Episode 6 Animal Park

Hello, and welcome to Animal Park. I'm Kate Humble.

And I'm Ben Fogle, and we're in the lion enclosure, helping with feeding time.

There are seven lions in this enclosure - six females, and this big male

is the head of the pride, and he's called Charlie.

While Kate and I get on with the task in hand,

here's what's coming up on today's programme.

With cubs on the way, there are dramatic developments in Wolf Wood.

I'll be getting friendly with one of the biggest creepy-crawlies I've ever seen.

-I'm supposed to hold this, aren't I?

-You are!

And when we try to help Alema with her spring makeover,

I'll discover why Bactrian camels are famous for their bad manners.

But it's... Whoops!

But first, we're going to catch up with Trevor and Honey, the ostriches,

to see how they're getting on with the new clutch.

A few weeks ago, I was helping to make a nest and to fill it with the eggs that Honey had been laying

here and there, all over the park.

But when we finished, there was no guarantee that the ostriches would actually decide to sit.

Now Kate's gone up to find out the latest.

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

We've come down to see Honey, the ostrich, who doesn't look very well, lying about like that!

She's actually sat on about 22 eggs.

-22?!

-Yeah. She's been laying like crazy.

-We normally get an egg every other day.

-Wow!

And she's sat on them properly now, and she's starting to incubate them.

And how long does that incubation take?

-40 days.

-But 22 chicks, that sounds like a lot.

-No.

I think in the wild it's 5% or 10% of...

hatch out of the eggs, and 5% or 10% of those chicks that hatch

survive, so it's a very, very high mortality rate.

But even here where there aren't any predators...or are there dangers for them out here?

You'll get the giraffe come down here and occasionally we get the odd egg smashed

where the giraffe are paddling in the nest, and Trev and Honey are running around demented

trying to protect their eggs.

These two are doing all the proper stuff, it's just lovely to watch.

It seems strange, looking at her lying that way...

You can understand her body being sort of spread out to cover the eggs, but why the neck down?

You'd have thought she'd put the neck up, to look around.

This is where the myth of ostriches hiding their head in the sand comes from.

If we ever have to shove eggs in, because she stirs all the eggs up and turns them round

she'll kick eggs out from underneath her.

When you shove them back under her, she'll lay her neck straight out flat across the floor,

so if there's any what she perceives as a threat, she'll just lay her head flat out

so it doesn't make a silhouette.

She'll just...

-From a distance...

-She looks like a rock or a small bush or something like that,

so it's a defence thing but that's where the thing of burying their heads in the sand comes from.

-So they don't actually do that at all.

-No, not even an ostrich is that daft to put its head in the sand!

Now, it looks like Honey does all the sitting

and Trevor, who actually WAS right here, disappeared completely uninterested over there.

Does he not do any of the brooding of the eggs?

Yeah, the males do the night shift

because that's the really dangerous time because it's dark

and that's when predators may come and take them

so you'll have the big bad lad sat on the eggs at night

so he's going to be far more of a threat

and he can defend himself better, so these guys swap over,

around four or five o'clock every evening. Trevor comes to do the night shift and Honey starts feeding

-and does her own thing all night.

-That's nice to hear, that chivalry isn't dead in the ostrich world!

He's a modern man. He takes his turn. And the males as well,

when the eggs hatch, the males will do most of the protection and looking after the chicks.

The females are pretty much done then. When the eggs hatch, it's the middle of summer,

so you have these little, like, bumble bees, almost, running around.

And a couple of years ago we had two baby giraffe out here and two baby ostrich,

and there was more queues of cars for the baby ostrich than there was the baby giraffe,

so people love them.

We'll keep our fingers crossed that there are more of them this year.

-Andy, thank you very much indeed.

-OK.

HOWLING

Up in Wolf Wood, there's been a dramatic development.

The last time we were here, we heard that Freda, the alpha female, was thought to be pregnant.

That was as expected,

and everyone was hoping that this would be a bumper breeding season, just like last year.

But recently, as signs of the pregnancy finally started to show,

keeper Bob Trollope noticed that Freda was not the only female who was looking round in the belly.

This year we've got two females that are pregnant.

One, you can see just up by the road there.

That's Freda.

That's the alpha female.

But we also have a lesser-ranking female that's pregnant as well.

She's not actually here at the moment because she's very close to her den site.

She doesn't tend to go very far away from there.

So it's an exciting time of year for us.

It may be exciting, but it's also a worry.

The wolf pack works best as a team, when everyone knows their place in the hierarchy.

Normally it's only the alpha pair that will breed because it's the strongest pair,

so the offspring would be, obviously, stronger.

You do sometimes get another female that will come into season,

but if the alpha female is doing her job, then she'll suppress that season.

She does that by dominating and stressing the other females.

It's the natural way that wolves control the birthrate out in the wild,

where the food supply is usually scarce.

Of course, here at Longleat, they don't keep any of the animals in a state of constant hunger.

In the wild, if there was plenty of food around, plenty of animals to hunt,

then the female would allow another one to get pregnant.

And now there are indications that both Freda and the other pregnant female

are only days away from giving birth.

We've noticed that they have been building little nest sites,

so that's a positive sign.

Plus the fact that, on Freda, you can see signs that she is, sort of, imminent.

So the keepers are also doing what they can to get things ready.

We're not allowing anyone up to the Wolf House.

We're basically trying to keep that as quiet as possible.

We haven't mucked the house out for a week, just so that any wolf that's going in there

is obviously leaving their smell down there, so it's a bit more alluring for the females to go in there

and find somewhere quiet for themselves to give birth in.

This year, the keepers have gone to extra lengths to encourage the wolves to have their cubs indoors.

A few weeks ago, they built a wooden den and installed it inside the Wolf House.

The hope was that the mums-to-be would find it cosy and safe, an ideal nursery.

In the past, cubs have always been born out in the enclosure

in one of the many dens the wolves dig under the roots of the trees.

The problem with that is there's always the risk that the dens could flood after heavy rain,

and of course, there's no way for the keepers to monitor the cubs in case of emergencies.

The wooden den, on the other hand, has been fitted with a spy camera

so that we and the keepers will have a chance to see the new cubs actually being born.

For now, though, Bob's using the camera to check for encouraging activity inside the den.

It's pretty hard to say who it is at the moment, but it looks like a young female.

She's actually in...nest-building, she's actually making a nest,

which is...

You don't normally see them do this.

We know they do build nests...

Like most dogs, to make themselves comfy, they'll turn around... but these are more in-depth.

They're building the banks up a little bit, which is a good indication

that they're going to be giving birth pretty soon.

But while this young mum seems to have settled on the wooden den

as the best place to have her cubs,

Freda, the alpha female, hasn't yet been seen anywhere near it.

Perhaps she's intending to stick to the traditional hole in the ground,

but of course we only need one litter to get some pretty special footage.

This is really exciting because we would never see this.

In previous years, they've always burrowed under the trees and give birth in total secrecy.

As soon as we got these cameras set up, it's brilliant for us to be able to keep an eye on them

and also to see how many cubs are born.

Because we don't know until the first few weeks.

Within the next day or two,

I'd put money on the fact that this one is going to give birth.

You know, she's...

She's acting how you'd expect a pregnant wolf to act.

But this is her first pregnancy, and there's still a lot that can go wrong.

We'll be back later to see what happens in Wolf Wood.

Recently, an era came to an end when Ken Windess retired as house steward,

but after a short break, he was back in a new job, and as busy as always.

I'm up in Longleat House with conservator Ken Windass. Ken, what's happening today?

I'm going to make some bobbins for the curtains in the Green Library.

-OK.

-Similar to that.

-This is a bobbin, is it?

-That's right, yeah.

-What exactly does a bobbin do then?

It's part of the curtain arrangement.

It's part of the tie-backs. You've got a gold rope that runs through...

Goes through it...and it's to hold the curtain back, is it?

-That's right, yeah.

-And how many of these have you got to make?

-11.

-11 of them.

Ken, you've sort of come full circle in the house, haven't you?

-You started doing this job, then you became house steward for 15 years, was it?

-15 years, yeah.

And now you're back here in this room. How does it feel?

Strange, really, sort of a time warp.

-No-one has actually done this job in the interim, have they?

-No.

So is it sort of where you left off? Are there literally still jobs...

There's literally jobs I've got to do that I sort of started over 15 years ago.

-That must be extraordinary!

-Yeah.

-But you feel happy in here, don't you? This is the grass roots of Ken.

-That's right, yeah.

So what other things are going on in here then?

Well, I mean, we've got this sort of thing, the doll's house...

-repairs to the doll's house. The windows are broken.

-And who discovers there's a bit of glass there

that's broken... And who discovers all these things?

Just everyone who's going around the house?

Generally speaking it's the cleaners. I rely heavily on the cleaners to pick up things on a daily basis

that are falling off or broken or something like that.

Then once I get those sorts of things, then I obviously repair them.

And how do you prioritise? Or do you just work...

I try to, but of course, sometimes you can't.

Sometimes things need to be done immediately even though they're not perhaps so important as older ones.

I'm amazed that this is actually a room within the house that's your workshop.

There aren't many workshops have such a fantastic view outside.

What else have we got here?

We've got an antique table here that wants a bit of tender loving care, a bit of restoration on that.

Right. Is this a new table? Is this one that's just come in recently?

Yes, from Lady Bath's library.

She wanted me to do this while she was away.

And what's this is intriguing thing over here?

-This rather dangerous-looking thing here is...

-Is that woodworm?

-It's woodworm, yeah.

-They've got to be renewed totally.

-And what is it?

-It's a back plate for the elk horns.

The elk horns? Of course, yes.

So have you got to literally make a new version of that to then remount the elk horns?

There's five of those to do.

I suppose with a house this large, Ken, there are constantly things needing repairs,

obviously, but also breaking.

Yeah, I mean, I've got a drawer full of things here that...

This is the sort of thing that the cleaners actually give me.

-So as they're cleaning the house, they'll find... Can I dip in and pull something out?

-By all means.

So that, for example, they'll have discovered in the house somewhere?

-Yeah.

-And will they know where it belongs?

This is why it's important for them to tell me. Because you've got an envelope similar to this,

that's come off the table underneath the Cobhams'.

-OK.

-Right?

Can we see what's in there?

You can, yeah, we can open it up.

They give it to me sealed, so obviously...

-So it's a surprise!

-It's a surprise to me!

We're looking at pieces of...

-OK, so there's little bit of...

-That's a little bit of gilt...

That needs to be replaced.

And you'll basically, once you've got time,

you'll pick this envelope, go out, either bring the piece of furniture in here...

-Will you work out of the workshop as well?

-Oh yeah. It depends what it is.

If you're talking about a big desk or something like that, then it can't be dragged all the way in here.

So I need to cordon the area off and do it there.

You must be a very busy man, Ken. That's all I can say.

Let's put those safely back in there for a rainy day.

I think I'd better leave you to it.

You've got 15 more bobbins to make, do you?

-No, there's another 10.

-Another 10.

-You've got your work cut out for you.

-That's today, anyway!

-Thank you very much! Good luck.

-Thank you.

I'm up at the new area with head of section, Tim Yeo, and keeper Kevin Nibbs.

Two of the Bactrian camels. Who have we got here, Tim?

Kate, we've got Alema here, in the foreground, the white one, and her mother, Mrs Bruce, in the background.

Now, I have to say they're not looking at their best at this time of year, are they?

-They're looking a little bit ragged.

-I think it's fair to say that, isn't it?

They do look scruffy, don't they?

-But this is an entirely natural process.

-Exactly. It's an annual sort of event,

when their winter coat starts to come away and it's just beginning now,

and I mean, where you can see it's sort of hanging from...

Yeah, I mean, can we go and have a look at Alema here?

Kevin's doing a wonderful job of distracting them.

It comes off in great kind of mats, doesn't it?

-It does, it certainly does, yes.

-Can you just pull it out?

Absolutely extraordinary. It's so thick and woolly...

You'd think this could be used for something, actually.

I think most certainly.

I think, just like we use our sheep's wool in this country and around the world, I think that in Mongolia,

where these animals come from,

I think the local tribes that live in that area would use this very much.

It would make amazing blankets, wouldn't it?

-It's fantastically...dense wool.

-Yes.

Exactly, I mean... SNORT!

-Oh, dear!

-She's just done a big snort at our poor cameraman!

That wasn't very polite, wasn't very polite at all! Right.

Is that because you're hurting her?

Why do we need to actually remove this for her?

I must admit, we... SNORT!

I think she resents the camera up so close there, which is why she's eating...

She's saying, "I'm not looking at my best, don't do close-ups, OK?

"Just back off, back off."

Does this hurt, this removing it from her?

To be honest, it would be...

Thank you very much, love! Thank you.

It would be if you kept, sort of, tugging.

I think you probably have to know when to stop, really.

I think we probably need to perhaps do that!

Whoops!

It can get worse than that, believe me!

She's not impressed with us at all, is she?

But why do you need to help her out with removing this hair?

Surely it just falls off naturally, doesn't it?

It does, Kate. It'll come out on its own perfectly well.

I must admit, we tend to remove it ourselves

because if we don't, it gets strewn all over the park and it looks like a rubbish tip out there,

although it's only camel hair. But when it's ready to come, we do help it along and collect it.

I have to say we like to leave some of it, a small amount of it

for birds to use for lining their nests, which they do very much.

Yeah, it would make a wonderful nesting material!

Well, Alema, we look forward to you looking sleek and beautiful and perhaps improving on your manners!

Tim, Kevin, thank you very much indeed.

Up in Wolf Wood, they've been looking forward to the birth of two separate litters of new cubs.

For the second year running, Freda, the alpha female, was pregnant,

but in addition, a young female was also expecting.

And it looked like she'd have her cubs in the new wooden den in the Wolf House,

which has been fitted with a tiny spy camera.

But when Bob Trollope and Brian Kent came in this morning,

they found that the young mum-to-be was missing.

I had a look round the section, couldn't find her for ages.

I thought perhaps she's gone inside and had her pups.

I kept on looking for a while, to try and find her.

Eventually I did. She was outside,

laying down...dead, unfortunately.

There was no sign whatsoever to warn us, of something going wrong.

It was just one of those things unfortunately that does happen.

A post-mortem revealed that the young female had suffered pre-natal complications

and a deadly infection had set in.

Death would have come quickly and the cubs had no chance.

It was unexpected. You don't expect that.

It's just turned up and she was there dead, unfortunately.

It's not very nice, but there was no other signs, that we know of, wrong with her.

I saw her a few days ago. She seemed fine.

She was even coming in here, hoping she was going to use it to pup down.

But now Bob and Brian still need to get things ready for Freda, the alpha female.

Perhaps with the other one gone, she'll come and have her cubs in the wooden den.

We've actually cleaned out the box, something that we weren't gonna do initially

but we've thought out it and if there are any smells in there, it's a bit too strong.

Just to encourage Freda in there, we've put clean bedding in.

Hopefully fresh smells...

she might just come in and hopefully give birth in the den.

Prior to today, it was the young female that was using the box more than Freda.

Hopefully we want to encourage her in a bit more.

But the next day there's another surprise.

Freda was spotted acting strangely.

We came in to check all the cameras were still working,

and we noticed that she had laid up in a bed of nettles.

On walking back to the vehicles,

we could hear some whimpering noises

and it was...obviously she'd started to give birth.

And, lo and behold, she actually picked one up and wandered off with it.

So we knew she had given birth.

It was an amazing sight to see something that had just been born.

With her cubs out in the open, Freda's likely to be very protective,

so it's vital for everyone to stay well away.

Bob's been watching what we're getting with our camera which has a powerful telephoto lens.

They're a really dark colour

which, I suppose, if she had given birth in a den, a tree or whatever, they'd blend into the surroundings.

From what we can see of them they do look very, very healthy.

They're all doing what we'd expect them to do.

They're all tucked in near Mum.

There's a possibility we've even seen them suckling but it's hard to tell.

The other members of the pack have rallied round

to help Freda look after the new cubs.

They're amazing. If she was to get up and go for a drink

then there would always be someone protecting those cubs.

There would always be a babysitter.

This is a big team effort just to raise these cubs.

They are young. They're not even 24 hours old yet.

So we've got a long way to go, yeah, honestly.

Needless to say, we'll be there to follow all the action later in the series.

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

an enormous crowd of people and an African millipede.

Darren, this is an extraordinary insect - it is an insect, is it?

Well, it's slightly different to your normal insect family.

This is, as you can see, a millipede, by the legs

but people always get confused between millipedes and centipedes.

The millipedes have two pairs of legs on every single segment. Can you see that?

-Yep.

-The centipedes are the meat-eating ones that only have one pair.

So it's not true that a millipede has 1,000 legs and a centipede has 100 legs?

No, we believe an adult centipede maybe has 200 at the maximum.

This can have anywhere up to 200, 300.

So millipedes are the plant-eaters.

-They live on the forest floor and eat all the old leaves.

-OK

That's your first ever recycler here. These are the things that create the good soil for the plants to grow.

I'm assuming there's not much difference between the head and the bottom?

Sorry, Mr Millipede! Presumably those are the little antennae...

Yeah, that's the antennae, and they have fairly poor eyesight.

They rely on chemical sensors. They come out when it's dark or perhaps first thing in the morning,

-and they feel their way along the forest floor.

-Are you holding that?

No, he's actually got me there, Ben.

So have the legs got little kind of claws?

-Tiny little spikes on the end of their leg. It feels a little like Velcro.

-Right.

You put on your clothes... So he has to feel secure. I wouldn't wave him around cos he'd drop.

Darren, I know that you bring some of the animals out

to show everyone but you're gonna sex this today, is that right?

Well, we have several of these and we always get asked questions about its name and where it comes from

but it's always handy to know if you're dealing with a boy or a girl.

Millipedes are actually not that difficult, but you have to look very, very close.

-What we're looking at, see on the legs here at the front.

-Yes.

-If you count seven segments back.

-Right.

-They have two pairs of legs.

It's easier said than done, with the legs moving.

They have two pairs of legs on every segment.

Except in the adults, roughly seven segments back, there's a gap because they've lost those legs,

and that helps them when they meet the girl millipedes. So I'm looking very closely here.

-Yeah.

-One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... I'm looking down there.

-There looks like there's a bit of a gap there.

-There's a gap.

To me that would say this is going to be a little boy.

Or a big boy, should I say.

Does that mean you can name it? Do you name a millipede?

We normally let the visitors... Give him a name?

-What would you call him? It's a boy.

-I dunno.

-What do you want to call him? Come up with a name.

-Ben!

-John! John, the millipede.

There we go, it's settled.

-Have you ever seen a millipede before?

-Er, yeah.

-Have you?

-I bet not that size, though.

-No.

-You're not scared of it, though?

-No.

You're braver than me. At which point I'm supposed to hold this.

-You are really.

-I beat you to it. Shall I...?

Normally what we do is rest your hand there and because he can't see you,

he'll tap you with his antennae and hopefully he'll go for a little walk once he feels safe and secure.

Here he goes.

What sort of environment does a millipede like this need? Warm...?

Yeah, fairly warm, these tropical ones, the African ones need warm.

We keep them in heated tanks and bring them out on nice, sunny days like today.

Really, in the wild, millipedes will live on the forest floor,

particularly in the leaf litter, and they will... Oh, there we go.

They will eat just about anything they come across, so any of the vegetation.

All the soil, or all the nice stuff, comes out that end.

-Wow! He's surprisingly fast and very heavy.

-He likes you.

-OK, Darren, you can have him back now.

I'm on my tea break now, mate, sorry.

OK, that's it from me and John and millipede.

Kate and I are up in the tapir enclosure

with deputy head of section Ryan Hockley and some of the tapirs here.

-Ryan, this is...

-Jethro.

-And that's Jessie?

-Yeah.

-And we've still got Gomez with his stripes over there.

He's gonna be a couple more months before he loses those.

So we've got to make the most of it while we've got them.

I think they look better with stripes!

Is he still dependant on Mum, or is he eating hard food as well now?

He's taking a lot of hard food now, Kate, but he still suckles off Mum.

-You can see he's really solid, he's doing ever so well.

-Yeah.

He could do without it, I think it's comfort suckling, really.

When will she finally say, "Sorry, Gomez, but you've got to go and look after yourself"?

Probably within about five or six months time.

That'll be the time when she'll really just kick him away from her teats and say, "That's enough."

Presumably he's proving really popular with all the public?

Oh, every time people get out of their cars and approach the section you hear all the "oohs and aaahs".

I'm surprised he doesn't have a bigger head!

Well, he's gorgeous. Thank you, Ryan.

Sadly, that's all we've got time for on today, but here's what's coming up on the next Animal Park.

A baby camel's born with a dodgy leg.

Will he ever be able to stand up for himself?

It's breeding time in the aviary, with not an ugly duckling in sight.

And I'll be taking a chance in the lions' den.

Oi! Hey! Go on!

When you bend down, you're vulnerable.

I feel even more vulnerable now!

So don't miss the next Animal Park!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2007

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