wow!

This is how tigers are expected to look.

-They're big, man! They're big.

-Oh, yeah, much bigger.

-A full grown male is much bigger than a male lion.

-Yeah.

Sona has an albino mutation.

Both he and Kadu are Bengal-Siberian cross-breeds, and over 20 years old.

You see how soft she is.

-Do you want to touch her?

-Yeah, she's coming to meet you.

-Yeah, she comes to me. She was hand reared.

-Yeah.

She loves having a fuss. A bit of a tickle.

-Very soft.

-Very soft.

I've never these animals before.

-She wants to sit down. She likes you, Patrick. She likes you.

-Look at the legs!

Massive paws, very big paws.

She's very friendly inside the cage but if she was outside,

-she'd kill you.

-Right.

I'm surprised how he walks around and then just comes around to Bob

and "Urrgh, urrgh, urrgh." HE LAUGHS

Yeah, really surprised how tame they are.

Bob has worked with big cats for 25 years.

He's just the man to teach Patrick about their habits.

She makes this noise called a chuffle,

which is like a "fff-fff-fff-fff".

Fff-fff-fff.

Yeah, very similar to "fff-fff-fff".

-That's to gauge what mood they're in.

-Yeah.

-To avoid conflict...

-TIGER BANGS OFF THE CAGE

-Oh, dear! ..to avoid conflict they will chuffle to each other.

-Chuffle to each other.

If Sona didn't chuffle back to Kadu,

-she knows he's in a bad mood.

-OK. Wow!

Hello, darling. Fff-fff-fff.

PATRICK GROWLS

BOB LAUGHS

She looks happy.

She's very - you know, she's very mischievous, very mischievous.

You have to be careful because she does pee on...

She scents against the cage. There's nothing to stop the scent coming...

-Whoa, out of the way, Patrick!

-THEY LAUGH

-You've got to be quick.

-HE LAUGHS

I like her, I wish I could take her back to Kenya.

To Kigio!

He can't take them home, but Patrick does get a chance to give the tigers a little treat.

-Do you want to feed him, Patrick?

-Yes.

Just put it through there and he will take it off the stick.

There you go. Just there.

TIGER GROWLS

Good boy! Bit dribbly.

Feeding a tiger, hand-feeding, that's unusual.

The visit isn't over yet, and Bob has saved the best till last.

Back over in Tim Yeo's section,

the only eland calf born here in eight years

has survived its critical first 24 hours.

Now the mother has brought the baby out into the open

to meet the rest of the herd.

Proud father, Zambezi, is first to greet them.

They've obviously moved from the birthing area there.

They've moved much closer to the other eland.

Also, Zambezi, the father, has been showing

a bit of interest in the calf.

He's staying very close by.

It's interesting to see that.

For him, he's never seen anything like that before

so it's a first for him.

For the first few days of life,

eland calves are not afraid of humans.

This gives Tim a window of opportunity to get close enough

to find out what sex the baby is

and to mark it with an identity tag.

But while the mother's close by,

it's too dangerous to approach.

Like any mother, protection of the young one is what they do.

They'll put their own life in danger to protect the calf,

so you can't go anywhere near the calf without...

You're going to get some aggression on the part of the mother.

In the wild, eland calves are vulnerable to predators,

so when the mother does leave her baby

she makes sure it's well hidden.

But Tim has been watching carefully, waiting for his chance.

Yeah. That's OK.

She's actually down in the bottom of the valley there.

Eland are capable of killing a man with their long spiky horns,

so Tim has to work fast.

The tagging stings a bit, but it's all over in seconds.

It's necessary to identify the year of birth and sex,

so that keepers can tell who's who from a distance.

This little eland turns out to be a boy, so his tag is green.

The baby antelope is not alone for long,

as one week on he's joined by a second eland calf,

also a boy.

Tim's delighted with the result.

We really are fortunate after such a long break.

We've got two wonderful calves

that are very happy out here in the park,

and spend all their time together, so it's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

We'll be keeping track of the little eland calves throughout the series.

Over at Pets Corner live some of the park's cutest and cuddliest residents.

It's also home to a host of species who are not so immediately lovable.

The latest arrivals are from a family of rodents

with an unfairly bad reputation.

I'm up at Pets Corner with head of section, Darren Beasley,

-and the mystery cage!

-THEY LAUGH

-It's exciting, isn't it?

-It's like a lucky dip in here.

I can see movement under the newspaper, but what is it?

It's my brand new babies, Kate. Shall I move the newspaper?

-I think so.

-You're dying to see.

-I am!

-My God! Goodness me!

-THEY LAUGH

It looks like a cross between a rat and a kangaroo, it's enormous!

They're Giant African pouch rats,

or Gambian pouch rats, from Africa obviously.

-They're just about the biggest rats you'll ever come across.

-Wow!

They're still youngsters.

-Would you believe they're about 17 weeks old now.

-No way!

-Isn't it just incredible!

-How big will they grow when they're adults?

Easily over 2 ft, 45 centimetres, perhaps a bit more than that.

-That's about the size of a cat.

-Yes, a big tomcat!

-All feet, ears, teeth... and fantastic animals.

-Amazing.

These two are brand new to us.

They're still very timid animals,

they're fairly nocturnal animals as well.

This one looks a bit sleepy,

and the other one has got his back resolutely to us.

I'm putting on my gloves here because I'm going in.

They still bite and nip at the moment, they're a bit nervous, but shall I get one out?

Oh yes. I'll pop my gloves on.

Let's have a little look. Hello, mate.

Come on, honey.

I'm just going for your friend here.

Let's go for the sleepiest one of the two. Look at the size of that!

Can I ask you to support it by the base of its tail, in case...

You don't have to squeeze but in case he does run off,

and put your hand on the other side, and away we go. Look at that.

-He's so heavy.

-Are you all right?

-Ooh, yeah!

I feel bad about holding him on the base of the tail,

-because with normal rats, you wouldn't.

-No, he's a big...

-I'll hold him now. He's a big powerful animal.

-He's incredibly powerful.

You've got to support him in the best way he feels comfortable, so I've got him there now.

If you think actually in Africa these guys are eaten.

I'm afraid to say they can be farmed but there is good news.

They have found that they can also - because they have a fantastic sense of smell... This is Phil, by the way.

Phil wants to get back in with his mates.

Because they have such a fantastic sense of smell,

they're being trained to find landmines.

-Absolutely amazing, isn't it?

-That's incredible!

They put haltis on them and they teach them to recognise explosives, and away they go.

They find these grotty landmines that rotten human beings have left lying around.

-You said they were called pouch rats.

-Yes.

They haven't got a marsupial-style pouch, have they?

No, the pouch is under their jaws.

It's like extended cheek pouches.

-So it would work like a hamster?

-Just like a hamster, and they can put huge amounts of food.

Shall we put him back in because I know you're a bit new and this is scary,

but you wait, you'll be a TV star before you know it!

They will take food,

lots of different types of cereals and fruit and nuts they find.

Also a bit of meat product.

They'll catch and eat bugs and things, and a lot of it is stored in these massive pouches.

So they'll end up with these great big...

There you are, he has taken a grape.

If he doesn't eat it straight away, it will go in his pouch for later on.

I love it. Just holding it in his...

That's similar to your normal rats that I'm used to,

very much the holding with hands.

They're very dextrous, aren't they?

They are quite amazing creatures.

The fact now that animals from Africa are helping putting right the mess

that humans have done with the landmines, if they can be taught...

Because all rats are intelligent and these have size on their side too.

You get them on a halti, that's their next step.

If we get them friendlier and tamer, which is happening, this is new to them,

we can get them out and start walking them around on their leads

and show our visitors what wonderful animals these really are.

They really are, they're fantastic.

Thank you very much for introducing us.

Back up in Big Cat Country, there are also some new arrivals.

Keeper, Bob Trollope, has brought visiting Kenyan ranger, Patrick Lengilili, to see them.

-Right, Patrick, shall we go and see the lions?

-Yeah, sure.

Yendi, one of the females in Kabir's pride,

recently gave birth to a new litter.

In the wild, cubs would normally stay hidden for weeks,

so it's amazingly rare to see lions this young.

-Be very careful because she's very temperamental.

-Yeah.

-There she is. You can see there's one suckling.

-Yes.

You have to be a bit careful because she's very protective,

so she most probably sort of... If you get too close she will whoa.

-They are protective when they have babies.

-Yeah.

-These are three weeks old.

-Three weeks old.

They're quite chubby so they're getting plenty of milk.

That's tiny cute babies.

-Very cute. Then think that they will grow into this!

-Yeah, imagine!

They grow very quick, very quick.

They almost double in size every week.

Sadly, Patrick's visit has come to an end.

He's strengthened the bonds between Longleat and his own Kigio reserve,

and has a host of memories to take home with him.

Now his only regret is that he'll have to leave the lions behind.

I'm really impressed about Longleat.

I'm so interested, I wish we could have some of these cats and take them back to Kigio.

At the end of a hot day, there's no better way to relax,

than with a nice spoonful of ice-cream,

in the company of keeper, Rob Savin, and Nelson the Malaccan cockatoo.

I don't actually like ice-cream,

but Nelson, who has been snuggling up to me

in a terribly flirtatious way...

-She's very soppy.

-..I think she might be after this ice-cream.

-She would try it.

-Is she allowed a bit?

Normal ice cream wouldn't be good for parrots.

This has been specially made, hopefully, with a splodge of banana on top, for them to have a little go.

-She's trying it. It's a bit fruity, this one.

-Oh, no!

-She definitely doesn't like that! She says...

-No!

-Off the other way!

-Hello! Where are you going?

-Nelson, you're so ungrateful.

What do you do in hot weather with the birds?

They're quite used to the hot weather,

it's part of their normal environment anyway.

Plenty of fresh water, plenty of drinks available,

and a good spray sometimes as well. She likes being misted. Do you want a go?

If I take this ice-cream.

PARROT SQUAWKS

-Where shall I spray her?

-Just spray over. Hopefully it's on a nice general spray.

A bit more of a mist.

We'll go the other way. If you take your arm back a little bit.

A bit like it's rain, so it's more natural.

THEY LAUGH

-That cools her down.

-Is that good?!

It's a success.

The best part about it, Kate, is that I get two ice-creams.

PARROT SQUAWKS

THEY LAUGH

Nelson, do you want to say goodbye?

PARROT SQUAWKS

That's all we have time for on today's Animal Park, but here's what's on the next programme...

PARROT SQUAWKS LOUDLY

THEY LAUGH

Up at Wolf Wood, these fearsome hunters try their paw at a spot of fishing.

The park has ordered two new safari boats for Half-Mile Lake,

but unless it rains soon, they'll be left high and dry.

And at Pets Corner, keeper John Ovens is making his stage debut.

-Give her a round of applause!

-But his co-stars are acting up.

Get a piece of rubbish for me, Arch. No, don't look at them. Archie!

Archie! I want a piece of rubbish, please.

PARROT SQUAWKS

That's all coming up on the next Animal Park.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd - 2007

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