Episode 3 Animal Park

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

-And I'm Ben Fogle.

We're in front of Longleat House, one of Britain's most impressive Elizabethan buildings.

It's surrounded by 900 acres of stunning gardens

as well as thousands of acres of woodland, farmland and lakes.

It's also home to a host of animals and we'll be bringing you lots of their stories today.

Here's what's coming up.

I'll be welcoming a historic new arrival -

the 100th giraffe to be born at Longleat.

The vet's been called because Samba,

the geriatric gorilla, has fallen dangerously ill.

And Lord Bath reveals a dark family secret,

although their skeleton isn't in the closet -

it's under the floor.

There have been Bennett's wallabies at Longleat

for more than 15 years.

They've done very well, so that now the colony,

called a mob, is almost 30 strong.

But last year, a single pair of Parma wallabies

were brought to live in Pets' Corner.

This is a smaller variety and very rare.

The Parma was thought to be extinct till 1965,

when a few were discovered still living wild

on an island off the coast of New Zealand.

So everyone was pleased

when their new couple, named Sydney and Adelaide, produced a joey -

the proper word for a baby wallaby.

But now, keeper Bev Allen has some bad news.

We noticed that Mum had the joey in the pouch a while back,

cos the pouch got very big.

Then, about a week ago, we saw the head popping out of the pouch.

I'd been away for a few days and I got a telephone call from Darren

saying, "You might have to come to work, because the joey came out of the pouch."

It's not unusual for a joey to pop out for a while.

But in this case, Adelaide wouldn't let the infant back in -

for some unknown reason, she rejected it.

It would have died within hours if Bev hadn't come to the rescue.

He was a bit weak to begin with,

but he's getting used to taking milk from a syringe - not the bottle.

So, yeah, he's getting stronger, which is good.

It's been about three days now, I'd say. And, yeah,

he's got better - he's got stronger.

He makes little noises when he wants his food now.

He's got a good chance of survival

and a good chance to go back in with Mum and Dad, which is what we want.

It's not ideal to hand-rear.

But if there's a strong possibility they'll be able to go back in the group, there's no reason not to.

The joey is a little boy, and he's still on nothing but milk.

He needs feeding every two or three hours, day and night.

So being a foster mum is a round-the-clock job.

A lot of commitment's involved.

You have to make sure they're strong enough to survive, get them used to being bottle fed.

After milk, a joey needs a pouch. Bev has had to improvise.

Basically, this is his pouch.

He needs a pouch to go into, so we make a substitute pouch for him.

This will make him feel secure, warm,

and it helps him, because you're trying to copy what Mum would do.

A couple of years ago, Bev stepped in when another joey needed

to be hand-reared.

They called the baby Kimberley and she was an orphan

who was rescued from her dead mother's pouch.

Bev nursed her through thick and thin,

so that Kim could be successfully reintegrated with the mob.

But now, for this little one, all that is still a long way off.

If he's about five to six months old,

they need the pouch up to nine months.

So it could be another couple of months or so.

Also, the weather's got to be warm enough for him to go back.

So he could be coming home with me

for quite a few times yet.

Even with all Bev's hard work and commitment,

there's no guarantee that the joey will survive.

There's every possibility that something could go wrong.

But looking at him at the moment,

he's quite lively, quite active.

He's cleaning himself.

He's doing everything that a nice,

healthy wallaby would do, so I'm confident, hopefully, he'll be OK.

But a baby wallaby as young and vulnerable as this

faces many dangers.

We'll be back later to see how he's doing.

Amongst the unusual and exotic species here at Longleat,

there are also some animals that many people could keep themselves.

I'm in Pets' Corner with keeper Amy Moore and two rabbits.

-This is Fern and this is Sally?

-Yes.

What are the breeds we've got here?

This is a dwarf lop, Sally is.

And Fern is a Continental giant.

And what sort of age are these two?

Fern, believe it or not, is only 18 weeks old.

-So she's still a baby.

-A very, very big baby!

How big will Fern get?

Double the size she is now, when she's an adult. She'll get very big.

-Giant by name, giant by nature.

-Yes.

And this one here?

Sally is just over one year old.

She's fully grown,

so, in comparison, Fern's a lot bigger than Sally.

-It's incredible!

-Yeah.

-I'm assuming "lop-eared"

-because the ears...

-That's right.

-..flop down.

-Yeah.

-What are we doing today, then?

We're just giving them a groom over.

This time of year, when they're losing their winter coat...

Losing it being the operative word. You're covered in hair there!

-Is this seasonal, like dogs?

-Yeah.

So at the end of the summer,

they'll get their winter coats ready.

So it's a good idea to keep them clean and give them a groom.

-Do you recommend this every day, or every so often?

-Every so often.

-Mm-hm. Shall I have a...?

-Yeah.

Let's see how Fern likes that. And apart from grooming like this,

is there any other maintenance that you have to do with a rabbit, if you have one at home?

It's important to give them a general health check every day.

They can get problems with their ears and their teeth and that.

Some rabbits can get mites in their ears,

so it's a good idea to look inside, give it a clean.

And then check their teeth aren't overgrown.

Check their eyes are all right and not cloudy.

A good thing for their teeth... You can give them

wood chews to chew on and hay, as well, to keep their teeth filed down.

If you were looking to get a rabbit at home,

would you recommend a Continental giant, or is it just a bit too big?

I'd probably recommend a mini lop.

Fern looks lovely, but she is quite a handful because of her size.

And you need a big space to keep her in.

And as a big rabbit, she's more likely to have health problems than, say, Sally is,

so I'd recommend this breed.

-I imagine Fern will get quite strong when she's double this size.

-Yeah.

Very strong.

-How's my grooming technique?

-It's very good.

-How many more rabbits do you have?

-Eight.

-Eight?

-Yeah.

-We could be busy!

-Yeah.

You're enjoying this, aren't you, Fern?

Since the time of Elizabeth I, Longleat has been the home of the Thynne family.

For 13 generations, they've been one of England's most powerful and influential aristocratic dynasties.

And almost every generation has left its mark on Longleat House.

Some have enriched it with rebuilding work and lavish decoration.

Others have filled the great rooms with priceless treasures or works of art.

Over the course of this series, we'll be exploring the most significant contributions made

by some of the more colourful members of the Thynne family.

Alexander Thynne must be one of the most colourful ones yet.

He's the present Lord Bath and has volunteered to guide us through the generations of his ancestors.

He's starting out today with his great-great-great-great- great-grandfather, Thomas Thynne.

Born in 1710, he became the 2nd Viscount Weymouth

and the most significant legacy he left Longleat

was the series of five paintings on sporting and riding themes that hang around the Tudor great hall.

They're by the English artist John Wootton and are now regarded as works of national importance.

But when the 2nd Viscount commissioned Wootton to paint them,

he wasn't so much interested in great art as in the subject - Thomas Thynne was horse mad.

The 2nd Viscount certainly thought it was...

He'd been taught... He could ride well

and there weren't so many things that he was especially proficient at,

so this does reflect his interest and his character

in being a...a riding gentleman.

Thomas wasn't alone. In those days, most of the aristocracy was obsessed

with all things horsy - that's one reason why Wootton specialised

in riding themes.

Also, it's a subject that works well on big canvases.

I can't think of another British artist

who has done large-scale things which look suitable

for covering most of the wall space in a great hall.

I'm very pleased that we did that.

The pictures still hang at Longleat but, as national treasures, they're actually owned by the Tate Gallery.

One of their experts on painting conservation is Warwick MacCallum.

Wootton was THE first important horse painter -

in Europe and in England -

the first painter who thought that horses were important to paint.

The five pictures are now being cleaned and Warwick is here leading a team of Tate conservators.

Longleat's curator of historic collections, Kate Harris,

has been watching the progress.

-They're looking much better.

-They were filthy when we began to clean them. Very, very dirty.

-I think the prescription of my glasses has changed - they're that much clearer and more animated.

-Yes.

-Yes.

-The time of day has changed and the quality of the light in the pictures.

-Yes.

-They're very nice paintings.

-Yes.

Cleaning is a painstaking process which has to be done slowly

and carefully, using very small tools.

The paintings were filthy.

There was a thick layer of dark grime on them when we started.

In a large room like this, with a lot of people passing through,

the dirt floats up and settles on all surfaces,

and particularly on paintings and paint frames.

It's a big job, because they are massive paintings.

To the 2nd Viscount, Thomas Thynne, that may have been the point.

He was an awful show-off!

He spent money like water but they, even in his terms,

are a very grand commission indeed.

I think they're very important.

There are three great halls in England

that have sporting picture sequences by John Wootton.

There's a sequence at Althorp - it's actually called the Wootton Hall at Althorp -

and another sequence at Badminton.

We're not always entirely original.

When one stately home's doing something, one has a quick think, "Should we do that too?"

For example, the new gates they've put in

at the top of Longcombe Drive.

That is by the same artist

who has done some things in the garden at Chatsworth.

So we do look around and keep up with the Joneses, yes.

But keeping up with the Joneses never hurt anyone,

unlike some of Thomas Thynne's other character traits.

There was a dark side to the 2nd Viscount,

one that, according to legend, led to murder and tragedy,

so that, along with the Wootton paintings, the other great legacy he left Longleat

was its most famous ghost.

The story continues a little later on.

In Pets' Corner, keeper Bev Allen

is foster mum to a little baby wallaby

who has, for some unknown reason, been rejected by his real mother.

The problem is, the substitute milk doesn't contain the antibodies

that his mother's milk would have.

Without them, the joey's vulnerable to all sorts of illnesses.

So, today, Bev is going to try once more to reunite him with his mother, Adelaide.

It's too early to be out of the pouch.

It's usually at the stage where it would look out of the pouch,

maybe come out briefly and then back in.

But it hasn't got a lot of fur, so it hasn't much protection from the cold.

I think, where it is so cold and it's come out, it's just a shock to the system for the little joey.

I'll just step away...

Bev has been fostering the infant for only a few days.

But already, he's drawn to her rather than to Adelaide.

Come on!

A minute later,

he remembers his real mother and the pouch that should be his home.

But Adelaide won't let him in.

This is her first time actually having a young joey.

I think a lot of it is to do with the weather and the time of year.

Usually, they will be in the pouch

until the weather starts to get warmer.

So I think, you know, she's probably a bit unsure now.

Adelaide continues to shun her baby,

and after a few minutes, it becomes clear that the attempt to reunite them has failed.

Me and Amy decided it's best to go and get the young joey in his pouch now,

cos it is quite cold. We've tried... sadly, hasn't worked.

But we'll keep bringing him back over here when he's a bit older,

and let him get used to Mum and Dad and let him know he is a wallaby.

For now, we'll put him back in this pouch.

We hoped everything was going to go well, cos it looked like it would,

and then, all of a sudden, it went pear-shaped.

Sadly, that's what happens with animals.

Of course, he would be a lot better with Mum looking after him,

but it's not gonna happen.

So gonna have to hand-rear,

and then when he's a bit older and stronger, he can come back out with Mum and Dad where he belongs.

But before any of that can happen, the little joey must simply survive.

And unfortunately, he's still very small and very vulnerable.

We'll return to the wallabies a little later on.

I'm out at Meerkat Mountain with head of section Darren Beasley.

-I gather you're going to do a little meerkat taunting.

-Yes!

It's a behaviour experiment, there's some teasing involved.

Basically, with our meerkats, they were born and bred in captivity.

We've looked to see what natural behaviours they still have left -

what is natural and what's taught.

We know they spot the birds of prey, and they bark and run for cover.

They'll even see the guys in the microlights coming and run for cover!

They've got that one, but also, on their travels in southern Africa,

they will look for things that are out of place.

They'll come across a big rock, tortoise or porcupine.

Well, we've got my little friend here...

-Oh!

-Couldn't use a real one, of course.

This is actually a rubber snake.

What we're gonna do is, if they're in the wild and come across a predator,

they should bark, they should mob it, I'm hoping they won't run for cover.

They should try and distract it and chase it away.

If they're really brave, they might lunge at it, bite it and attack it.

The result will be interesting.

If they ignore it, then they'll have lost some of their natural behaviour.

I want lots of barking, lots of tail up and stuff.

We're gonna hide this somewhere.

Just over here, as well as the meerkats, you've got the mongoose.

Beautiful animal.

Now, "mongooses", I gather the plural is,

mongooses are famous for attacking snakes.

Would this particular sort of mongoose attack snakes?

They'll eat anything from the tiniest bug up to the biggest rodent.

Snakes in between that.

If they think it's a danger, more often than not, they'll run away.

If they think they can get a tasty meal, yes, by golly, they will.

Just like the old Riki Tiki Tavi stories,

these guys, if they come across a snake, hopefully they'll react as well as the meerkats would.

OK, do you think the time has come to give it a go?

-Do you want to do it?

-Yeah.

-Place it near the stump on the floor.

Somewhere obvious he can see.

Yeah, brill.

-Make it look fierce.

-Scary, isn't it?

-Oh!

-Oh!

HE CHUCKLES

OK, experiment over.

They don't look fooled, Darren.

I actually wonder - they've taken no notice of it at all.

-No fear - hang on...

-This one's having a sniff,

but there is definitely no fear there.

What does that mean? Is that a good thing, a bad thing?

It's somewhere in between.

The bad thing is they are blase, they feel safe and relaxed, which is what we want.

We want to protect them from fear and distress.

On the same thing, I want them to still be a meerkat.

I still want them to have the reactions that their wild cousins

in Namibia and Angola and those places where they come from,

that they would still react the same way.

Probably because that's just an object and it's sat there,

they pay it no attention, but it is a result, you know.

It's a result, a quick experiment,

something we can do perhaps with other animals as well,

and we now know that these guys, they don't care about it.

Well, I think you can safely say

you have some very happy, very chilled-out meerkats.

-You're right.

-Darren, thank you very much indeed.

Up in the East Africa reserve,

there may soon be some very exciting news.

Of the ten female giraffes here, at least four are expecting a calf.

The first one due is Jolly,

and if all goes well, it will be not only her tenth calf,

but also the 100th baby giraffe born at Longleat,

since the safari park opened back in the 1960s.

The keeper in charge of the giraffes is Andy Hayton.

You've gotta be positive.

All going to plan, it'll be a good year.

And it's the 40th year of Longleat this year,

so 40 years and 100 giraffe births.

Pretty cool.

But Andy is staying cautious,

because they've had some difficult times

with the babies here in the Giraffe House.

Last year, Becky had little Evelyn.

It was all going well until Mother began to lick her baby's ears.

That's normal bonding behaviour,

but Becky was doing it obsessively.

Evelyn's ears became infected and, despite powerful antibiotics,

that led to septicaemia - blood poisoning.

Sadly, the baby died.

Then, more recently, when Imogen went into labour,

it soon became clear that something was very wrong.

Her calf was dead inside

and had become hopelessly stuck.

The only option was to perform an emergency Caesarean.

And, against all the odds, Imogen survived.

An absolute miracle of nature.

And she's recovered so well.

Fantastic, it is.

That was a small compensation in a difficult season.

It was a disappointing year, cos we thought we were gonna do better.

The year previously, we had three females born.

OK, yeah, we lost one, but, you know, that was good

and the next year we thought we were gonna do pretty well again.

We didn't, so it's up and down. It's peaks and troughs, you know.

But this year, hopefully - not getting too overexcited,

which you don't - you've been doing this a while,

you know what can happen - but we've got some good breeders.

The difficulties taught Andy and his team valuable lessons.

There's no text-book rules of how this should go.

We have to make sure we do the best for them and you always feel

that you should be doing better every time.

And if you learn from every experience you have

of calving, or illness, or lameness or whatever,

you can only make it better. But yeah, you are gonna have problems.

And now, with Jolly's calf expected very soon,

the big question is -

will Longleat's 100th giraffe birth go smoothly?

We'll find out later on.

Winter in the safari park.

Most of the animals here don't mind the cold at all,

but for the ageing residents of Gorilla Island,

the bad weather can be life-threatening.

The keeper in charge of them is Mark Tye.

It's prolonged days of rain, wind and general cold

that's not very nice for them, like it isn't for us either.

I mean, nearly 46 years old,

and you know, they're sort of coming to the end of their lives

and, like old people, they have to be wary

and take precautions for cold weather.

In the wild, a Western Lowland gorilla would be very unlikely

to live into its late 30s.

So at 45, Nico, the male, and Samba, his mate,

really are a very elderly couple.

In fact, they're the oldest gorillas in Britain.

They've lived here on the island for 20 years now,

and Mark has been looking after them for most of that time.

They mean a lot to me.

You know, I've been working with them for a long, long time now.

And you know, you do want to care for them as best you can,

do as much as you can.

Their house is kept cosy with central heating,

and they have their own TV.

Research has shown that gorillas enjoy watching the telly.

Nico and Samba are particularly keen on the cartoons.

It's not too surprising, really, cos in evolutionary terms,

gorillas are very close to humans.

Our DNA is almost 98% identical.

Unfortunately, that means we're prone to many of the same illnesses.

Because they are our closest relative,

they can catch pretty much everything that we can.

They can suffer from the same health problems -

heart problems, strokes, cancer,

anything like that.

It's one of the things that us as keepers have to be very aware of,

that if we've got any problems, particularly colds, flu,

you know, we won't come over here.

Or if we have to, we'll wear a mask,

so we're hopefully not transmitting anything to them.

Also, particularly, they can catch stomach viruses as well,

the same as us.

And also they can pass it to us.

So we have to be particularly careful.

So a few days later, when Samba came down with a nasty cough,

the vet was called and no-one else was allowed in.

But deputy head warden Ian Turner is keeping us posted.

His diagnosis - she's got cold-cum-flu symptoms,

which wouldn't be too bad, but when you're a 45-year-old gorilla,

in Samba's case, it could be quite serious.

One of the main hiccups with Sam is she doesn't like taking medication.

It's the age thing - you know, you look at 45 years of age on a gorilla,

you're talking a real senior citizen, 80-plus on a human being.

If a senior citizen gets a cold, it always takes 'em down, really.

The good thing about them, we just keep them in.

They're not one of those animals what get really stressy,

being kept inside.

They've got heating inside. We're just gonna have to mollycoddle her.

The worry's gonna be - does she take the medication?

If she won't take the medication,

we'll have to think of something else.

We've got little tricks - put it in yoghurt,

jam sandwiches, stuff like that.

Ian is hoping it's going to be straightforward,

but Duncan Williams, the vet, is not so sure.

Obviously, because of her age, it's affected her a lot more seriously

than maybe it would have done a few years ago, yeah.

The danger with illnesses like that is, you know,

if they don't eat and drink properly,

they're in danger of becoming dehydrated

and that can, you know, often be pretty serious

and possibly even fatal if it goes on for too long, yeah.

We'll be back on Gorilla Island later

to see how it goes for poor old Samba.

In order to survive in the harsh lands of the frozen North,

the wolf has evolved a very special strategy -

the pack.

In the wild, they need each other for protection

and to hunt their prey.

In fact, wolves have evolved to rely so much on a social group

that without it they become disorientated and stressed.

But the pack is a complex hierarchy,

where relationships are constantly developing.

Here at Longleat, we've been able

to observe the group dynamics during the day,

but now we're going to find out how they behave

when they think that no-one can see them.

I'm out in Wolf Wood with keeper Bob Trollope

and we're gonna be trying a bit of an experiment

in the depths of the night tonight, Bob, aren't we?

What are we gonna be doing?

-We're gonna come here when it's absolutely pitch black.

-Yeah.

Er...with a few gadgets on the vehicle.

Hopefully, we're gonna put some food down

-and just see how they behave.

-Right.

Now, the gadgets that Bob mentioned are things like this.

This is an infrared camera and an infrared light.

If you come over to the Animal Park wagon,

we've got another infrared camera up there and another light.

Now, the great thing about infrared lights is that we can't see them

and neither can the wolves.

To all intents and purposes, they won't really know that we're here.

And what you're hoping, Bob, is that we might actually see

different behaviour than we do during the day.

Yeah, cos we know that the youngsters don't always come up to the feed straight away, during the day.

We just want to see whether that's different at night.

-Cos they do hunt at night.

-Well, Bob and I are going to be sitting inside the vehicle here.

We've got an infrared light, so you'll be able to see us,

cos obviously it wouldn't be any good if you couldn't,

and there's a monitor so we can watch the action.

And so, we will be waiting

until it all gets dark and scary here in Wolf Wood.

But in the meantime there's lots more coming up on today's programme.

A tragic tale of bankruptcy,

adultery, murder,

and the ghost with a broken heart.

We'll find out what's happened to the little baby wallaby.

And down on the farm, they need to know which of the cows are pregnant.

I'll be helping the vet find out,

the traditional way.

COW MOOS LOUDLY

But now, up at the Giraffe House,

everyone has been looking forward to the next birth with some excitement

and a little anxiety.

Jolly is 22 years old and she's had nine calves before.

The keeper in charge, Andy Hayton, was hoping

that her being an experienced mum would help.

And, as it turned out, it did.

Longleat's 100th baby giraffe arrived with no problems at all.

The keepers got these shots

before anyone else was allowed inside the house,

when the baby was still just a few hours old.

This is Jolly's... The most recent addition to the herd.

A little bull calf, that we came in the other morning,

and just found in here, stood up, staring at us.

So absolutely perfect birth, didn't really know, she wasn't showing any signs the evening before.

Came in in the morning, there's a calf stood up in here.

She's just got on and done it, absolutely fine. Textbook job.

First one of the year, she's pretty much

on the dates that we had for her. The 100th live birth giraffe at Longleat.

So, excellent. And it's her tenth calf as well. Good on her, really.

She deserves the laurels.

When a calf is born, it's already about six feet tall.

Within an hour, it will be standing, and looking for milk soon after.

The youngster won't be fully weaned for almost a year

and in the wild, would stay close to Mum for another year after that.

But looking that far forward is dangerous,

because the first days of life are the most precarious.

We have this superstitious weird thing at Longleat

that we never name a calf until it's two weeks old.

If you get them to two weeks, they probably will be OK.

He's fine. You can almost write him off and put him to bed now,

he's drinking, he's dunging, what's going in is coming out.

He's following Mum now, finally, he's just great.

Just typical one of Jolly's calves, just gets on and does it.

So now, Andy is more worried about Mum.

Our main concern with this calving and pregnancy is Jolly.

What the problem is now is her lactating, her producing milk.

That takes a lot of energy.

For an old animal like Jolly, we have to give her a good diet.

But she does have a little bit of arthritis,

so we make sure she doesn't get too heavy - that will affect her joints.

It's a juggling act, keeping a close eye on her, making sure she's OK.

The next couple of weeks will be critical.

We'll be back later to see whether or not Jolly can manage to feed

and look after such a big baby.

There are more calves on the way elsewhere at Longleat,

but not in the safari park.

The estate also includes over 8,000 acres of woodland and working farms.

And I've come down to Mill Farm to catch up with farmer Steve Crossman

-and safari park vet Duncan Williams. Hi, guys.

-Hi.

-What's going on today?

-We're going to PD our cows today.

-What does that mean?

-It's a pregnancy diagnosis.

-OK.

-Duncan's come out to do that.

-How many cows do you have?

-I'm running 100 at the moment.

-And we've calved about 30.

-How many are you expecting to calve?

-I'd like to calve 100!

-Of course!

In an ideal world. I'm not sure it'll happen.

Duncan, that's one of the reasons you're here,

-to help with that diagnosis?

-That's right.

We've got to internally examine every cow that we're worried about,

-and see if you can feel a calf.

-We often see you in the safari park,

looking after the lions, or the tigers.

This, presumably, is the majority of your work?

That's right. This is what I do most of the time,

and the safari park only takes up one day a week,

and any extra calls that they need us in there for.

Most of the time, I'm out and about on the farms in the area.

You're dressed for a mucky job. How do you do this?

Well, this is not very nice for the cow. Plenty of lubricant.

Right. And literally, you're going to feel for a calf inside?

That's right, we've just got to pop our hand inside.

And what are you feeling for, Duncan?

I'm going to find the cow's uterus, and then feel...

This one's got a big calf in her, I can feel its head.

She's going to calve in about three weeks' time.

-You can tell straight away?

-Just from the size of the calf, yeah.

-Would you like to have a go?

-Um...

-Er...

-HE LAUGHS NERVOUSLY

I don't want to say "Can I?"

I don't know what Steve will think of me!

-I've got no objections.

-OK.

-Duncan will see you through.

-Plenty of lubricant. There's the glove.

I'll take one of these gloves.

OK, you'll have to explain exactly what to feel for.

Just put this on.

OK.

If you follow where I was, pull the tail up with your left hand,

and then gently ease your hand in.

-Is she going to poo on me?

-No, no.

-Are you sure?

Sorry, I'm not... So, just do what?

-Yeah.

-Like that?

-That's right.

-And then you want to go in that way.

-Like that?

-Yeah. Push it in now.

-OK.

Go on, push further.

Keep going forward, keep going forward.

-Yep.

-You've got to go...

almost up to your elbow.

OK.

And what am I feeling for?

If you pat your hand down, you might feel the calf's head.

-I'd imagine you'll find a head. Feel a solid lump?

-I can!

-There's the calf's head.

-Whoo! That's amazing.

And you could tell...

You could tell from that the actual size? OK, there we go.

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty rough.

I wouldn't be too far out, I don't think.

The other way you can tell, she's got an udder developing.

She's probably only about three or four weeks off.

She'll be fine, Steve'll keep her in and let her calve in the shed.

Excellent. Duncan, thank you very much for letting me try!

You've got a lot of work to do, to go through all these cows here.

-Yeah.

-Blimey! I'll leave that to you!

Thank you, guys.

And hopefully this cow will be a very proud mum too.

-I'll let you know when she calves.

-Please do. We'll leave you to it.

COW MOOS

There was a time when, if you were an aristocrat,

you could get away with murder.

Thomas Thynne, the 2nd Viscount Weymouth,

left Longleat with two very different legacies.

There are the paintings by John Wootton that adorn the walls

of the Tudor great hall.

And then, there's the house's most famous ghost.

Thomas had a difficult childhood.

He was only four years old when his father died,

and he inherited the vast wealth of the estate.

It wasn't good for his character,

and the present Lord Bath, his great-great-great-great- great-grandson,

can still see the evidence of that around him on the walls.

He did rather get himself painted on every possible occasion.

It makes me frightened of something, accepting another portrait,

because it looks... There's a feeling of too much vanity and concern

that his face is everywhere around the walls.

He inherited Longleat as a very young boy.

And he was both pampered at the same time as being, er...

disciplined to become a young nobleman.

It was important to them, apparently,

that that should be his image of himself.

In some of the expressions on his portraits,

I fear that that was ingrained too well,

that he felt he ought to...

There's an arrogance and a posturing in some of the portraits.

So, it's no surprise to see Thomas, along with his influential friends

and favourite horses, included in the famous paintings by John Wootton.

With a taste for ostentatious living, the 2nd Viscount

soon ran up massive debts,

and poor Wootton had to wait years to be paid.

Longleat's curator of historic collections, Kate Harris,

has some interesting documents.

By 1740,

his debts were so many that they had to be reorganised,

for him to start to sort them out. This is the book that shows it.

It dates from September 1740,

and it's an alphabetical arrangement of his creditors,

organised by place.

So it's got London creditors,

Longleat creditors, and Tilshead creditors as well.

What appears in the London list, right at the end of the list,

we see Wootton, painter, Cavendish Square,

and a debt of £323 8s.

The book also reveals where most of the money went.

Thomas spent a fortune on the sport of kings.

Horseracing had become, really, THE vogue thing

for the aristocracy because of Charles II's love of it.

There had been thoroughbreds in England before,

James I had one of the important Arabians,

but the Royal stud had been wiped out by the Civil Wars.

For Charles II, it was really one of his key things, after women.

It then became the sport of kings.

So, the 2nd Viscount was an inveterate gambler.

But he also had another character fault.

If legend is to be believed, it was one that led to tragedy and murder.

Thomas was horribly jealous of his wife, Louisa.

She had her favourite footman,

and he, eventually, sent him away.

Or that's what he told her.

It was only much later we found a skeleton under the cellar flagstones

and so he was probably bumped off, or fell, broke his neck,

some story like that.

But that wasn't the end of it. Louisa died shortly after.

Everyone said it was from a broken heart.

Since then, her ghost has been reported many, many times,

still walking the corridors in search of her lost love.

Thomas was never the same again.

After her death, he no longer wanted to live in the house,

possibly because he was a bit sensitive to the ghost stories around her,

and he went and lived in Horningsham.

The house was closed down, shuttered up.

For ten years, until his death aged just 41,

the house was left to fall into decay.

It could easily have been the end of the place,

but it was saved in the nick of time

by the heir, also named Thomas Thynne,

who later became the 1st Marquess of Bath.

But that's a story for another day.

There's...frequently a near miss. We survive!

Earlier, in Wolf Wood, we set up night vision cameras

and infrared lights, so that we could check on the pack's

social structure during a night-time feed.

In order to reinforce the bonding of the pack,

it's sometimes necessary to bring in an entire carcass.

It's the best way to simulate the experience of a whole pack feed.

It's the middle of the night, and I'm out in Wolf Wood with keeper Bob Trollope.

Ahead of us are the entire pack - is the entire pack -

reacting amazingly quickly to the carcass that's just been brought in.

Yeah, it's amazing. And they're all on it.

Normally, during the day, they're tentative to approach it,

but they're straight in there.

This is what we hope to achieve by seeing that

they're all doing what they're supposed to.

-Here we've got a few wandering round, but they're all here.

-Yeah.

You can see right in the very bright white light,

there's Two Tips, who's the dominant male. Is that right?

Two Tips is the boss, yeah.

You've got all of them, you've got Zeva in there having a good old go.

That's probably because the carcass is too big for any one wolf

-to guard and take away.

-Right.

When we see them during the day,

running around, they're beautiful-looking creatures.

But it's hard not to think of them as being a pack of domestic dogs.

I think when you see this sort of behaviour,

you suddenly notice the differences.

-It's eerie.

-Yeah, it is.

-It's very eerie, I think.

They do look incredible in this infrared light.

-They all seem quite calm, don't they? At the moment!

-Very calm.

I'm quite surprised that we haven't heard... We've got the windows open.

There hasn't been a great deal of noise, a little bit of yapping,

but not howling or anything like that. Is that what you expected?

I thought there'd be a little bit more aggression, I must admit.

-But then, they're still trying to get into it.

-Yeah.

I should imagine when they split it open a bit more,

that should start getting to the better bits.

Then, that's when the hierarchy steps in,

because the dominant animals will want to be at the best bit.

That's when you'll more likely hear a lot of the snarling and barking.

And they must have, without wanting to get into too gory detail,

they must have incredibly strong jaws to get through hide and bone,

-to get at the meat.

-They've got very sharp teeth and the crushing power -

-I think it's something like 500lb per square inch, which is...

-Wow!

Straight through our fingers, no problem.

It's just incredible to see. If I didn't know

I was sitting in Wolf Wood,

you could imagine we're in the wilds of Canada or something.

-It is incredible.

-It's certainly cold enough!

-Yeah, that's for sure!

-Ooh, look!

-There's a bit of fight there.

-That's all dominance, you know.

They're obviously a low-ranking member of the pack.

It's obviously overstepping the mark and getting a better spot

than he should be in.

A higher-ranking animal is just, you know, telling him off.

Putting him in his place. There's one or two wandering off.

Do you think some of them have had their fill?

They know that this carcass won't go anywhere,

they'll come back later on and eat again at their leisure?

They won't finish it all in one go, they'll come back through the night.

Most probably be gone by the morning.

Do you think? Completely clean down to the bones?

Bob, thank you very much indeed for letting us see this.

It's been a most amazing experience.

I think we should leave the wolves to their midnight feast.

Back in Pets' Corner, there's been some bad news

about the baby wallaby that Bev Allen was looking after.

He'd been rejected by his mother and all attempts to reunite them failed.

Bev continued to feed him by hand every two hours day and night.

But, sadly, all her efforts have been in vain.

The little joey died.

He was doing really well, he was taking the milk fine and everything.

Then at six o'clock in the morning he started...

not looking right at all and he just passed away quite quickly.

It wasn't to be expected, really, because he was so strong.

The last two weeks he'd been doing really well.

There was no reason why we would suspect

anything was going to happen like this.

So it is sad.

It's one of those things that do happen,

it's not always a nice ending to a story.

Sometimes things like this do happen,

and it's happened for a reason.

In a way, he's lasted two weeks, more than what he would have done

if he was with Mum.

A post-mortem was carried out which discovered

an unusual bladder problem.

It was something he was born with, so, in fact,

little joey was doomed never to survive.

There was nothing out of the ordinary that he was doing.

He was very strong so it made it a bit harder that,

all of a sudden, he did pass away.

At least this shows that there's nothing wrong

with Adelaide's maternal instincts.

With almost every species in nature,

it's perfectly normal for a mother to reject a baby with birth defects.

They pick up on things before we do.

So there probably was a problem with the joey,

that's why it was too early for it to come out of the pouch.

She knew, so it was something he had wrong with him from birth.

There's nothing we or the vet could have done to put it right.

But the knowledge doesn't make it any easier for Bev.

It does get to you. I was hand-rearing him for two weeks,

that's not long, but when you do it 24 hours a day,

every three hours feeding him, it does get to you.

But you have to pick yourself up and think

there's nothing I could have done, so you have to carry on, really.

Up in the Giraffe House, it's a happier story,

with Jolly and her new calf. We've heard they're doing well.

Now, Andy Hayton has brought me up for my first glimpse

of their 100th baby giraffe.

-What's his name?

-Century.

-Century!

How did you come up with that name?!

We thought he deserved something a little bit special,

but trying to find something that pertained to 100 was difficult.

-That is quite an achievement.

-It's fantastic.

That's the number of giraffes born at Longleat?

Yep, 100 is the live births. We've had more born.

We've had stillborns,

we've had animals give birth prematurely and die.

So we're probably up to about 130 pregnancies.

But this is the 100th live calf.

-How old is he now?

-He's about seven weeks now.

-Seven weeks!

-He really is a big, big giraffe.

I feel sorry for dear old Jolly because, er...she is old.

-This is her tenth calf.

-So not only is it the 100th giraffe here...

It's Jolly's tenth. Out of anybody that

deserves to give birth to the 100th giraffe here, it's Jolly.

She has done so much for this place.

How is she coping? She doesn't look in...

She's not bad. She's 22 this year.

-Is that a ripe old age?

-That's a good age.

It is a really good age for a giraffe.

How long would they live in the wild?

Not anywhere near as long as that,

because illnesses that Jolly has had here

may have killed her out in the wild.

We're giving her a special diet now and keeping her away.

If this had been one of the younger females,

they'd go back in the big box very early.

But as Jolly is old, and it's such a big calf,

she does lose weight...it takes a lot of effort to make milk.

-The calf must still be suckling from her.

-Oh, yes.

He'll keep going until seven or eight months old.

But as he's such a chunky calf, we may wean him early

to give Jolly a bit of extra help.

Could she have more?

I think, yeah, she went through this last one really well.

The calf was delivered really easily

and if the body's willing, let her do it. She'll let us know

when she'll stop breeding. When she starts struggling, we'll stop.

But you get little guys like this out of her,

it is a shame to stop her doing it - she's a great mum, as well.

Absolutely. Andy, thank you very much.

We'll keep you posted on how Century does.

Well done, Jolly.

Back on Gorilla Island,

Samba the elderly female has been sick with the flu for a week.

Now deputy head warden Ian Turner and vet Duncan Williams

have come to see how she's doing.

-All right, babe?

-Hello, Sam.

-Not too bad.

-No, she's looking all right.

This is quite an improvement since Ian last saw her.

She came in and buried herself under the straw,

shoved a blanket over her head and that was it.

Definitely stop the antibiotics and, er...

and treat her as normal. God, look at that.

-Hasn't got many teeth left, has she?

-No! No.

The gums just recede as they get older.

You've heard the expression "long in the tooth" - that's what she is.

She's took all this medication, hasn't she, really well?

-Cos normally if it's Nico...

-Unusual for her.

-Yeah, quite.

We worried we couldn't get the medication into her.

She's been really good, haven't you?

Maybe you realised it would do you good.

Before he was deputy head warden,

Ian was the keeper in charge of the gorillas,

so he's known them longer than anyone.

Just a treat for her. They don't normally get this.

As she's feeling a bit down in the dumps,

and I don't come across a lot...

He's gonna get grumpy, aren't you?

I might save you a finger, what do you reckon?

You can have one each.

She'll take this... Don't get grumpy, it's not yours, it's Samba's.

NICO GRUNTS

They get jealous.

But you like a bit of chocolate, and it's not given all the time.

But she's 45 years old now, so we don't have to worry about

any more damage to the teeth.

Do you want this? You've got to be good, then.

What do we say, then, if you want this chocolate?

Hey? What do you say?

You got to be good, though, haven't you?

Don't mess about. Clap your hands.

Good boy.

They're always jealous of each other. If I give Samba a treat,

Nico gets stroppy.

If I give Nico a treat, Samba gets stroppy.

They've always been like... They're more brother and sister

than husband and wife, put it that way.

It took Samba a bit longer to shake off the last of the flu.

Mark Tye kept her supplied with another favourite treat - figs.

Literally in the last few days she's definitely perked up.

And, as you can see now, she seems

quite lively and with it and is definitely keen, much keener to eat,

which is one thing she wasn't. She was leaving a lot of her food.

I know this is a bit of a treat, but her appetite is much improved,

and her general attitude is more back to normal.

Today she's been extremely grumpy cos we've let Nico out.

And she's stayed in!

She's obviously very upset about the whole idea, she wants to go out.

To help her through the flu,

Mark has paid particular attention to Samba's diet.

While she's been ill, she's steered well away from citrus fruits.

You know, she's not been interested in oranges, which surprised me,

cos I would have thought the vitamin C aspect,

but she's kept well away from those and wanted to eat more fibrous foods,

leafy greens, leeks, onions, things like that.

Obviously we've pampered to her and given her what she wanted.

We've given her the choice, but every day she's left what she doesn't want,

like the oranges, and she's eaten all the green stuff.

She is a massive fan of leeks and onions. And garlic!

Which is good for her, but unpleasant for us in the morning.

It seems to have done the trick,

she's definitely much chirpier, much more normal.

I'm very happy about that, very pleased.

Kate and I are at Monkey Jungle with keeper Kevin Nibbs

to glimpse the monkeys having their evening feed.

-What are they munching on now?

-Just selected fruit and veg, really.

It's a lot of nutrition in there... vitamin C in the oranges.

How many monkeys are in here?

At the moment about 80.

Do they work in a hierarchy,

or is it a free for all and everyone just piles in?

It looks like that, but they're very well organised.

Normally, the big males are in charge.

We have a big male called Timmy -

-he's at the end of the log there.

-The big one right at the end.

-Yes.

-Will he be taking the prime cuts of fruit?

-Exactly.

He sifts through it all first. He's in charge.

After him are the sub-adults of the males, they take second place.

After that you get the females.

So the females are right down in the pecking order?

-Yeah, the lowest females...

-Don't laugh!

-It's funny.

But the females have to do all the work.

There are a lot of youngsters,

we can see a few babies attached to the females.

-How do they fit in?

-They fit in with the mums.

The mums have a position in the group, the more dominant females

are higher up and their babies fit in with them.

So if your mum's dominant, you get a high place in the pecking order.

-Yeah.

-Do you think any of these guys are pregnant?

They're bound to be, yeah. They give birth all the time.

We've got quite a few to come.

Do you think 80 is about what you like to keep in...?

80 is a good number for us at the moment, yeah.

-They certainly seem to be enjoying that fruit.

-They do.

We have more bits and pieces here.

We ought to carry on chucking this out.

That's all we've got time for on today's programme.

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

It's time for the lion cub to venture into the great outdoors -

if only she wasn't such a scaredy cat.

Dung beetles love dung, so why is the one named

Hercules turning his nose up at the stuff?

And the otter pups would be ready for their first solid food,

except that Mum keeps scoffing the lot.

So don't miss the next Animal Park.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2006

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