Episode 9 Animal Park

-Hello!

-And welcome to Animal Park. I'm Ben Fogle.

And I'm Kate Humble and I've just been royally upstaged by a parrot!

This is Matilda, and Ben has got Sunday.

They are Catalina macaws and if you watch this -

they are incredibly dextrous with their beaks and their claws.

They can get through peanuts in seconds!

They can. Well, we've got lots more stories

about the animals and the house, in today's programme, including...

Romeo the otter has a problem in his mouth that could be life-threatening.

He must see the vet,

but he doesn't want to go.

The rhinos like their mud nice and gloopy,

but THEY don't have to worry about losing THEIR wellies!

You've lost your boot!

And Kabir is raising the roof over his cat flu injection.

But the little cubs don't seem to mind.

But first, we're going down to Pets Corner because there's a problem with one of the otters.

The two new pups are now four months old, and they're both fine.

But Romeo, their dad, has got something wrong with his mouth.

The keeper in charge of the otters, Darren Beasley, has called in vet Duncan Williams.

It's going to be difficult to get a close look in Romeo's mouth,

but he has been yawning, so Duncan did manage to get a glimpse of the problem.

Poor old Romeo's got something stuck between his back carnassial teeth,

which are the great big teeth that they use to crunch bones and stuff.

It's right stuck between,

you know, right across the top of his hard palate, so the poor chap can't shut his mouth properly.

I think it'd be pretty disastrous if it happened in the wild, because

maybe eventually it would loosen or free up, but it would certainly impede his eating.

Darren did say he did eat last night, but I find it hard

to comprehend how he managed to chew up his food

and get it into boluses that he could swallow.

So I think if that happened in the wild, it might be fatal.

So something will have to be done.

Romeo needs to go to the vet's surgery for a proper examination.

Now it's up to Darren to catch him - and that's not going to be easy.

They really are the most aggressive creatures I have ever come across.

And having worked with big animals and things in the past as well, these are a nightmare.

Particularly these Asian short-clawed otters, their diet is

basically shellfish, crabs, that kind of thing.

And they have these massive grinding teeth at the back, these molars.

And they have got several different grinding edges on them, unlike any other animal that I know.

And I know of two incidents,

where people have lost fingers - crushed - through otter bites.

The gloves won't be any protection from crushing injuries.

They're only good against cuts and scratches.

Hello. Face to face with my adversary.

Romeo has been shut indoors, while his family are all out in the run.

He hasn't been caught or handled since he arrived here when he was still a youngster.

This could get rough, and will be noisy because, to all intents and purposes, Romeo is a wild animal.

Can I point out now the love I have for hand-reared animals!

Tame animals, anyway! Tame animals, you can whistle, pick up, put in a box, and away you go to the vet.

Wild animals are great -

but they do have their drawbacks.

Darren is planning to go in and try to shoo him into the carry-box, but Romeo has other ideas.

He's out!

Cage! Cage!

OTTER SQUEALS

Get a key! Get a key!

He's got me.

What's the point in having a plan?!

Plans never work out!

Mother Nature and random, I tell you!

Basically, he did...come at me.

He charged, so I took the opportunity to jump on him.

They're designed to be very manoeuvrable!

They are very agile hunters and he can basically almost turn in his own skin, which is what he was doing.

So every time I got him around his head so he wouldn't bite me, he basically was twisting.

So it's a lot of screaming, a lot of shouting for him.

He's scared, you know. It's all right me - my heart's pacing and beating -

but I know what's happening. I know it's going to be good for him.

But he doesn't, he thinks this is his last day on the planet, bless him.

But I'll make sure he doesn't get out in the van. That will be exciting!

So we'll cover him to keep him nice and calm now.

And we'll take him off and make him more better.

Though of course, that depends on exactly what the vet discovers.

We'll be back when Romeo arrives at the surgery.

It's a big day for the lion cubs.

I'm up at the lion house with keeper Bob Trollope and Kabir's pride.

Bob, what's going to happen to the cubs today?

What we're going to do is actually give them a vaccine against cat flu.

-So this is what people do with their domestic cats.

-Yeah.

Where they can take them to the vet's.

Normally, they have to come here, or we can do this thing.

Right, OK. So how do you go about injecting a cub like Malaika?

We'll get this into the meat.

Hopefully, Malaika will take it off the stick and get the dose.

Very clever. So this is why this training of taking the meat off the sticks is so important?

It's very important. You know, it's much less hassle and stress than - a little bit's come out -

than using a dart, obviously.

OK, so shall I see if she takes this?

That's ready now. You can tell she's really eager for that. There we are.

Perfect! Shall we give her one without medicine as a little treat?

There you are, you clever girl!

Yummy! That's it, she's vaccinated now for the next year.

Perfect! OK, shall we see if her little half-sister, Jasira, is going to be quite as good?

Here she is. She's so playful.

She's been really playful this morning, hasn't she?

She has.

Right. Let's get ready.

Now, it doesn't matter that Jasira is a little bit younger?

Well, they're already covered, but what we're actually doing is trying to get everyone in sync, as such.

So next year, they'll all do it together.

Even though they have got cover.

-OK. Ready.

-You're keen as well!

Yep! There you go, girl.

You've got to take yours off to eat.

We've got to be absolutely sure that she will eat it. She's obviously tasted a little bit of...

the medication, which doesn't seem to upset her.

No. Very good.

-Shall we see if she wants one without?

-I'm sure she will!

-Jasira! Come on, darling! Here you are.

-Oh, another big bit!

That's it.

That was very easy!

Getting the vaccine into the cubs may have gone like a dream,

but it's not going to be so easy with the mums, or Dad.

For adults it needs to be administered as an injection -

and they really don't like getting their jabs.

We'll be back in the lion's den later on.

There's nothing a rhino likes better than to wallow in some nice, gloopy, mud.

In fact, it's an essential part of their skin-care regime.

But this muddy patch in the rhino enclosure hasn't happened naturally, it had to be made by the keepers.

And they're constantly trying to improve the design.

I'm out in the new area with deputy head warden Ian Turner helping build a new wallow for the rhinos.

Ian, you didn't move out of the way there quick enough!

So tell me a bit about this wallow?

What's the idea behind it?

Well, last time, we think it was too deep.

It turned into a pond and there was too many stones in the bottom.

So when they rolled in it, obviously, it was hurting the back.

So we've got rid of all the stones and now we'll just fill it up.

I've got the lads to pick up some clay from the hippo field

to bring up here, which you can see, look, is nice and...

Nice and gloopy. So are we going to try and move some of this pile over here?

Yeah, we just need to move it out. Once the rhinos

get used to coming in here, they'll spread a lot of it out themselves.

Is the idea that they use it a bit like a kind of rhino face pack?

-Yes.

-They use this stuff and put it all over their skin?

Yes, so they can get literally covered from head to foot.

It gets on the skin and it dries out in the heat.

And then that flakes off and takes all the dead skin off.

And it's like exfoliating your whole body.

And this is a nice clay, isn't it?

Yes, we are hoping, because the hippos have got such good skin, it works so well down there.

And as you can see, that is really

nice and pliable.

-I see.

-Imagine that.

And the idea is that that will then dry out, will it?

Dry out. And when this rubs off, it takes all the dead skin off.

And does the skin really good.

Is this something that the rhinos are likely to use all year round?

-Whatever the weather?

-They tend to use it more in the summer time.

Winter time not so much, because of the weather.

But once they get used to

a good bath like this, hopefully, it's going to improve their skin.

Their skin tends to go a little bit downhill in the winter time.

We encourage them to use it all year round to make their skin really good.

But it's good stuff, this, it's quite sticky, isn't it?

-You're wallowing already! Do you need a hand?

-That's not coming out.

-Give me your hand.

-My foot might come up!

-I think...

I think we might need a bit of time to get out of here!

You've lost your boot!

This really is industrial-strength mud, so the rhinos should love it.

And THEY don't have to worry about losing THEIR wellies!

Romeo the otter has just arrived at the surgery.

He's got something wedged or jammed in the roof of his mouth,

so the head of Pets Corner, Darren Beasley, has brought him to vet Karen Grabham.

He's very clever at putting his paws through, actually.

Right. So when did you first notice that he had a problem with his mouth?

-Late yesterday afternoon he wasn't shutting his jaw properly.

-OK.

We thought it might be a tooth abscess or something.

But he was eating pretty well normally, and acting pretty well normally.

We thought we saw a glimpse of something like a stone, or something in his mouth.

But he wouldn't open his mouth wide enough.

Otters are quite aggressive, and Romeo is not a tame animal, so the only way that Karen is

going to get a look in his mouth is to give him a sedative drug.

It's a regular anaesthetic we would use for something like a cat.

So, he's of a similar size, he's two-and-a-half kilos, so, you know,

it's kind of cat doses that we'd use for him.

So hopefully, that has gone into his muscle, and he's going to go to sleep fairly soon.

This is the first time that Romeo has ever been anaesthetised, and deputy head warden Ian Turner

has come along to record all the details.

A few minutes later, Romeo is out for the count,

so now we'll find out just what's happened in his mouth.

-Oh, goodness me!

-There it is.

-OK. All right.

-Do you want me to hold him like a cat?

-Yeah, that'd be great.

It looks like - I don't know - a walnut shell or something like that.

Are you a nut expert?!

I'm afraid I am - a bit sad, isn't it?! It looks like a piece of...

could be walnut. I think the dots say almond, actually.

It's probably an almond.

Of course, in the wild, they eat crabs and shellfish,

they're going to get bits of shell stuck up there.

In the wild, that would get infected and he could possibly die from it.

Here, we've seen it, we've dealt with it,

and I'm sure he's going to be absolutely fine now.

As long as he wakes up from this.

He's not done any damage to his mouth. Everything looks intact,

there's no broken teeth or anything, so his mouth looks pretty good.

Apart from he does have a bit of tartar on the teeth.

But that's to be expected and that would happen in the wild as well.

You can see that the teeth are pretty sharp, which is why Darren is being quite cautious.

They can take your finger off.

We've got records now of what's gone on.

It's just to keep a close contact with the animals we've got, so everything can go back on his record.

Show his teeth, show his feet, which you can't get normally close to.

But now we've got it all on digital camera.

But now, while they've got him under sedation, they're

going to take an X-ray - and it's got nothing to do with his mouth.

Asian short-clawed otters in captivity are susceptible to a life-threatening ailment.

Last year it killed Johnny, the previous male otter in Pets Corner.

Because he died so unexpectedly, vet Zoe Meedes did a post-mortem.

The general post-mortem was absolutely fine

until we got to his bladder and found this stone sitting in there.

And then, since then, having a read up on all the literature and things that are

available on these little otters, it's a very common problem in captive short-clawed otters.

Bladder stones are formed from mineral deposits in the urine.

They can be removed by surgery, if they're discovered at an early stage.

With Johnny, his bladder was full of quite a pusy-looking urine,

so I think, the stone sitting there for so long will have caused an infection in the bladder.

And that may well have ascended up to his kidneys and caused his death.

OK, so we're just going to have him lateral on that view.

Bladder stones show up clearly on X-rays.

So, a little later on, we'll find out if Romeo is suffering

from the same thing that killed poor Johnny.

Back in the lion house, I'm helping keeper

Bob Trollope to give Kabir's pride their vaccinations against cat flu.

Unlike the cubs, the adults must be given the drug by injection,

which will be delivered in a dart shot from a blow-pipe.

Before that can be done, each of the lions needs to be isolated in a pen, on their own.

It's a tricky manoeuvre.

If I let Malaika back in with Jasira...

you can open that one. Go on then.

Good girl!

Go back with Mum. That's it. Go on!

-Go on, this way!

-In you go!

This way! What we've got to do is a juggling act.

We've got one of the mums, we just want to get rid of...!

Which isn't as easy as it looks, obviously!

Which female is this?

This is Luna. This is Jasira's mum.

And is Luna the one that's been taking more of a maternal interest with both the cubs?

She has. She's an extremely good mum.

Yendi is a bit more laid back!

Very happy for Luna to do all the work!

We're not being terribly successful here, Brian! Jasira thinks this is more of a plaything!

And none of the adults seem to want to move.

Have you got any persuasion techniques up your sleeve?

Well we can use the bucket to try to get the cubs in and hopefully, the mums back.

Come on, you two! Come on.

Now we've just got to try to get Mum.

-OK.

-So if you see the chance - oh, Dad! - there we go.

Come here! Come here!

Come on. Good boy!

-Come on, fella!

-There you are. Good boy. That's it, Kate, well done.

So... Brian Kent is here as well, head of section.

So Brian, you have a licence to use this, presumably,

-this blowpipe?

-Yes, you must have a licence otherwise you can't use one.

-Right, OK.

And the drug that's in this dart is exactly the same as what was injected into the meat for the cubs?

-Exactly the same, yeah.

-OK. So how do you go about doing this?

Normally aim for a back leg, where you've got more muscle to aim for.

But it's getting him to turn around in the right place.

Absolutely. Kabir!

-Does this hurt?

-Um...I wouldn't have thought it would hurt at all.

Any more than kind of us having a flu jab?

Basically. You know, it's a very light dart.

I imagine it would be pretty quick as well.

Good boy. Good boy.

Well, he certainly felt it!

He weren't too happy.

I don't think he likes you very much at the moment, Brian!

Now, can you tell from looking at the dart

whether that has actually all gone into his system?

I can't see at the moment - I need to get him up.

But you need to see if the plunge has moved right down in the dart.

And presumably, you've got to get the dart out as well?

That's the hard bit now.

But what we normally do is encourage him through to the other pen.

As he's going through, Bob will push this door in.

I mean, it might look fast on camera, but he stops as he gets near the dart.

Oh, OK. So he effectively scrapes the dart off through the narrow gap?

Ah, very clever. Come on, Kabir!

Good boy! No, don't lie down!

Come on. Come on!

He says, I'm not going to co-operate now!

Oh, brilliant! Good shot, Bob! Fantastic.

Now, obviously, he is looking very upset.

And some people might wonder whether this is really necessary.

Is cat flu dangerous in lions?

Oh, it's extremely dangerous, yeah. You could lose every cat we've got.

-Really?

-Yes.

-Is it very infectious? If one gets it, can it spread round all of them?

Yeah, it could spread round.

That's why we do it as a precaution every year.

Right, OK. So we've got... Big Daddy is successfully done.

Just two more females to go.

Let's just check whether that dart has gone off.

That's a successful one.

That's a successful dart, brilliant. Well, good job, both of you.

I know you've got the two females to do, so we've got our work cut out a little bit this morning.

-Thank you both very much indeed.

-No problem.

Along with all the more robust animals, Longleat is also home to some very delicate creatures.

The butterfly house was first opened back in 1986

in order to show tropical species to the visitors.

Many years before that, there was another butterfly collection here,

all caught from the wild by a keen young lepidopterist

named Alexander Thynne - none other than the present Lord Bath.

I was a collector myself between the ages of

9 and 15, but they were strictly English species,

and none of these wonderful ones, which would have been

far more exciting to have been chasing after!

But it strikes me they don't run fast enough! They're easy to catch!

When Lord Bath was young, the normal way to display a collection

was to have your butterflies neatly pinned to card and properly labelled.

Nowadays people prefer to see their specimens on the wing.

Today Lord Bath has come to renew his interest, with butterfly keeper Sophie Dunn.

Look, they're all over your clothes! Because you've got bright colours on,

they love the bright colours and they come flying around!

I smell right!

Of bananas, was it?

-Yes, rotten bananas, they love!

-I've never seen these transparent ones.

Is that what you called lacewing?

Glass-wing.

Do you have any caterpillars crawling around?

Yes, I can show you, if you come this way with me, we have... I think it's the bamboo it's on -

the glass-wing chrysalis and caterpillar.

I spotted it this morning.

If I can find it now...

Here we are. You can see.

The time searching for the lost caterpillar!

That's the chrysalis there and the caterpillar is on top of it.

I think there was one here, do you see, on that leaf, it's just curling itself round?

Into a ball?

-Yes. Yeah.

-To form the chrysalis there.

So that chrysalis should be open in a couple of days.

And we have there our main species that we breed.

Breeding tropical butterflies is a tricky business, because

most of them will only reproduce if all the conditions are just right.

And each different species needs different conditions.

Derek has been in charge of the butterfly house ever since it opened.

Recently he's had particular success breeding the glass-wing,

a species that comes from South America.

They are plant specific. They won't breed

unless they have got the right plant to lay their eggs on.

Once you've got them to that stage, they will lay their eggs

and the caterpillars will rear up on that food plant.

So the breakthrough came when Derek was able to find exactly the right plant.

Well, this plant here, Cestrum, which is a night-flowering plant,

you come into the greenhouse of an evening and it's the most beautiful fragrance.

During the day, it just looks like privet!

It's invaluable for the caterpillars.

They've also had great success at Longleat breeding owl butterflies -

a species that will lay its eggs only on banana leaves.

But many of the tropical varieties are impossible to breed here,

and need to be brought in by specialist suppliers.

When you get them in from the shop, they are all as chrysalises?

Yes. What we do is glue them up and let them just fly away.

But we just put them on to these green canes with normal glue, put them into the case,

and every morning we water the case so that the steam comes through and keeps them warm.

And when it's the right temperature, they break out.

For example, this one here is just coming out.

It will be out like this one later today.

They are a treat to see!

-They are, aren't they?

-I think it does look tremendously

aggrandisised and beautified!

It's most encouraging.

You don't have to go to South America to see these.

It would be lovely, actually, to see small British butterflies as well.

With his interest in butterflies re-awakened,

Lord Bath is now considering ways to attract more of them to Longleat.

Not the tropical sort, but our own native species - the ones he used to hunt as a boy.

Plans are afoot to create a butterfly garden.

We'll meet Lord Bath later when he goes on a fact-finding mission,

and hunts down one of Britain's rarest butterflies.

Many of the animals at Longleat are threatened species, in danger of extinction in the wild.

And quite a few are part of international captive breeding programmes.

One of the most endangered species here are these Pere David deer.

I'm out in the new area with Head of Section Tim Yeo, and we've come down

to see the Pere David deer, which is this little herd just over my shoulder here.

And these are incredibly rare, aren't they, Tim?

They certainly were very, very rare.

Thankfully, due to a lot of help from man, of getting them

and keeping them in large parks their numbers have come back.

But how bad did it get?

It got incredibly bad. Down to, I think, probably about 20 animals.

-Wow.

-..World population at one stage.

And the 11th Duke of Bedford was very much responsible for bringing

a few of those animals over to his park in Woburn.

And they liked the habitat there and he re-established them, and now

-he has several hundred, probably about 300.

-Wow!

So where do they originate from?

They come from northern China.

And they like a very wet, boggy area.

So Wiltshire is perfect for them at this time of year!

-Wonderful habitat!

-So, when you say that they've come back

with a lot of help from man, they've been kept in protected areas.

Presumably, breeding programmes are very important?

That's right, Kate. They certainly are for them.

And this species, because of its... because they got down to

very, very few world population - they are very, very interbred.

But thankfully, so far, these that we have here

don't seem to have shown any bad signs from interbreeding.

Are there any signs - cos at this time of year it seems to be

classic deer-giving-birth time of year -

any signs that any of your females are pregnant?

Well, I'm very hopeful. We had one calf last year, two pregnancies,

one didn't survive, unfortunately.

One calf is there in the group.

I see no reason why we shouldn't have another two at least.

-Will you keep us posted?

-I certainly will.

It would be very very exciting. Tim, thank you very much indeed.

And we've got lots more coming up on today's programme.

With a big family on the way, Trevor and Honey need a bigger nest.

The hunt is on for one of Britain's rarest butterflies.

And we'll find out what the X-ray reveals for Romeo the otter.

It's been a couple of years since young Trevor came to Longleat in search of love.

After a whirlwind romance, he and Honey settled down to start a family.

In no time, little Al came along, but now he's grown up and left home.

So, has time taken the passion out of Trevor and Honey's relationship?

Have they swapped the tango for a more sedate dance?

Apparently not.

I'm out in the East Africa Reserve with Head of Section Andy Hayton, and Trevor the ostrich.

Andy, what are we doing out today?

We're going to put the eggs out today in the scrape here.

The scrape being a nest, I suppose?

Yes, the ostriches can't fly, so they nest on the ground.

What they do naturally is to have a shallow depression, lay their eggs in there, and off they go.

OK, now two things - first of all, surprisingly, ostriches are quite aggressive, aren't they?

Which is why we've got all the cars around like this.

Yeah, the males can be extremely aggressive.

Especially when you can see him, slightly now, his beak is pink.

His legs are slightly pink. That's when he's in full-on breeding mode,

-and he's quite protective, because she's laying eggs at the moment.

-And that's...

That's Honey, the female, yes. And they're extremely dim!

-So they're really aggressive.

-Is it true about their brain being the size of...?

Their brain is actually smaller than the eyeball.

So, you've got something that big and that aggressive, and that...thick!

It's a really volatile combination.

How come the eggs are all separate, anyway?

-Why do they not build their own nest?

-Well what we do here is, she will lay indiscriminately.

She will lay eggs all over the place, all over the park. So what we do, from advice from other zoos,

is collect the eggs up...

-Can I pick one up?

-Yeah, sure.

-Wow, they're heavy.

So we collect the eggs where she lays them all over the place,

get about 10 or a dozen together, and put them down here.

And then she will lay where all her eggs are.

-And presumably these are dates that you've collected them?

-Yes, these are all dates that they were laid.

Do I just put them anywhere? There's no specific order?

She will juggle them around to how she wants them.

And she can sit on this many eggs, can she?

Oh, in a big nest, I mean, you will have a male with a harem of maybe up to half a dozen females.

-There could be up to 60-odd eggs in an nest.

-In a single nest?

But the most dominant female and the male will sit them. And she knows her own eggs - it's amazing.

She keeps them in the middle to give them more of a chance of incubating.

-Isn't that incredible?

-Amazing, yeah.

Now, these eggs, that is a solid shell.

I mean, I they as strong as they feel in my hand?

They say you can have a 16-stone man stand on one!

No! And it wouldn't break?

-And it wouldn't break.

-That's incredible.

-It's amazing.

-And what gestation period are we talking about?

-About 40 days.

-OK.

But what actually happens is, the female will sit them at night - during the day, sorry.

And the male takes over and he does all the work at night.

So Trevor will actually be...?

Yeah, and when the youngsters are born, or hatched, Dad will do most of the looking after of the youngsters.

Mum's involvement in it is pretty much done then.

And they will follow Dad.

That's incredible. How long will they take once we've left here to come in and...?

She will carry on laying for a while, and we normally get 16 - 20 eggs in there.

And then she'll start sitting.

And that's when incubation starts, is when she actually starts sitting on there regularly and doing her job.

And Andy, what are all these twigs?

All this kind of wood over here? What's all this about?

We just did this, something different, just to give them a little bit of cover.

Possibly make them feel a bit secure. They can see all the way round.

-And it's a little bit of a windbreak as well.

-Andy, thank you very much.

Shall we leave the area and let them get to their nest?

Lord Bath is planning to create a new garden at Longleat,

specially planted to attract British butterflies.

So he and Sophie Dunn, a keeper in the tropical butterfly house, have

come to meet Andrew George, five miles from Longleat, in order to find out more about what's involved.

Andrew is an enthusiast who's devoted his extensive garden to butterfly conservation.

It may look like an overgrown meadow - but that's just how they like it.

Especially one of Britain's rarest - and tiniest - species, called "the small blue".

They were more common, years ago, when Lord Bath was a butterfly collector.

In my childhood I remember catching small blues.

Probably near Cley Hill, I can't remember now where I caught them, but that chalk soil...

It could have been in the woods around, but then I haven't seen them for a long while.

I don't know where they've all gone.

The main reason that the small blue is now rare is because, like

so many other butterflies, it must have exactly the right conditions.

It can only live on one kind of plant.

The small blue comes in and lays its eggs only

on the flower heads of kidney vetch.

Nothing else! It's the only thing it will lay its eggs on.

And then the egg hatches and it burrows in to the seed head.

Kidney vetch used to be found widely in sheltered grassland on lime-rich soils.

But modern developments have reduced this habitat, and so the small blue

-is in big trouble.

-It lives in colonies

and most of the members of the colony don't leave the colony.

Even though they can fly way up into the air, they just stay in that one particular place.

Well, they know where their patch of kidney vetch is to be found!

That is right, yes. Because the habitat is quite rare,

because the places that kidney vetch like to grow

are quite spread apart, the butterfly has a hard job jumping from one colony to another.

Especially if you realise it is tiny.

It lives...

a week, maybe, and in that time it's got to have mated,

and then travelled somewhere else with kidney vetch.

Would you know where your next three colonies of kidney vetch are around here?

Well, I know of one. It's about four miles away.

There's probably others that I don't know of, but that's the only colony I know of within four miles of here.

This one has become - this is the largest colony in Somerset now.

About five or six years after it was created.

It may be the largest colony in Somerset,

but Lord Bath and Sophie haven't spotted a single small blue yet.

Time to get down to some serious butterfly hunting!

A good tip is to look for warm sheltered spots.

And to be able to recognise the plants that are important for butterflies.

If you can recognise kidney vetch for instance, there's a good chance

you might be in a place where the small blues are.

Look for the plants that the butterflies like.

There's a very dense patch of the kidney vetch there. See, Andrew?

-And there's a small blue.

-Is there?

No wonder they're hard to spot -

the small blue is less than three centimetres across.

They are obviously very small in comparison to ones I'm used to looking after in the gardens.

But I do think it's brilliant that, it's more of a challenge...

They just fly up to you in that contained environment,

whereas here, they come here for the food plants

and because it's such a good set-up, good environment for them.

But whether it's indoors or outside, the key to success is to offer the butterflies just what they need.

You can do the same thing in your own garden.

By creating these south-facing mounds where the kidney vetch can grow.

I'll have to look around for my south-facing mounds!

Plans for the Longleat butterfly garden are still at an early stage,

but today's visit has certainly rekindled Lord Bath's enthusiasm.

Oh, it is bringing back the days when I scrambled around, getting my scratches, yes!

I'm not getting the scratches nowadays!

Earlier, there was quite a commotion when Romeo the otter had to be caught in Pets Corner.

He's out! Get a key, get a key! He's got me!

He had to come to the vet's in order to have a fragment of

nutshell removed from where it was stuck in his mouth.

But now, while they've got him under anaesthetic, vet Karen Grabham is taking a couple of X-rays

to find out if he's suffering from bladder stones - an ailment that plagues otters in captivity.

X-rays!

When they come out, they show that Romeo...

is in the best of health.

The X-rays are good, so we can go ahead and reverse him now.

And get him waking up.

Anaesthetics can have dangerous side effects,

and it's always best to minimise the time spent under.

So Karen has a drug that should reverse the effects.

Come on, little lad.

-There we are.

-Good lad.

-We'll take him back now, we'll give him

a good afternoon's rest and watch him closely, and keep him warm and quiet.

And then hopefully,

he'll have a bit of food and we'll get him back with his wife and pups.

He's the best dad. He's a wonderful dad.

The next day, things are getting back to normal in the otter enclosure.

Darren has been trying to work out how the accident with the nutshell

happened, particularly because the otters aren't fed almonds.

That was what was stuck in the roof of his mouth. That came from one of these, obviously.

There's the edge - look.

And I think what's probably happened - talk about improbable -

more chances of winning the lottery, I think, than this happening!

Basically I would think a parrot's taken one of the nuts off of Rob to eat, they dropped it,

a jackdaw or something has picked it up, or a bird has dropped it, in the enclosure here.

And remember - these otters, they are designed for crushing bone and shell,

so they've got these wonderful teeth.

The chances of that nut being crushed to just the right size to fit

in between the top palate, between the teeth, and not be too big and

not get stuck, and not be too small and not get stuck - it was just the right size - must be billions to one!

But welcome to Longleat and have a nice day! It's got to happen here, hasn't it?!

With the odds of such a thing happening again being so small, they've decided that there's

no need to deprive the parrots of their nuts, even if they do leave the shells lying around.

When we brought him back from surgery, I put him in to rest for a few hours.

Within two-and-a-half hours, under two-and-a-half hours, he was up.

He was a bit wobbly. He had a little drink.

Then eventually we let him out and he ate straightaway.

So it must have been quite a relief to get that thing out of his mouth.

He could go back to eating his big dinners.

And today he's mixing with his partner and the babies,

and everything's fine, so it's a good result.

There you go, girl.

We've come up to feed the sea lions with keeper Michelle Stevens and we've got one here...

-Is that Celia?

-That's Celia, yeah.

-Particularly greedy!

-She's a quite in-your-face sea lion.

She likes her fish.

Is she just guarding over the food here?

She wants all of the food, yeah.

She likes to think she's the dominant sea lion, but she goes about it in the wrong way.

She's too pushy with the other sea lions.

It is incredibly noisy!

Buster making a tremendous noise.

Do they use these noises as a means of communication? Is this a warning?

Is he just saying, "Feed me!"

That's basically just to get our attention.

Her pup - Celia's pup - she'll call her mother as well.

It's very important just to keep in contact with each other over long distances.

They have really got very good hearing.

-They have?

-They have, yes.

-What about the smell?

Would they know we had this fish here if they didn't see it?

Yeah, I think so. It's pretty good.

The whiskers are the most sensitive thing on their face.

This is the last fish for you. Go on! There you go!

Sadly that's the last fish and also that's the end of the programme.

Here's what's coming up on the next Animal Park.

We'll catch up with the cubs as they face their latest challenge.

To earn their supper they have to take on Mum and Dad.

We'll find out why the chameleons like nothing better than to get caught in the rain.

And there are health worries for Longleat's last two tigers, Sona and Kadu.

So don't miss the next Animal Park.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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