Episode 4 Animal Park

The tigers are the most dangerous big cats in the park

and when they're inside the house, it's vital for our survival

that there's a good set of strong bars between us and them!

But of course, when they're outside, there are no bars.

And as the park opens for another season, no-one knows quite how

the tigers are going to react to the visitors here.

One thing is for certain... TIGER SNARLS

the keepers have to be prepared for anything.

Today on Animal Park: The monkeys are up to their old tricks,

but now we've got a surprise for them.

A keeper has a narrow escape from the jaws of death.

All I saw was a face full of teeth and claws.

And I'll be there to get our first look at the park's newest arrivals.

But first, we're going up to Tiger Territory,

because the youngsters are getting frisky.

Last year, three young tigers arrived from a zoo in France.

They were just over one year old and sisters from the same litter,

named Soundari, Svetli and Shouri.

They're a very rare kind, Amur tigers,

the biggest big cats in the world.

Between them, keepers Brian Kent and Bob Trollope

have over 50 years' experience of working with tigers,

and right from the start, they knew they had a challenge on their hands.

One of them is fine so far.

The other ones are grumpier with me.

TIGER GROWLS

Bit more spirit, this one.

The tigers had to be kept in quarantine for six months

but then the day came to let them out

into their wide-open enclosure,

where they could meet the public passing through in their cars.

Straight away, Soundari just wanted to play,

but Svetli and Shouri were more wary.

They just following the fence-line round, which is quite normal.

We've just got to be careful now on how we approach any situation.

For the rest of that season, Svetli and Shouri continued to hang back,

wary and careful, watching and waiting.

Then the park closes in the winter, so through those long months,

the tigers had the place to themselves. And all the while,

they've been growing in confidence as well as size.

They're just over two years old now and they've grown incredibly.

They're filling out as well, and looking like real adult tigers,

even though they've still got growing to do.

It's really enjoyable to have young tigers again.

We haven't had young tigers for donkey's years.

We're seeing things now that we haven't seen for years.

Like a lot more playfulness, climbing up trees. It's great.

It means they're happy, they're showing signs of what they would do in the wild.

But what does that mean for how the youngsters will behave with the visitors?

Initially, I think, they're going to be a little bit boisterous.

But hopefully, because when you think about it,

for the past few months, they haven't seen any vehicles in their enclosure.

They go out every day, and no visitors go around during winter.

I think that's going to be a bit of...playfulness for them.

A bit of stimulation for them, I suppose, in a way.

Obviously, when you let them out into the park,

there is an element of danger.

They are wild animals and they will behave like wild animals.

They're not tame in any way.

As you can hear her now, she's watching me and she knows full well

that given the chance, she will attack me.

Isn't that right?

SHE ROARS

-Just like that!

-HE LAUGHS

She's not the friendliest of tigers at all.

That's our Shouri.

Now, as the safari park opens its gate for the start of a new season,

it's time to let the sisters out.

All right, all right.

Go on.

Go on, then. That's it.

But Shouri may not be in the best mood to meet her public.

-Very nice!

-Friendly!

Bye, then. OK. Oh, what are you doing?

I think she's got a few issues, with people.

In fact, Shouri in a bad mood may not be as deadly as Soundari,

the friendly one, in a good mood.

Later, see just how dangerous

a healthy young tiger can be, just playing around.

Hey, hey, hey! Get off it!

For a band of notorious vandals,

the park's rhesus macaque monkeys are really quite sweet.

There's about 80 of them here,

and they've got into the habit of pulling bits off the visitors' cars.

It's not malicious. They just think it's great fun.

Last year, in a bid to distract the monkeys from this antisocial behaviour,

the keepers put up a couple of tree-trunks

as a combination climbing frame and feeding station.

And it really worked, but only for a while.

Recently, they've gone back to their wicked ways.

So now they need something new to play with.

Head warden Keith Harris has been dreaming up all sorts of big ideas

for Monkey Jungle, and this is the first prototype, I gather, Keith?

It doesn't look much yet, does it?

We've got to sort this out first and the monkeys will afterwards.

-OK, so it's to amuse us more than the monkeys?

-Yes.

It's in my mind so we'll make it up as we go.

We've got to see whether they're going to start using the bungee.

-Right.

-And of course, a way to a monkey's heart is here, look.

-Nuts.

-Monkey nuts.

So I thought we'd try it with the feeder first.

The idea is we're going to put this tube and suspend it between

-two tree-trunks here, which are the feeders anyway.

-Right.

See if they'll come down and feed and if they do, then the imagination can run wild.

Kevin, you're here to help us out. What will they make of this?

They're used to the feeders. We put them behind the logs. They know there's food inside.

So suspending them might throw them, but I'm sure they'll come along.

You have two extra pairs of hands to help, so just tell us what to do.

What we're going to do is, I figure,

-this end, we want to go around the lower of the two trees.

-OK.

-So pull that through.

-Yeah.

I'll put that down on there. Go right the way round, Kate.

-OK.

-And then come back to Kevin.

And then I should probably use this to tie it up?

What I would do is do it on this bit here, so you've got a complete loop.

-If we do that, then put one of those bull clips onto there.

-I see.

Oh, yes. Just getting it going on that one. There we go.

This isn't rope but extra-strong elastic bungee line,

to give the monkeys' new feeder a bigger bounce.

We're filling the feeder with monkey nuts.

By the way, we've already installed a miniature camera inside the tube.

-Monkey feeder mark one.

-Excellent. Shall we put these nuts in

-or do we want to scatter them around here?

-Scatter them.

And then we'll drive away.

They've been sat on the roof of the hut over there watching us.

They have. I have noticed.

They never let anything go unnoticed in here, do they?

They have their sentinels out to see what's going on.

Quickly, any idea who might be the first of the monkeys to come over?

I reckon, because he's very cheeky, it'll be the younger male.

He'll probably come over and investigate it first.

OK, well, let's see what happens.

Keith, Kevin, thank you very much indeed.

Join us later to see what the monkeys think of their brand-new bungee feeder.

Will it go down a storm or will it be a complete flop?

-Monkey nut?

-Thanks.

It's been 10 years since we first began filming in Longleat House.

To mark the decade, we've been looking back at some of the dramatic events we've covered in that time.

Like the tale that took us on a journey

to the darkest corners of the criminal underworld.

The story began a few years earlier,

when security at Longleat House was a lot less thorough than it is now.

Lord Bath was upstairs in the private apartments when someone broke in.

GLASS SMASHES

ALARM BEEPS

The alarm was triggered at 9 o'clock but Lord Bath didn't hear a thing.

I had the sound up loud as usual, because I'm very deaf.

And I certainly didn't hear any noises on the outside of the building.

But the house steward came running.

At the time, that was Ken Windas.

You're thinking, what could it be?

Your heart's thumping, you're going as fast as you possibly can.

The heist must have been planned and executed with split-second timing,

because by the time Ken reached the first-floor state drawing room,

the thieves were gone.

They stole just three paintings,

the most valuable of which was by the Italian Renaissance painter Titian

and was worth well over £5 million.

The first indication that I had that the picture was gone

was the pieces of frame strewn on the floor in front of me as I walked in.

And of course, that's when the feeling of dread starts, because...

because you think, "God."

And when you look and see the space where the picture was...

It's a very traumatic experience when you suddenly find something like that missing.

Ken immediately contacted estate general manager, Tim Moore.

Ken said, the Titian's gone,

or words to that effect, and I thought, "Oh, my God."

You're thinking to yourself, what the hell does one do?

We'd done an outside check.

Smashed window, nothing there.

And I think it was a feeling of helplessness,

bitterness and a sense of despair.

It's not like an ordinary thing, a teaspoon or something, being stolen.

It was very valuable and very beautiful.

I felt almost as if it was a personal failure on my part because I hadn't protected it.

The idea of somebody coming into your house,

taking something where you're supposed to be the custodian...

And I hadn't been the custodian for very long.

My father only died a little while before that.

And so I felt very badly that already I've lost something.

The police hunt for the thieves started immediately,

and by the next morning, the house was besieged by the press.

We do do our best,

but when we fail in this manner,

it hurts us all. It's also not just my loss.

It was a very lovely little Titian.

The painting shows Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus

and is called Rest On The Flight To Egypt.

The key thought was, the more publicity we can get

immediately about the theft, the better.

Because we had no idea where the picture was.

Had it headed off down to a port?

Was it out of the country?

Whatever, we needed the maximum international coverage about the theft as soon as possible,

and in that way, hopefully offer some protection to the picture,

and to reduce the ability of anybody to offload it easily.

But all that press coverage had another effect.

It raised sympathy from unexpected quarters.

Before anyone could work out what to put in the space,

Longleat's curator, Kate Harris, received some helpful suggestions.

They were sent to Lord Bath by children

from a school in Huddersfield, just after the theft.

I think they sent them to cheer him up.

They're meant to be copies of the Rest On The Flight Into Egypt.

The children, apart from sending in their paintings,

they each wrote a little note to Lord Bath.

Some of them are very sweet indeed. This one says,

"Dear Lord Bath, I hope you'll get the painting back and I hope your lions are feeling OK.

"Just forget about the painting and think about your birthday."

But the Titian was far from forgotten.

The insurers, who would have to pay out £1 million on the theft policy,

put up a reward for £100,000.

Mark Dalrymple was the loss adjuster handling the case.

Criminals of any description have information.

If they have information about other people's crimes,

and they won't give it to you unless you offer them some money,

providing we get a result, then we'll give them some money.

The stakes were high, but that was a very dangerous strategy.

Find out what happened a little later on.

Earlier on, Kate and I helped Keith and Kevin here rig up

a brand-new contraption, if that's the word, here in Monkey Jungle,

to try and enrich the monkeys' lives.

We're hiding behind the car because we don't want them to be disturbed, but I can see...

They're coming over. See how he's testing it?

-Yes.

-To see exactly what that is.

That's just the sort of behaviour that we're looking for.

This is exactly what this is about.

It's getting their brains and minds working.

-Yes.

-There's another one on the right hand side.

Looks like quite a youngster.

He's thinking, "Ooh, do I do it?"

Not sure. Not sure.

He is having a bit of a bite.

-Is our bungee monkey-proof, in terms of their teeth?

-Come back in an hour.

-I'll let you know!

-Look!

Brilliant. Nearly did it.

Nearly brave enough.

Feeling much more confident.

Look at that. That's brilliant!

Keeping its hands on the actual trunk.

Yes. Oh, I don't know what to do!

Oh, go on. See if you can do it.

-Go on, little one!

-Now this one...

-Look at the one in the middle!

-That's cheating.

-That's quite clever, though, because it's a tiny one.

Again, not a full-grown adult, is it?

-No, that's a very young one.

-Here we go.

Look. It's going to be a youngster that does it first.

-There you are, look.

-Oh!

-And hand in.

-Look at that.

-Oh, dropping it down for everyone!

-Brilliant.

-Oh, no, he's not.

-Now he's eating some.

-Now he's eating.

Now, would you say, Kevin...

-Oh... Oh, no, that's not fair!

-Look at the fatty!

Would you say that is a future leader of the troupe, that little one?

I think it could well be.

It's a very smart one indeed, and it worked it out first.

-And is this the young male, now, that's taken over?

-Yes.

He'll have his fill and once he gets off, the rest will probably go up there.

Won't get more than one on there.

You see, he's trying to balance himself to make sure nothing happens to him.

But look at them all... Oh!

Look at them all watching on the end.

"Should we be brave enough? Let's try it."

We've got someone else on the left-hand side.

That's going to go ping!

I know it is!

THEY LAUGH

Because it's made up of so many different strands inside,

even if they chew through one, it'll take a long time for that to go.

Oh, just a bit...

No... Oh! THEY LAUGH

-She's got a baby with her.

-She's got a baby with her.

Now then, dear. Just be gentle with your little one!

Of course, they have to get to the top of it, where the holes are.

Yeah, that's the whole idea.

If we'd just thrown the food on the floor,

apart from they'd have just all grabbed bits and run,

it'd be over in seconds, the birds would have pinched it...

-That female's gone on, with her baby.

-Yes.

So the others should be able to get up from that. Look, there they go.

Yes. That really is cheating. Now stop it!

These are the bits we'll learn, because we can tighten it, or take that bottom stump away.

Look at the little one on the left!

-Acrobats.

-Really trying.

Oh, this is fantastic.

So you'll be able to work it out,

maybe we'll put it from higher trees, and it can really go from here.

-Yes.

-And with the results here,

-is it something you'd like to extend?

-I'm quite pleased.

-I'm very pleased with this.

-They're enjoying it.

This is brilliant. This is exactly what we wanted them to do.

And for visitors, when they're driving past, it'll be great.

And hopefully they'll leave the cars alone!

I think you should both patent it.

I'm sure there would be a lot of very happy monkeys from now on.

Thank you both very much. We're going to stay here and watch, because this is just great.

-Thank you both.

-Thanks, guys.

But there's another animal in the park

that can also be a threat to the visitors' cars,

and they're much larger and faster, with big teeth and sharp claws.

The keepers in Tiger Territory have been watching the three young sisters very carefully

since the park reopened to the public for the season.

Bob Trollope is concerned that as they grow in size and confidence

they could become more and more dangerous.

It's the friendly one who could be the worst.

Soundari is playful, and absolutely deadly.

Soundari is a bit of a character.

She does go for the occasional vehicle. That is toys to them.

That is prey, as such.

You can almost say it's meals on wheels, I suppose.

Talking of meals on wheels, Soundari had acquired a particular taste for the feed truck.

She has developed the technique of puncturing our tyres

on the feed wagon, so we've had to counteract that

and put a counterbalance in place, which is this thick rubber matting.

It's covering over the wheels, as you can see.

And it gives her enough things to play with...

this, rather than the tyres.

And it has saved several pounds' worth of rubber. Honestly.

She is such a nuisance.

And it seems to me that she just gets so excited about feeding

that obviously, to her, this is hunting.

This is where the food comes from, so she's got to kill this.

Killing one of the tyres is quite often what she does.

We lost in the region of, I think, four or five tyres,

before we suddenly realised that we should start doing something.

It's quite impressive when she actually grabs hold of it.

I was driving the tractor the other week,

and she latched on to it and you could feel the power,

her actually slowing the feed wagon down a little bit.

It's incredible. And that's just one tiger.

At least Bob has learnt what to expect from Soundari.

The other two sisters, Shouri and Svetli, are still that most dangerous thing...

unpredictable.

Soundari's always Soundari, and she's playful as ever,

but it's the other two that have shown a lot more interest

in actually coming away from the corner.

They're out and about, they're exploring more things.

It's really nice to actually see the change in them,

and hopefully they'll just get better and better as they go on.

Of the two, it's Shouri who's the most interested in people, and cars,

and unlike Soundari, she doesn't just want to play with them.

As you can see,

Shouri is just stalking us,

and she's just as low as she can get.

She can see us, and hopefully we can't see her.

She's just putting her head up slightly

every now and again, just to check where we are, just to see what we're doing.

Shouri, she's primed to attack this vehicle,

which is, you know,

it's what you want, you know.

They are exhibiting

their wild behaviour,

and it's nice to see Shouri and not Soundari.

You expect Soundari to be the one to investigate, but it just proves that

the others are finding their feet a bit and they aren't too worried

about coming over and sussing things out.

Shouri's spending more and more time just waiting for an opportunity to attack.

Later on, we'll see what happens when she gets that chance.

I think these are one of the most incredible residents of Pets' Corner.

This is obviously a tortoise, but look at it sideways on.

It looks like it's been squashed by a truck, but this is its perfect design?

Yes, nature-designed. Pancake tortoise, and they're designed for

wedging themselves in all the tiny little crevices in Africa,

and it stops the predators hoiking them out for tea.

They've been living in this special enclosure here, but they are no longer alone.

No, we've had an addition.

I was very lucky, I've been to Africa twice now.

We saw these wonderful, wonderful little lizards and they're called agamas.

And I've got a photograph. Can I show you down here?

Look at this. This is me.

Well, I'm taking the picture. Look at this fella.

That is absolutely magnificent. So bright, bright orange head.

-Yes.

-Navy blue body?

-Yes, and almost a paler blue on the tail.

-A turquoise tail.

-That's a male.

Stunning-looking. Now, I can't see anything...

That cupboard? Oh, there is one up on that tree.

That's it. That's a male. That is a male.

-I have six in here now.

-Right.

I've got two males and four females.

-Yes?

-They live really well with the pancake tortoises,

and what I'm hoping is that eventually they'll go on to breed,

and have babies and lay eggs and things,

but that male has to develop these colours, so that's what we're waiting for now.

So is that an age thing?

Certainly maturity comes into it, because the females and youngsters,

-we've got a few in here that are actually a very dull brown, drab colour.

-Right.

This guy here, he's in full battle mode.

What happens is the males get a harem of wives,

so he can have 15, 20 wives hanging around with him,

and so this is his way of saying, "Clear off, I'm the dominant male."

So it's almost the equivalent of a gorilla becoming a silverback?

Totally. That is it exactly. And this is also encouraged by peak heat. The temperatures here...

I remember that particular day, incredibly hot. Over 100 degrees.

So what do you do? Just stick a heater in here to mimic the heat?

The dangerous sunlight, the UVA and UVB that humans need to avoid,

a lot of lizards, like the iguanas, relish it.

They have to have it, so you have very special bulbs that emits all that UVA and UVB light

that perhaps the midday sun in Africa would give out.

So this is, effectively, like the sun trapped in a light bulb?

Exactly it. And it gives off heat as well.

We used to use tubes, that only give off the light,

this gives off heat and it gives off the UVA and UVB.

Brilliant. Well, I'll let you... Do you want to climb in there?

I'll be on escape duty, just in case anything wants to do a runner.

-I'll just turn the switch on now, up here.

-OK.

Oh, that's it. Woah. There, you see.

That is bright! That really is like looking at the sun.

This little gizmo here, I'll just show you, this is a solar meter.

-Right.

-This measures the amount of UVB and if you get it right,

you basically want somewhere around, well, as close to 100 as we can get.

And 100 is good midday sun.

-Right.

-So now the iguanas can sit here, they can bask, they can not only get the heat...

I'm very hot already. It's whacking out a load of heat.

But they're getting all that UVA and UVB.

I'll let you come down away from the basking heat,

and we will look forward to seeing the lizards

in their full-coloured glory, as you say,

once they've taken in this sunlight and worked out their hierarchy.

-What an excitement.

-Thank you very much.

Brilliant, Darren. Thank you.

Back in 1995, the Longleat estate was stunned

when their most valuable work of art was stolen.

Rest On The Flight To Egypt was painted in the early 1500s

by the Venetian artist Titian, and was valued at £5 million.

The police hunt for the thieves started straight away.

At that time, Dick Ellis was the detective sergeant in charge of

the Metropolitan Police Art And Antiques Squad.

The trail to recover objects like the Titian,

when they're stolen by professional criminals, it's a difficult trail.

You are involving people who...

Part of their work is not being caught.

So it is a very difficult area in which to operate.

One of the first things done by the insurers

was to offer a reward of £100,000.

Mark Dalrymple was the loss adjuster handling the case.

People sometimes will not give information

unless they are rewarded. It is a sad fact of life but they won't.

And the greater risk they might have personally

in giving the information or pointing fingers, or whatever,

means that all too often they do nothing.

And the reward, if you like, loosens tongues.

The reward was featured on the front cover of Trace magazine,

a publication listing some of the £500 million-worth of art

that is stolen every year in Britain alone.

Dick Ellis is one of Trace's directors.

The magazine goes to dealers, goes to the heritage sector,

goes to collectors, law enforcement all over the world through Interpol.

That type of circulation is essential, because it closes down the market.

If you're looking for objects to steal,

the higher up the league you go, to the Titians and the Rembrandts and the Vermeer,

it is virtually impossible to dispose of these objects.

They are just too well-known and documented worldwide.

So, the Titian was too hot to sell, but where was it?

Over the next eight years,

there were all sorts of rumours, hints and allegations.

Longleat general manager Tim Moore had to deal with them all.

I followed up everything, so if someone writes to you from Australia

who was a spiritualist, or someone writing to you from prison somewhere...

The first few of those,

one got not excited but, here is something interesting happening.

You're very keen to get the picture back, so you take everything extremely seriously.

There have been threats made

to us,

that if we don't pay them £1 million, they'll destroy it.

But who THEY are, they're not going to tell us.

And after a period, the number of those, you really did begin to think

particularly with some of the people who were contacting us were pretty strange, that, oh, my God,

are we ever going to get a lead that really is material?

But, in the end, they did get a good lead,

and that's when the plot really began to thicken.

Find out about that later on.

It's been pretty busy around the otter enclosure

since Rosie and Romeo got together and started building a family.

While six youngsters are romping around outside,

there's news of a brand-new litter indoors.

These five unbelievably cute otters

are the latest arrival in the safari park.

I'm catching up with Rob, who's cleaning out.

-How are you doing?

-I can't get over how...

I'm lost for words.

-How old are they?

-They're eight weeks, now.

Coming on really, really well.

We had a few concerns in the earlier days

because there were two out of the five that were very, very small

in comparison to the others.

There was certainly one very big one.

-He's still in the middle here. He's getting all the milk.

-Yes.

But two of them were very small.

There were, effectively, two runts of the litter?

Two runts of the litter. And we've had a runt in the past

and they don't normally make it, I'm afraid.

Week six, that was it, really.

It's just one of those things and nature takes its course.

Obviously, the otters felt that it was too much for them to cope with.

This time around, all five have just... The two,

there's still a bit of size difference here but to be honest, they've all caught up.

They've all got their eyes open.

It's almost time now for them to be going outside. It won't be long.

They've already been outside,

but it's a case of Mum dragging them out, almost under protest.

Being thrown around and then dragged back in again.

And obviously, all that noise I can hear from behind here,

that's Romeo and Rosie, mum and dad?

And last year's children, Robbie and Ray, trying to get back in.

Obviously, all I'm doing here is a little bit of cleaning up.

-Are they quite messy?

-Very, very messy.

To be honest, I've already done a bit of the outside of the enclosure

this morning and most of the mess was out there.

So it isn't looking too bad in here.

It just needs a bit of a tidy.

Really all we do is just pop in here quickly.

Normally, the adults are out for breakfast anyway.

So it's an opportunity quickly to shut them out, have a quick tidy

and let them back in again to check their little ones.

But we try to disturb them as little as possible,

bar the health check and something we'll do soon, which is microchipping them.

And I'm assuming they sleep a lot, as they're doing now?

Yes, as normal babies do. Pretty much the same as human babies.

Cry a lot, sleep a lot, go to the toilet quite a lot.

And using each other for extra body heat?

Yes, they're huddling up together.

Obviously for warmth. It's fairly warm in here anyway, so it is just protection.

They're looking after each other.

Have you thought about or contemplated names yet? Or can you identify them apart?

I think we'll wait until we've fully sexed them.

-Right.

-I've had a little look myself.

I think I've got three boys and two girls.

It is still quite difficult to tell, is it?

It can be difficult early on, but it'll become more and more obvious.

And then we'll start thinking of some names when they're outside, showing their characters.

We like to see their characters.

And obviously, they do look so much alike. It's very hard.

Even last year's children, Robbie and Ray, only slight differences between them.

I don't know how you get any work done in here,

because I assume you just want to stare at them all day long.

-Yeah!

-Listen, thank you so much.

I would offer to help you clean them out

but I just wanted an excuse to come and have a look at them!

Don't go away, because here's what's still coming up on today's programme.

I'll be helping with a strange new installation,

because a giraffe with an itchy neck really needs to scratch.

With blackmail, ransom and intrigue, the story of the stolen painting

takes a twist into the criminal underworld.

And when we first met Harriet, you wouldn't know what she was.

We'll see how she's doing now, ten years on.

But first, we're bound for Tiger Territory.

Earlier, we saw Soundari, the playful tiger,

attacking the tyres of the feed truck.

But it's her sister Shouri who's got the keepers worried,

because when she attacks, it's in deadly earnest.

Recently, head of section Brian Kent

was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He witnessed the full force of these powerful creatures, close up.

I was trying to get the tigers in,

and Shouri didn't want to go in, for whatever reason.

She was just deciding to play up, as in hide behind trees,

starting to get a bit nasty, growling and hissing.

And then next minute I knew,

she was running flat-out towards the vehicle.

She just headed straight for the window, here.

All I saw was a face full of teeth, and claws.

She was obviously trying to get me, and she meant everything of it.

It was so quick. She was there before I could even

think about it. I moved away quickly.

I thought it might be appropriate at the time to get out of the way!

Brian escaped out of the Tiger Enclosure

but his vehicle still bears the scars of the attack.

You can see some of the damage she done here,

which I imagine was her claws.

That's as she's jumping up,

claws hit there, and she's got her face here.

And then as I move off, she slides down

and you can just see

the remaining marks of her claws, going down the side of the truck.

So quite lucky, really.

It is plastic at the end of the day, but we're still talking about

a claw going through that, and I'm glad it's that and not me,

because that would go straight through your leg.

The same thing with the window.

The windows are not overly strong, but...

it stayed there!

So, quite happy I've got away with it.

Either I went a little bit too close and she didn't like it,

and that's why she went for me, I don't know.

But she hasn't done it since.

And maybe it was just a one-off.

I don't know. It was a bit of a wake-up call for me as well,

to be dealing with young tigers again.

So it does keep you alert.

But, to make sure that all the keepers stay alert,

Brian and Bob are planning an emergency,

a test to see if they've got what it takes when the worst happens.

We'll be back in Tiger Territory for that later on.

We're up at the giraffe house. I'm here with head of section Andy,

and all the giraffes, that I have to say, Andy,

are looking particularly lovely at the moment.

Do giraffes moult, like other animals in the spring?

-Are they losing a winter coat?

-They do.

-Not as much as the zebra.

-Right.

But the giraffes have got quite a greasy and waxy coat,

it comes on slightly more in wintertime.

But they will actually constantly lose hair,

We noticed they had a lot of dead hair and they used to get quite itchy in here.

And we started thinking about how we can improve their coats,

and came up with this, which completely freaked them out

when we first put it in here!

But they've started using it. Very rarely do we see them itching on it.

But they are using it, because it's looking really worn-down.

Somebody's been giving their bum a really good scratch on that.

What a fantastic idea.

So what needs doing today, then?

Because they've squashed these ones,

we'll let the giraffe out and replace a couple of these.

-OK.

-But I can show you how well it's working, because it's full of giraffe hair.

-Really?

-Yes.

-So they are obviously going up and using it exactly

as they would use one of those thorny acacia-type things in Africa.

What a clever idea. You lucky, lucky girls.

So we want to get them out first, presumably.

Not a good idea to go in there with all those legs.

Probably not.

OK. Well, shall we do the usual thing and stand back?

Move you guys out the way and we'll get them out.

They're so lovely.

Put them down here.

So it's like I was saying, the hair.

-You can see all the hair.

-Oh, yeah, look at it.

These are just absolutely full of giraffe hair.

And you said the hair was quite greasy,

-and now the bristles of the brushes, you can really feel it!

-Yeah.

That's amazing. What a clever idea.

It's so rare that we actually see them in it.

Normally, when they're in here, they're eating.

-I reckon they are in here in the middle of the night.

-Just having a good old scratch.

But yeah, they've really hammered them in here.

They have. These ones nearer the top and this one looks all right.

We'll just replace these middle three,

so they're a bit spikier for them to rub on.

If I just cut these big cable-ties here.

It's not the easiest of things to do.

There we go.

But we can see, it's just made such a world of difference to their coats.

It really has, hasn't it?

They just look like they're beautifully-groomed,

-spring coming out of winter coat animals now.

-Yeah.

In the wild, giraffes don't have helpful people

to put up things to scratch on.

They get a grooming just by walking through the woodlands

and brushing past the trees.

I know you make a lot of effort here to make everything as natural as possible.

-Yes.

-And just something simple like that...

A lot of our enrichment, the public don't actually see.

-It's done in here.

-Yeah.

-When they're out in the park,

you don't need to enrich that area because they can move around so nicely.

But this is twofold. It gives them something to do and it keeps their coats in amazing condition as well.

I wouldn't mind a little scratch on that myself!

Go away! I'm going to give it a go.

-That's great, isn't it? I might have one of those in my house.

-Every house should have one.

-Absolutely!

The giraffes do their scratching at night when no-one's around,

so to see exactly how they use the broom-head installation,

we're setting up an infrared night-vision camera.

We'll leave it running overnight and come back later to find out

what the giraffes get up to in the dark.

For eight years, there wasn't one clue as to what had happened to the stolen painting by Titian.

It's as if it had disappeared from the face of the Earth.

In desperation,

Longleat's Tim Moore and insurance loss adjuster Mark Dalrymple

got in touch with an independent art consultant

who had contacts in London's criminal underworld.

Then, in May 2002, Tim got a phone call.

He was to get £100,000 in cash

and drive to Richmond in south-west London.

The consultant had found someone who wanted to make a deal.

The fine art consultant had had a particular lead

that this appeared to him to be worth following up,

and that a meeting had been arranged with this particular person.

I was absolutely split down the middle.

I was extremely excited on the one hand,

particularly as I was carrying quite a significant sum of money

on my person to deal with the reward for information.

And on the other hand thinking, when one gets like that,

there'll be disappointment, this chap will be roaring with laughter

and we'll have wasted a lot of time.

Tim had instructions to wait in an office.

Meanwhile, an anonymous informer was about to make a drop.

A laundry bag was left at a bus stop outside Richmond Station.

Our consultant was told,

there's the picture if you'd like to get out and collect it.

Tim was gambling £100,000 on the picture being the real thing.

We put the bag on the office table, opened it up,

undid the cardboard and there's this picture.

And for me there's a huge difference,

because I'm used to seeing pictures with frames on.

If you get a small, unframed picture

then frankly, to the likes of me, it looks...

Honestly, I thought, my God, it could have come out of Woolworths.

It could have been painted on MDF.

It was then up to their independent art consultant

to determine whether the painting was a fake.

At that point, you're totally reliant on the expert

and delighted to say, ours was extremely competent and sensible,

and had spent a lot of time studying Titian's works.

And he said, if you look at it,

the brushstrokes are absolutely right for the early work.

Yes, it definitely is Titian's Flight Into Egypt.

I was thrilled to bits.

And when the painting was safely back in the estate vaults,

Mark Dalrymple was invited to come take a look.

After all his work, he'd never actually seen the thing itself.

It's smashing, because, um...

I don't know. I really can't explain it.

You always imagine, every time something was going to happen,

where there was the prospect of getting it back,

I visualised exactly what it was going to look like.

But until you actually ever see it,

um...you can't...

One is speechless.

And after security was beefed up to ensure the painting could never be stolen again,

it was restored to its rightful place on the wall of the great house.

Earlier, I came up to the giraffe house with head of section Andy

and we put up these fantastic, bristly broom heads up on the wall.

Because the giraffes, you thought,

were going to love scratching on them.

-Yes, and they have, because their coats have improved tenfold.

-Right.

You rub the brushes and you can see hair in there,

but we're not seen the giraffe scratching on them.

OK, so you wanted absolutely hard evidence

that they were doing this, so of course,

we set up an infrared camera to catch the giraffes

if they really were using these yard brushes to have a good old scratch at night.

You've got the footage, Andy.

-Yep.

-Shall we have a look and see what happened?

-There's the brushes down there.

-OK.

-Someone's nose.

-Someone's nose. Oi!

Get off the camera! Cleaning the camera for us.

Thank you very much indeed. That's a lovely shot of a giraffe's tongue.

You can see they're still chewing in the background there,

so they've obviously still got food to keep them busy.

-They will regurgitate their food as well.

-Oh, do they?

Giraffes have multiple stomachs, the first stomach, they'll bring the food back up.

If you watch a giraffe carefully, you can actually see a bolus of food come up the neck.

They'll chew it. Chewing the cud, like a cow.

But if you look carefully, you can actually see, occasionally,

-a big lump of food coming back up.

-Eugh!

-Yes, disgusting.

-You've spent too much time with them!

Yes, I've been watching them just too much!

Oh, that's an interesting manoeuvre!

I'm not sure whether that was a scratch or falling over!

No, she is actually scratching, isn't she?

That's a definite scratch.

And that blade bone clearly seems to be a favourite place, doesn't it?

That height's perfect. But you've got brushes all the way along there.

They can get their legs down and their necks and heads right up on the top one.

That's brilliant. Really leaning in to it there!

Seeing them use that, that well... It's going right up her neck.

It is. It's almost like she's massaging herself.

It must feel really, really nice.

Yes, it must do.

So this is obviously a late-night activity.

Something to do when the food's run out. Just go and scratch.

She's having a really good scratch!

-Yes.

-But look at that.

That is an ecstatic-looking giraffe, isn't it?

Absolute pleasure, there.

She's hitting those spots. So it's something that we can build on.

All of their coat, we're not see any dead skin.

The top of their backs, they seem to be well covered,

and their whole outlook, the look of them has improved so much.

We can adapt it and improve it, and hopefully make it slightly better as we go along.

-That was a huge success.

-Really good, yes.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-No problem.

Back in Tiger Territory, the three young sisters are bigger, bolder

and far more dangerous than ever before.

So it's vital that the patrol staff all know what to do in any kind of emergency.

For example, what would happen if a visitor's car broke down

right amongst the tigers?

Today, Bob Trollope is running through the recovery drill with some new members of staff.

The car will be roughly here,

so I shall be pulling up along here.

I shall be obviously getting out to go to the boot,

and then I want you to be as close as possible to me,

but obviously between the tigers and myself.

Bearing in mind, the tigers might be moving around.

So they could be anywhere.

So we might have to juggle things around, so I'm in a safe area.

For the exercise, Bob will have to get a towrope

from the boot of the broken-down car before calling in park mechanic Rob Feltham to tow it away.

If at all, at any time, they look like they're going to come over,

shout to me. It's no good getting on the radio and telling me.

Shout to me, because I will get back in and leave it as it is.

So Kate, you're going to be

the patrol person in here today. OK?

This may be a drill, but Bob will actually be getting out

surrounded by three very real tigers.

So junior keeper Kate will definitely be on the spot.

This is the first time I've ever had a breakdown. A bit nervous.

A tiger could get Bob, and obviously if they get hold of him,

then they can potentially kill him.

So it's going to be slightly nerve-racking and a bit anxious.

RADIO: '39-30 Rob?'

My safety is in the hands of the new keeper.

For this practice emergency, two members of the Animal Park production team

have volunteered to be the unfortunate visitors in a broken-down vehicle.

Hello.

-Is there something wrong?

-Yes, we've broken down.

The car just won't move.

OK. I'll radio up and get some help.

-Cool.

-Thank you.

First section to Live 3?

-Hello?

-I've got a car broken down in the top of the section.

-Can you come and give us a hand, please?

-Yes, I'm on my way.

Can you just remain in the vehicle?

-Thank you. Sorry.

-It's OK.

Bob heads straight over, to find that things are more complex than expected.

We have a situation here where we've got tigers on either side.

Because Soundari, on the stand, is the closest one to us,

I'll just ask Kate to come around here,

and we'll form a sort of a triangle.

So really and truly, Kate has to keep an eye on both these tigers.

It's quite a dangerous situation because you are only going to be

looking in only one place at any one time.

OK? Can you turn your engine off so I can hear you shout,

and open your window, please?

Here goes.

-If they come at any side, just shout. I'll get back in.

-Will do.

Now Bob is completely exposed,

and he's got his back to one of the tigers.

When you turn your back on a wild animal, it sees its chance.

The worst scenario is that a tiger will go for me.

At all times, hopefully, there'll be a barrier between me and the animals.

I'm just protecting Bob from all the tigers. Just to make sure.

Just keeping an eye on what he's doing

and also on what the other cars are doing.

It is very dangerous, but unfortunately cars do break down,

and you can't just leave them there and wait until the end of the day,

until the animals are put in.

Tow rope out, Bob calls in the mechanic.

Rob, we've got a breakdown in the tiger section. The clutch has gone.

Is there any chance you can tow it out?

And here comes Rob.

Bob needs to get out again, to attach the rope.

And now the tigers are taking a lot more interest.

OK, see everything? Can you turn your engine off again, please?

Bob, she's getting up.

Bob, she's just standing up.

OK?

OK, Rob, it's all yours.

Job done. The car is soon towed to safety outside Tiger Territory.

The car is safely out of the section now.

The staff performed well but working with wild animals means there's always a risk.

Nine times out of ten, it's only a couple of minutes' operation,

but if they see a chance to have a go at you then they will.

We're the ones

getting out into their territory.

We're intruding on their territory, so that's what you've got to expect.

The three sisters are still young.

Soon they'll be even bigger, and even bolder.

So we can expect a lot more action up in Tiger Territory.

Look out for that later in the series.

We first started filming at Longleat ten years ago,

when this ball of fluff was just four weeks old,

and Darren was an awful lot younger.

She's a barn owl named Harriet and we followed her progress as Darren

trained her to fly to the gauntlet and to be relaxed around people.

Today, we've come to catch up.

She's looking great!

Isn't she wonderful? She's...

She deserves a medal for long service, I think. She's superb.

She must be one of the longest residents of Pets' Corner, is she?

Yes, she's just about...

She and her partner, Ollie, the other barn owl, they've been here longer than most of the staff!

And some of the animals. And she is wonderful.

We bring her out to see the visitors and everybody is always so amazed

when they see a barn owl so close up.

What is the life expectancy of an owl?

It's really sad. In the wild, it's almost non-existent.

One, two years maybe, because there's so many dangers.

Lack of food, and weather and cars and things.

I've heard of barn owls living 20-plus, even 30, in captivity.

So you give them somewhere safe and secure and a bit of TLC,

and they'll do you proud.

So basically, she might even outlast YOU here?

Yes, she might well be!

She'll be pushing me around.

I'm not sure. But she is a wonderful creature.

Well, she's showing off beautifully for us here. Can I...

-I've got my glove at the ready.

-Certainly. I'll pass her over.

So you just have a little tether that doesn't hurt the foot,

-just to keep her in place?

-These are called jesses.

Little strips of leather that attach around anklets.

You see the dye's coming off the leather a bit.

What we really do is you try and gain her confidence,

and all that business early on, where I was hand-rearing her,

makes her think I'm Dad, I'm kind, and everything will be all right.

And once you've got that trust with any animal, really...

You can see now how calm she is. She is an amazing creature.

And what is the secret of her youth? That's what I want to know.

Three mice a day, I think, Ben! I'm going to leave it.

I might try it.

I'd like to see you try and catch one as well as she does.

Oh, Harriet, don't quite go off yet.

It is almost time for the end of the programme but just give us

a moment to say thank you very much indeed, Darren.

Well done for turning what was, well, a little fluffy ball

into such a magnificent bird.

And sadly, that's all we've got time for on today's programme.

But from Ben and from me, and from Harriet,

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

Off she goes.

Jo in Pets' Corner has to blow the whistle when one of her marmosets makes a bid for freedom.

Ben tries to play goatherd but the kids are running him ragged.

Flapper really doesn't want to be caught, does he?

And find out what happened when Africa's most dangerous animal

escaped into the Wiltshire countryside.

So don't miss the next Animal Park.

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