Episode 5 Animal Park

We're out in Wolf Wood, where the pack are looking restless.

It's a sign.

Yes, Freda, the alpha female, is due to give birth at any moment.

We'll be following her progress closely throughout the programme.

Today on Animal Park - Darcy the bongo has escaped.

Now, one false move, and he could break a leg.

A demonstration of what not to wear?

No, it's an exclusive show of Lord Bath's favourite fashions.

And, dramatic developments on Gorilla Island.

In fact, it's the end of an era.

But now, up in Wolf Wood, they're expecting some exciting news.

In a well-ordered wolf pack, it's only the alpha male

and alpha female who mate and breed,

producing just one litter of pups each year.

Here at Longleat, the leaders of the pack

are Two Tips, the male, and his partner, Freda.

Right now, she's heavily pregnant.

In fact, she's due to give birth any day.

So, keeper Bob Trollope has been watching her closely.

It's absolutely great to see Freda pregnant again.

She's absolutely huge. This'll be her third litter as alpha female.

So she knows what she's doing.

And hopefully, judging by the size of her,

we'll have plenty of youngsters.

Over the past 30 years, they've had about 150 pups here.

But when wolves give birth, things can go horribly wrong.

One of their young mothers died in labour,

and there have been times when pups where unexpectedly found dead.

It would help if the keepers could monitor them closely,

but the trouble is, wolves are incredibly secretive.

It's actually very hard to catch a wolf giving birth.

It's one of these things that you just don't see.

They normally give birth after we've gone home for the night,

and everything is nice and quiet here.

So, when Freda was pregnant last year, the keepers installed

a purpose-built wooden den box inside the wolf house.

And, in order to check on the wolves,

it was fitted with an infra red CCTV camera

that would be able to see in the dark.

Kate went along to help set it up.

Bob, can you go into the den, please?

We'll just show you how this works.

Everything was done to make the artificial den

as comfortable as possible.

But, despite some interest, when her time came, Freda gave birth

in the middle of the night, out under a tree in the wood.

This year, Bob reckons

there is a good chance Freda will give birth inside.

In fact, he's installing an extra CCTV camera

in order to cover the wolf house more closely.

I think one of the main problems last year is the fact that this

was all new to them, and it takes a while for any animal to get used to

something new in their environment.

This being quite a big thing, it obviously put them off a little bit.

Hopefully, this year, it will be slightly different in that

they've had all year to get used to it.

It's one of the reasons why we're setting up these cameras prior to

them giving birth, so that we can monitor

which ones are coming in and which ones aren't.

Hopefully, we'll see Freda coming in.

And now, it's become even more important

for Freda to have her babies indoors.

Recent wet weather has left the ground waterlogged.

Any den dug under a tree is in serious danger of flooding.

So, if Freda had her pups out here, they could easily drown.

There's an advantage for giving birth in here.

The weather is absolutely terrible at the moment, and heaven forbid,

if you were born outside in this,

you've got a worse chance of survival, basically.

With the risk of flooding so high, drastic measures have had to be

taken to protect the pups from the danger of drowning.

Keeper Craig Faggeter must stop them

from digging birthing dens under the trees.

This is the start of a hole

that looked like they were going to start digging at.

We've gone round virtually every single tree up in the Wolves.

That took a couple of days

to actually go round and fill the holes in.

This should discourage them from using this tree, or any other tree.

So, fingers crossed now.

With all the possible den sites blocked up, and the weather

deteriorating, surely this year will be different from last.

You can't predict an animal.

We wanted her inside, she had them outside.

So, where will Freda gave birth?

And will she and her pups survive?

We'll be back in Wolf Wood later to find out.

Right now, the whole safari park has just gone on to red alert.

One of their animals is on the loose.

And of course, an escape is the keepers' worst nightmare.

Kate and I have just rushed down because we've had an urgent message

from Deputy Head Warden Ian Turner

that Darcy the bongo has escaped from his enclosure.

He crossed, remarkably, a cattle grid,

and he is now between the entrance to the park

and the main entrance where the cars come into the safari park.

There's a tiger enclosure just down there, with the tigers out.

So what the keepers are now trying to do, and you can see that people

are standing around here,

they're trying to shut the tigers back into their house

so that they can drive Darcy down this safe route here

and back into the park, not over a cattle grid.

If he crosses a cattle grid again, he could break a leg.

So it's a very delicate, very calm operation.

Although it doesn't feel very calm sitting here at the moment.

The tigers must be driven out of their enclosure

and down into their house.

Not because they could get at Darcy,

but because there's a chance he might see them through the fence.

And if he did, who knows where he'd be

when he eventually stopped running.

(RADIO) "Tigers are in."

Ooh, the tigers are in. OK.

So, the tigers are in, we've just heard on the radio.

Kevin is out with Darcy now.

-What's the plan?

-I think it's just changed.

We're going to try and walk him through this wooded bit

-and then take the fence down on the other side.

-Right.

And literally, he's just got a bucket of food there.

-That's the idea.

-He's so quiet.

The problem as well is that the safari park is still open,

so we've got cars coming through.

Absolutely.

It looks like Kevin isn't having a great deal of luck with his bananas.

It'll work with most animals.

I don't know what plan that was, whether it was A, B, C or D...

So he'll happily cross cattle grids, but he won't go on tarmac!

He won't go on tarmac, correct.

Even though he's walked across it once,

if he crosses it again and anything spooks him,

because they're very easily spooked,

and he just takes off, it's a broken leg.

It's extraordinary that he managed to cross it at all.

They're lethal things, even for us, to try and cross one.

I think the next plan of action is to try to slowly walk it

towards the cattle grid. Because it's so quiet.

They're hoping that it'll just walk across nice and peacefully.

They've just gotta watch for vehicles so they don't get spooked.

Crossing the road near the gate means Kevin can use

the fence to help block Darcy from turning away.

But it does mean taking him perilously close

to that cattle grid.

It's a very tense moment, and we'll be back shortly to see what happens.

Longleat's two gorillas are getting old.

In fact, at 46, they're amongst the very oldest gorillas in Britain.

Keeper Mark Tye has been looking after Nico, the male,

and Samba, the female, for 18 years now.

So to him, they're very special.

But then, gorillas ARE special.

After all, our DNA is about 98% the same.

Perhaps that's why, like all the great apes,

gorillas are capable of emotions that we think of as uniquely human.

Emotions such as grief.

Nico and Samba certainly have lots of character, as Mark knows well.

I'd say Samba's personality is very calm.

Very laid back. She doesn't get too stressed about anything.

She's quite nice. Nico's almost quite the opposite.

Very bolshie, very stroppy.

I've got older, they got older,

and we kind of all know where we stand and how we are.

If we're in good or bad moods,

I think we all kind of accept how it is.

But of course, getting old brings other problems.

Nico has been dogged by poor health for some time.

But last winter, it was Samba who fell dangerously ill.

The vet came straight over to Gorilla Island,

along with Deputy Head Warden Ian Turner.

His diagnosis was cold-cum-flu symptoms,

which obviously wouldn't be too bad.

But when a 45-year-old gorilla,

and in Sam'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. If you look at 45 years of age on a gorilla,

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

If a senior citizen gets a cold, it always takes them down.

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

They're not one of those animals

what get really stressy being kept inside.

It's easy to think that a cold or flu isn't really that serious.

But the vet, Duncan Williams, was very concerned.

The danger with illnesses like that is, if they don't eat

and drink properly, there's a danger of becoming dehydrated.

That can often be pretty serious,

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

Samba spent the next week in her warm bed, tucked up in front of the TV,

dosed up on medicine, and plenty of her favourite treats.

So when the vet returned, he found a different Samba.

-All right, babe.

-Hello, Sam.

-She doesn't look too bad, does she?

-No, she's looking all right.

Definitely stop the antibiotics,

and treat her as normal.

-Look at her! She hasn't got many teeth left, has she?

-No.

You've heard of the expression "long in the tooth". That's what she is!

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

-That's unusual for her.

-Yeah, that's right.

That was the worry, that we couldn't get the medication into her.

And she's been really good, haven't ya?

So maybe you realised it was gonna do you good, for a change.

It took Samba a long time to recover -

the rest of the winter, and well into the spring.

But when the good weather came, she did venture out with Nico

to enjoy the pleasures of Gorilla Island.

Then, as summer turned to autumn,

and winter followed on, Samba's health once more began to fail.

In the wild, gorillas rarely reach even their 30th birthday.

So at 46, what happened next should have been no surprise.

Once again, it started like a cold or a touch of the flu.

But this time, there was no stopping it.

Then, almost without warning,

Samba just faded away and died in the night.

It was two days before Mark Tye was ready to talk about it.

We've lost Samba.

And it's been...

a very, very sad time for all of us,

Nico included.

And myself, I don't know, I wouldn't say conditioned myself to it,

but I kind of knew it was always going to happen at some point.

But that's not made it any easier.

I mean, it's been 18 years of my life working with the pair of them.

I suppose it's like having one arm taken off.

She went downhill very, very quickly,

and she's been great to us all those years

and she was great to us at the end by not giving us a decision to make.

That was something I didn't want to have to do, and in a way she went

the way I wanted her to go, which was curled up in bed and just gone.

And that was tough, and it was tough taking her off the island.

It's hard work.

Coming to work becomes hard work.

But, we've still got Nico about, and for him we've got to be strong.

You know, you can tell he's upset.

He's very funny with us.

I think he thinks we've done something to her,

and he cries a bit for her.

He's constantly looking.

He's always looking in the places where she was, like the large bamboo

bush at the end of the island and things like that.

It's tough for us all to deal with.

Poor Nico. One of the oldest gorillas in Britain, and now he's all alone.

We'll be back later to see how he copes

with his loneliness and his grief.

Back at the bongo breakout, everyone's being quiet and gentle,

so that Darcy won't get spooked and charge off.

The keepers are concerned,

not just because he weighs more than two sumo wrestlers

and has pointy horns over half a metre long,

but also, if he tried to run over the cattle grid,

he'd almost certainly break a leg.

It looks like the keepers have now successfully got Darcy the bongo

to the other side of the road,

and they've now got one of the workmen to start taking down

part of the fence, so that they can persuade him to go through the woods

and back in on the other side.

The park's head warden, Keith Harris,

has rushed down to deal with the emergency.

So, Keith. This is proving to be much more complicated

than actually it first looked. What's happening now?

The way we wanted him to go through the undergrowth,

it's actually very, very thick.

So he keeps looking to come back the easy way.

So we're just going to alter some more fencing,

take a bit more fencing.

Then we can bring him out, take him through a fence in the corner,

and then back out a fence down the side.

Cos it's so quiet, it helps.

So, essentially you're gonna weave him back out here, back over,

and then out on the other side?

-That's it, yeah.

-That's the plan.

-Easier said than done.

At the moment, as I say, he's been quiet.

We don't mind. If it takes an hour, it takes an hour.

-If it takes two, it takes two.

-It's just about patience, isn't it?

That's it. We've got the rest of the day. And because he's not upset,

he'll probably go in there and fill his belly anyway.

It's all action stations still.

The fence is being brought down, but the truth is, the bongo is

still on the loose and it could run across the cattle grid at any time.

We'll keep you updated with the progress

a little bit later in the programme.

The safari park is home to around 90 different species of animals

that come in all shapes and sizes, shades and textures.

But, for sheer vibrancy and display,

none of them can quite match Longleat's most colourful resident.

Lord Bath is famous for his flamboyant costumes.

His family have lived here for over four centuries

and this year, he turned 75.

To mark the occasion, Lord Bath has invited us for an exclusive look at

some of his favourite fashion gems from down the decades.

It all began back in the late 1940s.

Well, up until my last year at Eton,

I didn't have the slightest interest in fashion.

It was only when suddenly there was this possibility of

being colourful in what one wore,

when I was in Pop at Eton, that's the equivalent of being a prefect,

and you were allowed then to wear anything colourful,

that it suddenly came to the fore.

I was permitted to display my authority

by preening myself like a peacock.

So that was the first time that I was consciously trying

to out-colour my contemporaries.

I like to be the most colourful one.

The headmaster once told me off for wearing a peacock feather

instead of a button hole,

so I avoided it in his presence after that!

After leaving school, Lord Bath put his penchant for preening on hold

while he did his National Service and studied at Oxford.

Then, as the 1950s came to a close, the time was right

for a whole new look.

# Eagerly pursuing all the latest fads and trends

# Cos he's a dedicated follower of fashion... #

Then it was after that, with the '60s beginning,

reading everywhere that London had become

the fashion capital of the world,

and as the Swinging '60s began to roll, yes,

I felt I could play my part constructively.

And so gradually, there was a certain development of an image

that was mine, and not somebody else's.

# ...Oh, yes, he is. #

Lord Bath has kept many items from all those decades ago.

So, it's quite a treat to get a peek into his wardrobe

and at these priceless pictures.

To start with, I had colourful sweaters,

and then I went to specially made clothes.

This came in a batch where I had some eveningwear made.

It's pony skin, and sort of fun fur.

Instead of black tie, I'd be wearing that.

As the '60s turned into the '70s...

..Lord Bath's image took a new direction.

And here, I'm wearing kaftans for the first time,

a style that became much more frequent when I was down in France.

I've got a house near St Tropez.

I wear thin clothes, or no clothes, whichever I feel like.

It's nice to be able to make the decision on the spur of the moment.

From kaftans, it was a short step to other kinds of long robes.

MUSIC: "Cum On Feel The Noize" by Slade

I met somebody who knew a Ugandan tailor,

who was happy to make a garment to cover everything.

I can quickly slip it on

and I can be dressed within ten minutes, within five minutes.

This is a cape that caught my eye

in a second hand store, on a peg in a shop.

Again, I thought, that's my sort of style.

It would be eveningwear, but it wouldn't have to be.

I could go out at midday in that. It's open to all possibilities!

In a wardrobe crammed with every imaginable colour,

could there be anything even vaguely subdued?

This is black and relatively plain on the front,

yet if I'm fearing I'm going to be taken as plain,

then I can turn round

and it becomes a bit more colourful on the back.

It's good to be able to go to black fashion, sometimes.

If I'm in mourning.

But it's not too often you'll catch Lord Bath

in anything so inconspicuous as black.

Then, more recently, it's combinations of,

say, a shirt like that, within a jacket like that.

I know that I've been painted in that one.

I think I chose it for the garment to be painted in because it puts

the painter to quite a test,

to see if he can get the colours in the accurate order.

Lord Bath's wardrobe still has more surprises yet to be revealed.

We'll be delving deeper into the decades a little later on.

Back up in the park, the operation to rescue Darcy, the escaped bongo,

has reached a critical stage.

We've been allowed out of the Land Rover now, although Keith

has given us specific instructions that if anything goes wrong,

we've got to head straight back to it.

Just in front of this Land Rover here, you can see that Kevin Nibbs,

the deputy head of section who looks after the bongos,

is managing to lead Darcy through the gap

that they've opened up in the fence.

This is the crucial point now.

If they can get him through here,

he's almost back in the enclosure where he belongs.

But most importantly,

they won't need to worry about him bolting over the cattle grid.

Go on, Darcy!

It's really nerve racking, isn't it?

-It is.

-Once they've got him through on that side,

they then have to attract him back out on the other side.

There he goes. He's through the gap.

And now, he can come through,

back into the enclosure. Keith, that seemed like a great success?

What can you do about this?

This is an animal that clearly hasn't bonded with the other three bongos.

And, he seems to be able to get over cattle grids, your main

device for keeping the hoofed animals in the park.

-You're gonna have to come up with a plan, aren't you?

-We are.

With him bonding, things like that take time,

and bongo in the wild are actually quite solitary.

So, it's not unusual that they will go off on their own.

But he's back out almost safely away now,

and you just have a bit of fencing to repair.

And a bit of a mystery to solve as to how he got out.

I'm going to lunch! But seriously, yeah,

we'll put all the fencing back and get everything sorted out.

We'll slowly feed him on down to the house.

He's undamaged, we know he's not hurt,

so that's the main thing, that his health's good.

He seems quite relaxed.

The boys are feeding him and pushing him on home.

It may sometimes look easy, but it's not.

It's a little bit more awkward and a bit more understanding goes into it

-than people think.

-Of course.

-Yes.

-As I say, everyone has done what they should do.

-A well-oiled machine.

-That's it, yes.

-Brilliant, Keith.

Well, thank you very much indeed.

We are going to let Darcy get settled

and we will catch up with him a little bit later in the programme.

Back in Wolf Wood, keepers Bob and Craig

are monitoring Freda, the alpha female, closely.

She's due to give birth any day now, and everyone is hoping she will have

her babies inside the wolf house

where they'll be able to keep an eye on things with CCTV cameras.

It's now even more important,

because outside, the weather has gone from bad to worse.

Bob and Craig are checking the CCTV to try to figure out

what the wolves are thinking.

-There's another one coming in.

-Oh, right. That's good.

At least we know we've got them coming in quite regularly now.

That's another male, by the looks of things. Not Freda, yet.

No sign of her.

That's Two Tips. That's the boss. He's just come to have a look.

Another one coming in.

That looks like One Tip.

So, the boss and the foreman are in there!

We just want the first lady to come in.

This is a good sign as well, because

they're actually nest-building, and they're nest-building properly.

They're banking it all the way up,

-making sure it's draught proof, I suppose.

-Yep.

So that they can have a nice little shallow.

And he's really working at it, this one.

You know, he could be making nice little areas,

-and she could come in, and that's actually saving her a job.

-Yeah.

And all she's got to do then is go in there and

save her energy, and just pop out the youngsters.

I'd like to see her come in now, that's for sure.

If we could catch the whole birth on film, that'd be brilliant.

But they are so nervous about anything new.

Maybe it's to our benefit that the weather has changed for the worse,

which hopefully may draw her into coming into the house

and giving birth there.

Even if she's only in there for a few days,

it's one step closer than what we got last year.

Freda is due very soon indeed.

Will the birth of her pups be a happy event, or turn into tragedy?

We'll find out later on.

This is a family tree of all the zebras here at Longleat.

There are 30 names on this board,

but the most important of all is this one, Ingrid, at the top.

She is the mummy of the lot of them, or grandmummy, or great grandmummy.

She's 30 years old this year, which is a staggering age for a zebra

and I'm going to go and meet deputy head of section Ryan Hockley

to find out how she's doing.

We're coming up to this little group of zebras now. Which one is Ingrid?

You can see Ingrid. She's right at the front here.

OK, so a slightly browner coat compared to the other three.

Yeah. She's still got a bit of winter coat there.

What you tend to find is, that lovely black and white

-striping on them is their pure, summer coat, really.

-Right.

In the winter, certainly in our climate,

they do grow their coats a bit thicker.

It does have this slightly brown tinge to it.

You can see Steph behind,

who still has a little bit of winter coat as well.

I think the older they are,

it seems the longer they keep that brown winter coat going.

Obviously, Ingrid being 30 this year,

she's got a lot more winter coat than everyone else.

30 years old.

Presumably a zebra in the wild would never live that long, would it?

No, we don't think so.

Around about 20 I think would be a really good age.

Obviously in the wild there's a lot more factors

to why they wouldn't reach this sort of age,

predation by the big cats obviously being the number one thing.

Lions just seem to love zebra. It's their roast dinner.

She looks amazingly healthy.

It's hard to see that she looks any older than any of the others.

Is there any secret to her long life, do you think?

We have absolutely no idea.

I mean, we believe that possibly she's the oldest zeb in captivity.

-Really?

-Yeah. And possibly by a long chalk as well.

Like I say, once they reach their twenties,

you tend to find them slowing down very quickly, to be honest.

You know, you'd expect to see a lot more bone exposed at her age,

where the muscle's fallen off.

I must admit, maybe in the last couple of years, we've noticed her

lose a fair bit of muscle mass off her front legs.

High up on the front leg she had these Schwarzenegger-esque muscles

bulging away there a few years ago.

-Not very feminine!

-No, not very feminine at all.

Over the last couple of years she's lost a bit of that muscle mass.

But she certainly doesn't look emaciated or skinny.

She's not a bag of bones by a long chalk.

Well, she's a credit to all your work looking after her.

Of course the zebras have now left us as if to prove she's not an old lady.

She's practically the other side of the park,

but it's great to see her,

may she have many happy more years here at Longleat.

Thanks, Ryan.

While Kate's up with the zebras,

I've come down to Pets Corner to meet some much smaller creatures.

I'm here in the degu enclosure with keeper Bev Allen.

They're extraordinary looking creatures,

where are they from originally?

They come from South America, high up in the mountains.

And we've got eight degus in here all together.

So out in the wild what would they live off?

They would eat things like roots of plants,

grass they would find up,

-they live on the dew from the grass for water.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Do you try to mimic that here, then? The feed and things?

We do. We give them quite a strict diet, actually.

You have to be careful with diabetes in degus.

We give them a diet of rabbit pellets and chinchilla pellets.

And now and then we give them a bit of carrot

because healthy degus usually have orange teeth.

If they've got white teeth, it usually means they're not very well.

-Really?

-Mmm.

-Very different to us.

It is, yeah.

Thank you very much. Here's what's still to come on today's programme.

There are surprises in store up in Wolf Wood.

I'll be helping when it's bath time for their biggest tortoise.

And if Samba's death has been hard for the keepers,

it's been worse for Nico.

We'll find out if he can ever recover.

But now, up in Wolf Wood,

everyone is waiting anxiously for the birth of a new litter of pups.

Freda, the alpha female, is due very soon and keepers Bob and Craig

are watching her closely for any tell-tale signs.

Freda's actual behaviour today is really erratic.

She's running around a lot, whimpering, lying down, up again.

Now she's been seen urinating a lot.

So these are signs of imminent or the next day or so.

In previous years, Freda has given birth out in the wood,

but Craig and Bob want her to use the house

where she and her pups would be safe and dry.

Now Freda has started to bring sticks in to make a nest.

It's an encouraging sign.

Last year especially she wasn't too bothered about going into the house

but now I've seen her in her there more this year than ever before.

The fact that she's making all

the right noises, she's very restless at this moment in time.

If I was a gambling man then I would put money on the fact that

she is gonna give birth tonight,

if not tonight then tomorrow morning and hopefully indoors.

First thing the next morning, Bob heads straight up to Wolf Wood

to see if his hunch was correct.

What we're doing is we'll check this section first

and if we can't find her out here

than we'll have to go into the house and see if she's there.

Just gonna have a quick head count.

If you can look over there by that oak tree,

Freda is laid there curled up.

I just...oh, yeah, look, look, look.

There's a pup.

She's had pups.

She's had them not in the place

where we would have loved her to have them but she's had some.

It was imminent she was gonna have them by the signs yesterday.

So obviously during the night time she's decided

to give birth outside.

She's virtually done what she done last year and instead of going into

the house she's actually just dug a little shallow near a tree.

And that is one of the trees that has been a den site in the past.

She's getting up. Oh, there's probably about three or four there.

One, two, she's just rearranging herself.

She doesn't want to stand on them.

The first few hours and days are critical for wolf pups.

They're born blind and don't even open their eyes

until they're about two weeks old.

This makes them very vulnerable

and in the wild around half don't survive.

Here at Longleat, although they're not in danger from predators

or lack of food, this is still a nervous time.

The way that she is

I wouldn't have thought that she's finished giving birth yet.

So possibly there's more to come.

I suppose it is a little bit worrying

because this isn't the best of weathers.

You know, rain last night,

I think the forecast is that it's gonna rain again today.

This is a very sort of tense time obviously for the pack.

But it's also a time when we can see

just how tight-knit the relationships are within the wolf pack.

She's got a helper alongside.

That's Two Tips, who's the father.

He's obviously gonna be staying near her.

You can't mess with nature. If she feels safe out here

with the fellow pack members around her

then she's obviously has chosen this as her place.

The fact that they do look lively is a bonus.

With the pups just hours or even minutes old,

we mustn't disturb Freda by trying to get a closer look.

We'll just have to be patient and come back later

to find out how many pups she has and if they all survive.

Senior Warden Bev Evans and I have come up to the tortoise paddock

to meet Michelle, an African spurred tortoise.

Now, she is gigantic, isn't she?

She is pretty big, although she's not fully grown.

How much bigger will she go?

-She'll probably get another two thirds bigger.

-Wow!

And I'm right in thinking that we're actually here to give her a bath.

Yes, she generally... as you can see, she's quite clean anyway,

but sometimes they can get quite dirty underneath.

And also it's very good to keep them hydrated in the warmer weather.

OK, so how on earth are we gonna go about giving her a bath?

We have a special tortoise pond in the bottom of the paddock.

She's here, which means we've got to get her there.

-Yes.

-I imagine she's quite heavy.

-She's about 20 kilograms in weight.

I suppose I should be gallant and volunteer.

-Shall I pick her up like this?

-That's fine just underneath there.

Wow! That's a very heavy tortoise.

-So are we just gonna lead her down this way, are we?

-Yes.

-OK.

-She does wiggle a little bit but she's generally quite good.

Right. OK so presumably this is the washing pond?

Yeah, if you just dip her into there.

-OK, just pop her down like that?

-Yeah, that's fine.

-And she likes that, does she?

-She does.

We've made this specially designed for our tortoises.

It's not too deep in the middle.

-OK.

-So they're never gonna get themselves into any trouble.

OK, and how do we go about it? Literally just splash some water?

Yeah if you do that. As you can see she's not overly keen.

-Some days are better than others.

-Just like this?

Yeah, you need to keep basically the top of the shell

quite clean, if there's any big bits

of mud or anything on there it can inhibit their intake of sunlight

and all the vitamin D and UV.

They pick up vitamins through sunlight

that goes through the shell?

Yeah. So you need to keep that clean, that's why you should never

varnish or do anything to the shell. Just keep it as natural as possible.

Would you do that with household tortoises?

Yeah, just keep it clean, keep it nice and tidy.

Especially round the rear end.

Obviously they're very low to the ground so they can get quite mucky.

Just keep them clean.

But she's very good. She'll come into this pond and bathe herself

from time to time as well.

Do you think she's enjoying this?

Kind of. She's not running off.

She's not running off.

Now I'm assuming she can't feel that through her shell?

Its kind of like a very thick finger nail.

There is blood running through the shell

so if you did break, you can get shell rot and things like that.

So you do have to keep the shells in good condition.

And does she have a mate here?

She does, Thomas, he's wandering around over down by the house.

Thomas is over there. Does Thomas like having a bath?

-He hates it.

-Does he?

-He absolutely hates it.

Whereas Michelle as I said does go in herself. Thomas won't.

He'll walk through it by accident but he'd never stay in there.

He's quite a dirty little boy, bless him.

Do you have to force him in there if he's really grubby?

Yeah, we'll dip him in there from time to time, certainly.

Tortoises obviously have a reputation for being very slow,

but actually that's a reasonable pace, isn't it?

Yes, the sun has been out quite strongly today

and once they're warmed up and at their full temperature

that's it, they go, they're like a solar panel,

they can go quite fast.

That was a very quick shower.

Are you happy that I've done a reasonable job?

To be honest she's not that dirty today so not too bad.

OK, well, thank you very much,

I'm not sure that I'd ever get a job as a tortoise washer.

Back on Gorilla Island, the mood is still sombre.

A few days ago, after a short illness,

Samba passed away in the night.

Mark Tye has spent the last 18 years of his life

looking after Samba and her partner Nico.

Now it's hard for him to come to terms with the loss.

Tough. It's tough to deal with. You know, and sometimes, you think,

"OK, I've had my cry, and I've got to get on with it,"

and then all of a sudden something will happen,

and make you think about it some more,

and you know, particularly if you see Nico being a bit upset about it.

That's hard to deal with.

You know, we're all trying to be there for each other,

and prop each other up.

You know, like with everything in life we will get over it,

but at the moment, it's still quite raw.

On Gorilla Island, the memories are everywhere.

Samba was just the nice one, you know?

She never had that nasty streak that she wanted to hurt people.

With Nico it's always like, "Can I get one over on you?"

With her it was always different, she was always very nice,

and always very welcoming, and I think she was with a lot of people.

Mark isn't the only one who's been remembering the good times.

Before he was deputy head warden, Ian Turner looked after the gorillas.

My abiding memory of Samba is a loving tom-girl.

She's not as affectionate as Nico is,

cos he'll come over and chat to you, and she wouldn't,

but she was gentle, and she was a character,

so it was quite heartbreaking when she went.

You still sometimes expect to see her.

You open the door and expect to see her run in.

It's really strange, that feeling.

Living on an island in the lake,

the only way for visitors to see the gorillas was to take the boat trip.

Bill Lord has been conducting the tours for over ten years.

If you can call her a friend, she was a friend.

She was always out there when we wanted her.

You could go out there and you knew if the hippos were hiding,

the sea lions had gone for walkabout or something,

the gorillas were there.

And she was always there for us.

Course I'm going to miss her. Miss her enormously.

Darren Beasley did a long stint on the boats

before he became head of Pets' Corner.

I think my favourite overriding memory of Samba

is one day we were out on the boats,

and the boat decided it wasn't going to make it

completely all the way round the journey.

It was just one of those mechanical things, no panic,

but we were drifting towards the island,

and my commentary was saying about how gorillas are peaceful,

gentle animals and I was thinking,

"Oh, I hope they really are, we're about to hit the island.

And she came running out, acting all tough,

picked up a dirty great huge clod of soil,

and threw it in the air, as if to say, "Stand back from my island."

We bounced off the island, and carried on drifting round.

And I thought to myself, "If all wars could be solved like that!"

But the one who knew Samba the best is, of course, Nico.

After all, they spent their entire lives together.

The whole idea of getting the gorillas in the first place,

the male and female, was to have babies.

And Nico and Samba were got over here as a breeding pair, as it was.

But to everyone's disappointment, there never were any babies.

What we think happened was they'd literally just grown up as brother and sister.

And just got, you know, so used to knowing each other

that that side of it didn't enter his head.

But now she's gone, how does Nico feel?

Do gorillas really feel grief like us?

You can't make any bones about it, he's upset.

When you've worked with an animal that long,

they don't have to do much different to know that they're not happy,

and you can tell by his face.

And his facial expressions and reactions like that, to be honest,

that make you know he's upset.

And sometimes his eyes look through you.

Nico is very old. In human years, he would be well into his 90s.

So the question is, after a blow like this, will he ever recover?

We'll find out later on.

His family have lived at Longleat for 13 generations,

but the present Lord Bath must be the most colourful one ever.

To mark his 75th birthday, he's invited us in

for an exclusive peep at his kaleidoscopic collection of clothes.

The garment he's most famous for is the waistcoat.

# If everybody looked the same

# We'd get tired of looking at each other...#

Well, the reason I really like waistcoats

is that you can choose something complex in texture and colour,

and if I'm wearing some straight colour like that colour beneath,

this can go over the top of it,

and bring the mind to much more detailed things.

Very often designers, approach me,

including little snippets of material,

and say they'd like to make a waistcoat,

and very often, if it's the sort of material I do like, I will say yes,

and when I get too many of them, my wardrobe is full.

And now, Lord Bath has inspired a new fashion craze

down in one of the Longleat gift shops.

This one is called Jungle Blues.

Manager Barbara Savage has got in a line of Lord Bath waistcoats

that have turned out very popular,

particularly with the American visitors.

-Do they make them this big?

-Yes!

-If you'd like to try one on, you certainly can.

-Sure.

This one is called Quadrophenia.

Can you wear a sports jacket or something over this?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It makes you look much slimmer.

It does, doesn't it!

Get my sunglasses on!

And there you are, you see, you look really quite smart in that one.

-Whereabouts in America are you from?

-Houston, Texas.

Houston? Would you like to take one back to Houston with you?

If you wrap it up!

I would stand out.

I don't think Longleat would be anything like what it is

if we had Lord Bath dressed in his suit.

We're used to Lord Bath in his bright, vibrant clothing,

which reflects on his life and passion for Longleat.

It's not just in the shop

where Lord Bath's sense of style has been a big hit.

When he goes around the estate, he always turns heads.

It's not clothing that I would wear myself,

but I don't think it looks at all out of place.

When we see Lord Bath, he stands out,

and that's the way it should be.

I love the way he wears really funky shirts underneath

that have no pattern whatsoever to do with the waistcoat,

and I think that's what works really good.

With his waistcoats now all the rage in Houston, Texas,

has Lord Bath ever been tempted

to break into the world of haute couture?

After all, the contents of his wardrobe

could be worth a small fortune.

All of the items I'm liable to suddenly reach in and think,

"I haven't worn that for a while," and bring it out.

I don't tend to say goodbye to a garment.

I know people have said, would I put up a garment for charity?

No! I wear them still!

One can be highly sober in one's clothing,

but I've never thought of myself as highly sober.

But then once you start on the colourful campaign,

it's quite difficult to stop,

and there's always got to be one better than the others!

It's now been over a month

since Freda had her pups outside in Wolf Wood.

In the end, she had six, though, sadly, two of them soon died.

That's not unusual.

In the wild, you'd expect only about half the litter to survive.

Happily, since then, everything has been going smoothly.

I'm out in Wolf Wood with deputy head of section Bob Trollope,

and this is my favourite time, I think,

because the wolf cubs are just beginning to emerge

from out of the den and show themselves.

You've got a glimpse of one there, Bob. What age are they now?

-They're just about five or six weeks.

-Right.

As you can see, they blend in really well.

It's impossible to see! Our poor cameraman is gonna really struggle.

You can just see them at the base of that tree there.

This little one's being quite adventurous,

but it's lovely seeing one of the adults there just looking like he,

or she, is keeping an eye on him.

You normally find wherever there's a pup,

there's gonna be an adult not far away.

We can't see Mum at the moment. Can we drive around and see if we can...?

We can try and pick her out.

She's obviously going from pup to pup to just check on how they are.

-I'll just drive over here.

-OK.

-You can see two titches there, waiting for us.

-Oh, yes.

So, alpha male on guard.

Does that tell you the pups might well be under that tree?

They most probably will be here.

You can see one little sleeping one.

Yeah, just here. That just shows how well they blend in, though.

-It's extraordinary, how well they're camouflaged.

-Fast asleep.

-I'll just turn the engine off.

-Absolutely adorable.

They look so fragile at this age, but they are quite robust.

They are really hardy. Their teeth, they're razor sharp.

-Like little pins.

-Like little needles.

Yeah. They'd shred our skin with no problem.

-Look at that little thing.

-That's mum under the tree,

so there's most probably pup up there as well.

-There, as well.

-I did notice that she's got a bit of a limp.

Oh, has she? If this limp continues,

what do you do about that? You try and keep hands off with the wolves.

Yeah. We're lucky, in a way.

Our policy is to try and treat them as wild as wild,

and they thrive on that.

If we have to intervene, especially with a mum,

and you have to take her out the equation for a day...

Here's another one.

Coming out from the tree!

The pups are going to be quite vulnerable.

They still need that milk,

and we wouldn't want to put anything into her

that would be passed through the milk.

So the best policy is just to leave her, and hope that it heals itself.

Yeah. Obviously, if it was a bad cut that needed stitching,

we'd have to do it.

All the wolves have suddenly decided to come together.

-There's lots of communication suddenly.

-Yeah.

Sometimes they all run together, just to reinforce the pack numbers,

make sure that everyone's safe and sound.

When will the pups start to communicate?

Do you hear them making noises, even at this very early stage?

It is amazing, because at a very young age,

about now, they attempt it, but it's very high pitched.

But presumably, like human mothers,

Freda will hear that immediately, she'll pick it up.

If any of them were in distress, they'd make whimpering noises,

little howling noise, and then Mum or Dad, or one of the braver ones,

would actually go and retrieve it.

If it wasn't picking it up, it would make it follow.

-Wow.

-Try to shove it around with its nose.

-That's amazing.

The complexities of Wolf Wood.

Bob, thank you very much indeed,

and of course, we will be keeping you updated

with the wolf pups' progress over the series.

On Gorilla Island, there's now just one inhabitant.

Nico's lifelong companion passed away just a month ago.

The keepers noticed that he was lost without Samba,

and have been trying to fill the gap in his life.

Good boy, aren't you? Hey?

He, like us, is struggling, but we're doing what we can.

We're spending more time with him.

They are social creatures, and without another gorilla,

we are somewhat limited as to what we can do for him,

but giving him our time is what we can do.

Nic! Hello!

Hey, boy!

Mark has known Nico for 18 years.

But it's been tough,

even for those who've only been here for a couple of years,

like keeper Michelle Stevens.

You do have to be really strong for him.

He will react off of your behaviour,

and if he sees you crying, you don't know,

it might have an effect on him,

so you do have to talk to him in an upbeat manner,

try not to be too stressed around him.

It is really difficult.

You definitely have to look forward to the future.

He is our priority now.

Yes, we've lost Samba, but we still have him,

and more so, now, he needs us.

He needs our company, he needs us to give him challenges,

so he really, in a way, does depend on us more now.

Michelle has been doing lots to try and keep Nico busy

and occupied with other things.

This is a new enrichment device I've thought up.

We put the food in,

and he has to use his fingers to manipulate

and push the food through.

He has to also get up on his hind legs, as well.

It's a little bit of a work-out for him, as well.

NICO GRUNTS

Good noises.

That's the sort of noises we want to hear,

those long rumbling noises, sort of happy noises.

Michelle shares the feeding duties with Mark.

As the days go by, he's noticed a definite improvement.

He's a lot better than he was.

Obviously, the first week was pretty horrendous for him, and us,

pretty bad having to listen to him whimpering, cos he was crying.

But he's picked himself up, and he has now pulled himself back,

and he is more like his normal self.

I won't say 100%, but at least 90% his normal self.

And Nico is always pleased to see his old keeper, Ian Turner,

not least because there's a good chance

he'll have a chocolate biscuit on him.

You like stuff like this. We shouldn't spoil you, really.

NICO GRUNTS

Woo! That's a happy sound.

He's quietened down a lot, hasn't he? From what it was.

Still like to rip the lens off a camera, wouldn't you?

Some kinds of aggressive behaviour

are perfectly normal for a silverback male.

Oi!

Let go!

That may have been bad news for the camera, but it's good news for Nico,

because it shows he's now getting back to his old self.

And for everyone else, Samba may have passed away,

but as long as she's remembered here with affection,

she'll never really be gone.

Earlier today, Darcy, the new bongo to the safari park,

tried to exit Longleat.

Yes, a whole group of keepers had to work very closely together

to try and coax him back into the safari park and into safety.

You may think that that is Darcy, but, oh, no -

he has been confined to quarters,

and deputy head warden Ian Turner is here.

Ian, the operation seemed to go extremely well.

It was actually very calm and very ordered.

One of the lucky things is he's quiet.

That's one of the good things.

The hiccup is, because he's quiet,

he caused the problem he caused, by walking across a cattle grid.

I know one of the problems

was that Darcy liked to keep himself to himself

and away from the other bongo.

Behind us is evidence they rather like him! Is that so?

They obviously know something's happened today.

He's been on a bit of a journey. They've come to see what's going on.

So what's going to be the plan?

Clearly, he can't stay shut in here forever.

We'll keep him in a little bit longer, so he gets used to them,

and we'll maybe try and mix one of them inside,

which we did before, and they got on quite well,

but as soon as they came outside he just wandered off on his own.

He doesn't seem to be a mixer, do you?

Ian, you've been here for... Well, we won't say how many years!

-Thanks, Ben!

-But you must have had animals breaching fences

in the past. How do you think the whole exercise earlier went?

Lovely. He was a pain when we got him back in,

and walked him down towards the house.

As soon as we got him towards here, he went off again.

Straight towards the cattle grid,

but we managed to stop him in time again and got him in a trailer.

You were put in the trailer. We'll have to sort out the cattle grid,

because that one there is broken. So that wants fixing,

and maybe we'll have to do some stand-off fencing at the side,

cos one of the things he doesn't like doing is walking on concrete,

which is why we wanted to get him out of the paddock early,

back into the open.

While we've been talking,

another bongo has also come up to check on Darcy.

They can all be reassured that he's fine.

They can, and so can we. He's looking fantastic.

Ian, I'm glad that everything went well today.

Sadly, that's all we've got time for on today's programme,

but here's what's coming up on the next Animal Park.

The little kid goat who was rejected by her mother, just hours old.

It'll be a miracle if she survives.

We're up with the giraffes,

to see the other part of their body that's very long.

And there are big moves afoot

to stop the monkeys from getting up to mischief on the visitors' cars.

We'll have all that, and more, next time on Animal Park.

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