Episode 6 Animal Park

Meet Razina and Marashi.

They're southern white rhino,

a species that back in the 1900s had been hunted almost to extinction.

There were less than 100 of these animals left in the wild.

Thanks to conservation efforts,

the species survived - but only just.

Today, keepers are preparing to fly thousands of miles to the front line

of a war being fought to save this iconic species, and many like it.

So join us, as the keepers head to meet the wild cousins of the animals

they work with here in the park,

and bring back vital information for their future.

It's day one of another jam-packed week of summer specials...

..and coming up on today's show...

..the baby marmosets are at risk of attack.

It's absolutely terrifying for us.

We love these monkeys and we don't want anything to happen to them.

Jean finds a waterproof toy big enough for the tigers...

but will it get them into the pool?

-Is it going to go in? Ooh, is it going to go in?

-Come on, girls.

And we'll follow five keepers

on the ultimate fact-finding mission to Kenya...

First wild lion footprint. Yes!

..as they learn all they can

from some of the world's rarest and most iconic species.

We're on a bit of a research mission here.

We're going to find some stuff out

and, hopefully, take that home with us.

It's been ten months since the arrival of cheetah cubs

Poppy and Winston...

..and whilst out in their enclosure,

head of section Amy is finding it extremely hard

just to keep tabs on them.

They run around, and we have to be really on our toes.

To make matters worse,

behind the scenes, the cubs are also having an effect

on the park's two adult male cheetah.

So, this is Carl.

He's very laid-back, but he's actually dad to Poppy and Winston,

so he's done the business with Wilma, which is great.

He's a great character. He really is. He's a ladies' man.

This is Rasta. He's a bit grumpier than Carl.

Not even looking at us at the minute.

Dad Carl used to live with mum Wilma in the same outdoor enclosure...

..but in order to control when she has her next litter,

he's having to be kept away.

The problem is, the only other outside enclosure

already belongs to Rasta...

..and these two fully grown males have never been mixed.

Shut off...

between six and five and then five and four, as well.

So, today, Amy is going to introduce them for the first time

in the hope that, one day, they could form a bachelor group.

It's always a bit nervous, sort of, that first reaction -

but you need to do it and just be brave

and sort of open up and just seeing what happens,

sort of thing. We're ready.

If anything does happen, we can be there, we can separate them off.

So it's all controlled. Do it in the house,

so we've got a bit of control over it.

So it's not big spaces that they suddenly just go running off

after each other. So, hopefully, it'll go quite well.

There's no way of knowing how the cats will react.

Male cheetah are highly territorial.

Straight up there.

Carl's very interested, by the looks of it.

Just having a pace up and down.

Rasta, the fact he's quite confident,

he's come in all of his own accord.

It's opened up for him. If he wants to come in, go out, he can -

and, hopefully, the more we do it, Carl will get used to it,

calm down a little bit,

and then we can sort of get him into the pen next door

and just keep going and seeing how that goes.

A few days later, Amy has begun feeding them in adjoining pens.

So far, it seems to be working...

..but the moment the food is gone, tempers flare.

A week later, and Jean is catching up

with head of animal operations Darren

to find out if things have improved.

They weren't getting on too well, were they?

No. We're asking...

-This is a big ask, you know.

-Yeah, of course.

We're asking for two male cheetahs to be very close to each other.

They're not bonded, they're not blood brothers.

-Yeah, they're not family.

-No.

There's been some hissing and lots of vocalisations from Carl, as well.

It is crucial we get this right.

-Yeah.

-We can't have single cheetahs living on their own.

It's not how we operate.

We're a safari park, we want these animals to go out.

If Amy and the team can get this as a group,

it'll be great for the animals, but it'll be even better for us...

Yeah, you really want to see that bachelor group forming.

So what happens if it doesn't work?

The crux is, if these two boys don't get together,

then there isn't room for everybody,

so somebody is going to have to leave,

or somebody is going to have to go on to pastures new.

So it's really important that this is a success.

It's whilst in Africa that the team will look for fresh ideas

on how to mix the cats.

Feeding time sounds as if it's going well.

It's almost finished. Amy, come over and join us.

I hear that a trip you're taking to Africa

might help you out with this?

Yeah, we've got a bit of an expedition coming up.

We've got so many unanswered questions here on the park.

-Yes.

-You can talk to other zoo collections and cheetah experts,

-but all these animals are in captivity.

-Mm-hm.

You know, what happens out there on the front line, every single day,

-the battles these animals go through.

-Yes.

..that's where some of these answers are.

-We need that, we need that.

-Yeah.

And this is where they'll be heading -

10,000km away to the Lewa Conservancy in northern Kenya.

The 250 square kilometre Lewa Conservancy

is run today by CEO Mike Watson.

In the '60s and the '70s, Kenya, along with many other countries

in Africa, was suffering from a significant bout

of devastating poaching of rhino, primarily,

but obviously of other wildlife species, as well -

and the demand for rhino horn was such that the population

of black rhino in this country went from 20,000 to 200

in the space of 12 years.

That was roughly three rhino every single day that were being killed.

That's a massive, massive figure of rhino to lose...

..for Kenya.

It's by working with Mike and his team

that expert keepers from Longleat

will be able to enhance and grow their own knowledge.

We do have plans to hopefully mix more animals in

with our giraffe and zebra,

so it would be nice, when we go out to Kenya,

to see which animals mix well with each other,

who hang out at watering holes together.

We can bring that information back and use some of those species

that mix well naturally

and bring them in our mixed exhibit.

We would love to sort of expand into African species of invertebrates,

so going out there and seeing the habitats they live in

would be perfect.

We'll join the team later

as they begin their mammoth research trip to Africa.

It's feeding time at the park, and what the residents eat

is as varied as the species themselves...

Come on, lemurs! Come here.

..but it's up to the keepers to find out what they like -

and, more importantly, what's good for them.

These are ring-tailed Madagascan lemurs.

They're known as opportunistic omnivores

and I'm joining Tina here in their enclosure with some summer treats.

Now, what have we got here? We've got coconut, we've got strawberries,

we've got melon - and it seems that melon is...

Oh, squabble.

It seems that melon is their favourite right now?

Yes, we don't often give them fruit items.

This is very much a summer treat for them.

In the wilds, they would...

You know, their diet is mainly based on the fruits

that they find out there.

All the trees blossoming and coming into fruit.

But they'll eat meat as well?

Yes, they are omnivores, so, you know, out in the wild,

they will go for insects and bird eggs sometimes.

We have tried them with it, but, to be honest, to begin with,

they start out a bit scared of them

and then they have to rely on Mum and Dad to show what to do.

Now, was that a little squabble over food, was that kind of hierarchy...?

Unfortunately, you know, like any family, they do fight.

That was one squabble. You could see who was dominant.

We've still got the one here and the other one's ran away.

So we can see the hierarchy there, but that's it, sorted.

They're very inquisitive, aren't they?

-And they're not worried about us.

-No, no, they've grown up with us.

We teach them that, you know, they have respect for us, but, you know,

we bring them lovely things and that's what they enjoy.

Is it quite important for you guys to keep adapting

their diets, testing, seeing what works, what doesn't work?

Yeah, we do like to keep it sort of with the seasons.

We also like things like, in the winter time,

we use sweet potato and we heat it up in a microwave and then it's

something warm for them to come into the house at night.

It's nice and warm.

We make tea for them, as well, in the winter.

-Tea?

-Yes, a nice cup of tea. It warms them up after a cold day.

Now, when they drink their tea, do they like it white or black?

No milk, no sugar, just black.

I love that. Listen, I think this is a success.

I think we can safely say that these guys

love their strawberries and their melon.

I'm not sure about the coconut.

Well, that's a lesson we've learned,

so next time we will leave that out.

-Tina, thank you very much.

-Not a problem.

Now we're heading straight to monkey temple,

where there's been a report of an intruder.

Keeper Sam is on the lookout for the culprit.

This morning, first thing, we let the monkeys out

into the outside enclosure.

One of our cotton-top tamarins, Luana,

was sat in the tree and a crow flew down and tried to grab her.

I've worked here three years, it's never ever happened before.

It's absolutely terrifying for us.

We love these monkeys. We don't want anything to happen to them.

Monkey temple is a walk-through enclosure.

It means visitors can get up close...

..but with nothing protecting the monkeys from the outside world,

it also leaves them vulnerable to predators.

Crows are nesting nearby and are taking an interest.

They've been sat up in the trees,

they've been swooping round all morning.

So the keepers that are out with the monkeys

are having to keep a really close eye out.

A group of crows is called a murder.

Sam has no doubt that's what they're capable of.

Luana, come on.

The victim of this morning's attack was Luana,

a rare cotton-top tamarin.

You can see how small she is. She only weighs about 400g.

So, unfortunately, pretty much snack-size

for a big bird like a crow.

We've got some small, young baby monkeys at the moment,

which are really, really high-risk. So until this threat has passed,

we have to keep them inside, because we just can't risk them

being taken by a crow.

Birds do prey on marmosets in the wild,

but, out there, their defences are up.

What they'll do in the wild, is if they see a bird,

they'll generally alarm call.

Because they live in a group, they'll all run and hide for cover.

So they are actually quite clever about it.

Obviously, living here, they probably have a little bit more

comfortable lifestyle than they would have in the wild.

They're slightly more relaxed about it, which I think is why perhaps

the crows are getting so close.

Crows, crows everywhere.

Sam's determined to protect the animals in her care...

I'm watching you.

..with a little help from her friends.

Meet Gareth and Jamie - Sam's new scarecrows.

So we have a plan.

These are our very plastic, fake birds.

So the idea is that crows are scared of birds that are bigger than them,

so we're going to pop these out around the temple

and, hopefully, it might be a bit of a deterrent.

They'll keep the crows away from the monkeys.

It's our first try.

The only problem is obviously the monkeys are scared of the crows,

which means they may also be scared of these guys.

If the monkeys are worried about them, we might have to rethink,

because it doesn't really solve the problem.

There's only one way to find out what effect the fake birds of prey

have on the crows and the monkeys.

That would be a good spot for the crow to see it,

but the monkeys will not be too worried about it.

Got a new friend.

So it's great, the moment.

Luana's just foraging in the bush there, which is perfect,

normal behaviour. So, so far, she's not too worried,

but it might just be she hasn't spotted it yet.

If she was at all worried,

she'd probably start making loud alarm call noises -

and jumping around and getting...

They fluff themselves up to look big and scary as well.

I think she might have just spotted it now, actually.

She's just having a little look...

..but she doesn't seem to be too worried.

So that's perfect, really, so far.

If it was stressing them out at all, of course I would move it -

but if she seems quite comfortable with it there,

hopefully we'll be able to leave it there and it'll fool the crows

more than it's fooling the monkeys.

We'll be back later on to see if Sam's fake feathered friends

can keep the birds away.

The team has arrived in Lewa, a remote part of northern Kenya.

The keepers have been travelling for over ten hours

and taken several flights to get here.

They've come to Lewa because visitors to Longleat

have been raising tens of thousands of pounds each year

to ensure the charity the Tusk Trust can continue

its vital work.

To go out and actually experience working with Tusk,

which is quite close to my heart,

it's one of these charities that just does so much good

throughout the continent.

It would be incredible to meet the people on the ground out there

that have to deal with poachers in everyday life.

People like Sarah Watson, director of programmes for Tusk.

Human beings can't live alone,

we have to be able to live with the wildlife, with the habitat,

and we have to be able to find ways to make it sustainable

and achievable -

and Lewa is one model that's proven that -

and so, the more that we can instil this here

and across the rest of Africa, the more hope there is for,

basically, for the people and wildlife of Africa.

One of Lewa's biggest successes has been with the southern white rhino.

Once on the brink of extinction,

with less than 100 in the whole world,

the conservation miracle here has raised their numbers globally

into the thousands.

Back home in Wiltshire, the park has struggled in recent years

to get the species to breed.

Their male, Nanju, isn't mating

with the three females he lives with.

Experienced keeper Kevin has a theory.

We were hoping that they would breed within just a couple of years.

The main reason, really, is to do with Nanju.

He's just... I think he's just too nice an animal, really.

Any animal in captivity will behave differently to their wild cousins...

..but in Africa, Darren will be on the lookout for information

that could help his challenges back at home.

The Lewa Conservancy is an absolute conservancy haven

for white rhino and black rhino, and it's really crucial for us.

We have white rhino at Longleat and we've tried very hard

over the last few years to...

..encourage them to breed.

Not been successful at that yet, but, here, they are the masters.

We're on a bit of a research mission here.

We're going to find some stuff out and hopefully take home with us.

The vast conservancy is patrolled daily

by a dedicated team of rangers, like Ian.

Just grab my gear, which is the camera, a GPS and the radio,

and then grab my motorbike...

..and then I go round.

Monitoring the animals for their health and wellbeing

is the reason for his relentless patrol.

Any sightings of the key species that I'm looking at,

I take a look at them, also rate them,

give them their body condition score

and then move on to the next species that I find.

Ian is passionate about his work and observes our place

in the Earth's fragile ecosystem.

We came into this planet and took over,

but wildlife is such a beautiful thing -

and to be working closely with amazing creatures

like this wildlife is just amazing.

Every day, his findings are fed into the computer back at Lewa HQ.

I found a few buffaloes.

Got a few rhinos, about ten rhino.

These ones are very healthy.

Very healthy.

Ian's interest in wildlife began

with a visit to Nairobi National Park.

When I was a young boy, I used to go and see the animals.

Of course, they're in cages, but like for a young person,

I was quite fascinated to see lions so close.

When I grew up, I knew that I really wanted to work with wildlife.

I wanted to do something to protect this species.

I went to school for that and here I am.

Darren is keen for Ian to show them wild rhino and share his expertise.

-How are you doing?

-Very well. How are you?

-Nice to see you.

-Nice to see you, too.

-Thank you for this, thank you.

-My pleasure.

-Thank you. Good man. Thank you. Come and meet the team.

All right.

-How are you?

-Not too bad.

-Good.

This is Polly, who looks after our rhino.

-Wow. Awesome.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Awesome.

Let's go and find some rhino.

A total of 157 black and white rhino thrive here at Lewa.

Due only to the constant vigilance of rangers like Ian,

rhino here are seemingly safe from the ever-present threat of poachers,

which stalks many parts of Africa.

One of our big concerns all the time is the poaching

and the evil, you know, taking of the rhinos' lives.

I mean, how do you monitor here that the rhino are safe?

I mean. because you haven't lost any, have you, last year?

No, we haven't lost any in the last three years...

Brilliant. Well done.

-Good.

-..and we are very happy and excited, because...

but it takes a lot of work.

-Rangers...

-Yes.

-..security, intelligence, all that.

-There's rhino there.

-We have rhino, just here.

The first one, that's a small calf,

then the lady is Rosie.

Then the big guy behind her, that is Owen.

-Owen?

-Yeah, Owen.

Keen to compare them to his rhino back at home,

Darren wants to know more about this wild family.

And is it unusual to see the bull with a female?

For white rhinos, they are quite social.

-OK.

-In fact, even this is a small group.

At times, you'll find that even the cousins are there,

and you'll find five to six.

Well, that's good to see. That's good to see.

It's an opportunity for Darren to discuss his captive group of rhino,

and his male, Nanju.

Our male lives very comfortable, there's not really much aggression.

It's very, almost brother, sistery, cousiny.

You what him to be a bit, "Hey, come on, girls," you know?

-Yeah, and he's not.

-And he's not, yeah.

Then we have to have more than one.

-If there are two males...

-Yes.

-..at least they'll want something.

They want to compete, then there's better chances of mating,

and this one has to wait.

So it will trigger that sense of...

..reproduction.

But birth is only the beginning of the story.

Here, young calves are vulnerable to attack.

Once they are born, there's everything that wants to eat that...

..rhino. There's hyena, there's lion.

-Even sometimes you'll find a pack of wild dogs...

-Wow.

..just chasing after a rhino.

The mother is defending the calf, plus the male rhino, he's also...

-He'll come in to defend?

-Yeah.

That's an impressive horn the male has, isn't it, over there?

Yeah, yeah.

And it's the horn the poachers are after.

Tusk and Lewa are working hard to change opinions here.

Several rangers were once poachers.

When the calf is born, the rangers have a right to name it.

-That's brilliant.

-And then they gave us the names of their families.

They gave us the names of their mothers, the names of their wives,

children, fathers,

and it's important to create that attachments with these animals,

because once you do that, you are no longer looking at rhino X,

you are looking at Sophie, you are looking at Callum,

you are looking at somebody who you can put an attribute to -

and also one important thing to note is that they name them

-also depending on their behaviour.

-Oh, do they?

Yes! Sometimes you'll find a rhino being called Mpole,

-which means very gentle in Swahili.

-Oh, OK.

-Do you get some called Grumpy and...?

-We have Mkali.

-That means very tough!

-OK!

Although Ian and his team seem to be winning the battle with poaching,

as our keepers will see later,

it requires a huge amount of coordination and surveillance.

There are over 30 different species of birds living here at the park,

many of which are endangered in the wild, and in just the last year,

keepers celebrated a significant milestone.

It's feeding time for the pink-backed pelicans,

and I am here with super keeper Mark Tye.

I'm allowed to call you that because a little bird told me -

well, in fact, quite a big pink-backed bird told me -

that finally your work with these extraordinary birds

has been recognised. You've just won an award.

-Yes, we did.

-I'm so proud of you!

-It's not just me.

-Well, no.

-There's an awful lot of other people help.

I know, but I remember many, many years ago, you carefully,

desperately trying to get these birds to breed and you've done it.

Well, finally we've got them to do it.

You know, this is what we've been aiming for.

We've had much success with hand-rearing.

Yeah. Although that was a first, wasn't it?

No-one had managed to hand-rear one before.

No. That was a first. That came with many problems, but this bird here,

that is the first parent-reared one we've had, and this has been, what,

-20 odd years in the making.

-20 odd years!

-Took a while.

-But absolutely incredible success.

I mean, how does it feel to have spent all those years

getting really to understand the biology of these birds,

what makes them tick, to allow them to breed in a country

which is so far from their own?

It's just been an amazing sort of journey with them, really, you know?

And to actually finally see them manage to do it, on their own nest,

all by themselves, was a real, sort of, big moment for us.

Real nice to see.

And what implications does this have for the species?

Well, hopefully, if we can keep going forwards

with more parent-rearing, the fact is, you get that one bird

that can do it, it proves it can do it,

-the others see it happening around them...

-Yeah.

-..so they all think they can do it.

-Yeah.

So what I'm hoping now is that this will just mean that the group

will go from strength to strength and that they'll start

bringing them all up themselves and we won't have to hand-rear any more.

Well, I did notice, you've got one nest already.

So, we're right at the start of the breeding season now, are we?

The breeding season for these guys is only when they feel like it.

-Oh, is it?

-They literally have bred in every month of the year -

and when we do the hand-rearing,

we're all faffing with heat lamps and all the rest of it.

They just get on with it.

It's been brilliant to watch.

Mark, I can't congratulate you enough.

I know how much this has meant to you,

and I know how hard you've worked, and I'm just delighted -

but, as you say, you've come up with the ultimate success -

the birds are doing it for themselves.

-Brilliant. Thank you.

-Great news.

All this summer, Jean has been helping keepers to come up

with new ways to keep their animals cool...

..and today's idea involves this...

It's a boat's buoy placed right next to the tiger's pond.

You can let the tigers out now.

The question is, will it persuade the tigers to take a dip?

-Oh, here they come.

-Oh.

There's Soundari first and then Shouri's just behind her.

She's the more dominant out of the two,

and she's a bit more confident than Shouri is normally.

However, Shouri is the first one that's coming over towards us now.

She's just having a little sniff around log cam.

-Yes.

-Now, there's a big orange object there.

-What will she make of it? Oh, there she goes.

-Having a sniff.

Seeing what she thinks of it,

make sure it's not dangerous or alive or anything like that.

It's great that she doesn't seem like she's backing away

-or she's scared of it.

-You can see her ears are flicked back

a little bit, so you can she's a bit cautious about it, still -

and now Soundari's coming in as well, doing the same thing,

having a sniff of log cam first, then have a good old sniff of this.

Seeing them up close, you can really see that dense coat of fur,

which of course is perfect for Siberian tigers in Russia, but here,

on a warm day, you really need to keep them cool.

Hopefully they'll batter it around and push it into the pond soon.

This is quite nice for bonding, isn't it, just playing around...

-Yeah, definitely.

-..cos they are sisters.

-Yeah, definitely.

Tigers are normally solitary animals.

The only time you see them together is when Mum's got cubs.

But luckily our girls do normally get on really well with each other,

and they do like to have a bit of fun and play.

Yeah, we just need to see their noses and paws nudging that buoy

-into the water, don't we?

-Yeah. I think they're probably hoping

that there's meat somewhere, because that's normally

-what we put out. There's Soundari.

-Up on her hind legs.

-Yeah.

-That's great.

Is it going to go in? Oh, is it going to go in?

Come on, girls. If you didn't have the buoy there,

would they be likely to just run into the water?

They don't often just run in.

-OK.

-Normally, when it's the heat of the day.

At midday, they might go in and try and cool down.

Tigers have webbed feet. That's so unusual.

Yeah, slightly webbed paws just to help them swim,

obviously gets a bigger surface area so they can pull that water in and

help swim a bit better, cos they are water lovers.

Oh, she's almost just pushed it in there.

-Go on. Go on, Shouri.

-I think it might go in. Go on, Shouri.

Yeah, they're giving it a good go with their massive paws

and they're balancing as well, so they're using some other skills.

Yeah, you can really see the little flicks of the tail

to get that last bit of balance.

It's almost like two domestic cats with a ball of wool,

or something. They're really rolling it around and playing together.

Yeah, definitely.

Well, the girls didn't fancy getting wet today,

but they've had a good old play around, so the buoy done good.

It's mid-afternoon and over in Monkey Temple,

keepers Sam and Shelley are busy nervously moving marmosets.

This group of monkeys we're just about to shut in,

and then we're going to let out our black-tailed marmoset group,

which have little babies.

It's been three days since an unprecedented attack,

in which a mob of crows nearly flew off

with one of the park's marmosets,

sparking fears for the safety of their two newest arrivals.

Today, Sam is letting their family and the babies out

for the first time since the attack.

Hello, guys. Are you coming out?

So this is Mum that's come out first.

And then we've got Dad and one baby, I think, by the looks of it.

Hello. This is one of our baby black-tailed marmosets.

No bigger than the palm of Sam's hand,

the babies could easily become a bite-size snack to a hungry crow.

Being so tiny, it's the little babies we were a little bit more

worried about.

The park's other groups of larger marmosets have continued to go out

safely each day,

albeit under the watchful eye of Sam's two fake birds of prey.

Never had any issues with crows before. It's all a bit strange.

Perhaps it's their breeding season or something like that,

but we're just really happy that our bird deterrents

have done the job.

At eight weeks old, it's vital the baby marmosets are outside

as much as possible.

It's a critical stage in their physical and mental development,

learning important life skills from their parents.

You can see, Mum and Dad are doing a great job of looking after them

and guarding them as well.

Now, finally free to explore their open-topped enclosure,

it seems Sam can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

This is exactly where they should be, out and about, running around,

enjoying the sunshine, so it's great.

As you can see, they're really enjoying themselves.

The Conservancy of Lewa in northern Kenyan is one

of the few places in the world that is winning the war

on keeping wildlife safe.

We've got more white rhino and black rhino here

than I've ever seen in my life. It's just stunning -

and that's because the rangers that are looking after them,

and we're talking armed guards,

we're talking lay their life down to protect an animal.

Lewa covers 250 square kilometres,

and the challenge to keep it secure around the clock is immense.

I'm in charge of this room

and I have a team of seven radio operators.

So, we man this place 24-hours a day.

In the communications room, John ensures the experienced rangers

on the ground are where they need to be at the right time.

His wealth of experience and dedication to the wildlife

helps inform his decisions.

It's my passion and that's why I've worked here for the last 21 years,

and I've seen it grow gradually, and at least now we have technology.

This tracking system means the wildlife

can be constantly monitored.

So, this one is for tracking the elephants.

We have 7,500 elephants, and out of those we've collared

between 45 to 50 elephants.

So, for example, if you look at this particular animal here,

that is an elephant...

That is where she is at the moment, and if you go there,

she's not alone, she could be in a small herd -

and we have about 7,500 elephants current in that area.

We have what you call a security response team,

and we can send them there to go and make sure

that those elephants are safe.

The advanced technology means rangers and anti-poaching patrols

can be dispatched immediately to deal with any situation.

Each of these green and white blue dots you are seeing,

those are patrols.

We have, in this patrol, we have at least three men,

whose work is to go out there and find rhinos,

plus any other wildlife species.

So they protect rhinos

and, at the same time, they're protecting other wildlife species.

Sadly, in spite of the efforts here at Lewa,

poaching of rhino and elephant is on the increase across Africa.

The armed patrols at Lewa are constantly on alert

for poachers who illegally obtain rhino horn and ivory.

Today, Ian wants to show the keepers their most critical challenge.

Black rhino are on a knife edge in terms of conservation.

With only an estimated 5,500 in the world,

they could easily go extent.

These are four black rhinos and we have Sonia and Subira.

Subira is her calf -

and then, on the other side, we have Anna and her calf.

It's quite incredible for us.

This is a species that could be lost in our lifetime,

but here they're not only surviving, they're breeding too.

Two successful breeding female black rhinos.

-Two successful breeding females.

-Amazing.

-Yeah.

And then we have Anna there.

Anna, this is her second calf.

She's still a young mother,

but we're expecting that she will give birth again next year.

We're looking at four of only 84 on the Conservancy, anyway.

I say only, that's a massive proportion of the number

left on the planet.

-This is wonderful work.

-Thank you.

Rhino are hunted for their horns,

which are then used as shows of wealth,

or for their falsely believed medicinal benefits.

It's an outside of Africa thing, is it?

Yeah. The biggest market is Asia and other places.

A rhino horn is a sense of wealth and everything,

and also the Chinese medicine, as well.

Keeping the rhino here is a matter of life or death,

both for the rhino and keepers in equal measure.

It's sad that it's happening out there

and we're the ones who are feeling it,

we're the ones who are kind of like risking our lives

and risking our families and risking everything.

You know, even the rangers themselves,

they don't understand.

Why would somebody want to kill a harmless rhino?

If we were able to show that to the people out there,

and also to make sure that the people who are buying this,

-it's not been cut off peacefully.

-No, it's been killed.

The animals have been killed, they've been butchered.

This is a being that you are taking from the wild.

Today has been a profound experience for Darren.

We can really see the progression that conservation is making -

but actually there's a whole army of people like Ian

that care so much and are working day in, day out

to conserve some of the rarest animals on the planet.

From the tallest to the smallest,

the park is home to some pretty strange creatures...

..but when they're covered in slime,

most people would throw in the towel.

I'm here to meet an animal that I usually spend time avoiding

on a rainy day in my back garden - but, Graham, you're going to change

my opinion about the slug.

Well, I hope so. These are probably one of the larger species

of slug out there and they're the Pancake slugs.

They get their name because they're quite sort of pancake coloured

and they do sort of tend to flatten out when they relax.

Yeah, it's very unusual looking.

It's nothing like your ordinary garden slug.

No, no, I don't think you'd have much of a garden left

with these guys in there. They grow up to about 12 centimetres in size.

So they are a really enormous slug, from Barbados, actually.

-So they're a tropical slug.

-So it's an exotic slug.

-It is an exotic slug, yeah.

-That's good.

I'm hoping you won't find these ones in your back garden.

Being this close up, I can see there's two eyes there.

And what are these two little things underneath?

Yeah, these bits here really are like feelers.

So he's just tapping away as he's moving

and he's looking for anything that is nasty

that he doesn't want to slime through,

anything sharp, but also food, as well.

So, these guys just constantly eat all the time.

It's a really cool adaptation down there -

and from this angle,

it looks like the two stalks of the eyes are coming out from under...

-almost under a hood.

-Yeah, really unusual for this species, as well.

It does. It comes out under a bit of a mantle at the top there -

and that's just an extra form of protection,

so if you were to just disturb him at the front, there,

-you'll see that his eyes...

-Ah, they retracted.

Retract straight back inside and then he's poking about,

making sure it's all safe again before he moves on again.

Now, Graham, you keep saying "he".

Have you sexed this slug?

No, I should probably correct myself on that, actually -

they are hermaphrodites, which means they are both male and female.

-Wow.

-So that's a really sort of unusual feature

for most of the gastropods, the snails and the slugs.

He or she doesn't really make any difference, I don't think.

I don't think he gets that offended by it,

but, basically, they can produce both eggs

and mate with the other sex as well.

I have to say, Graham, they do have a bad reputation,

but watching him for a little while, he's really interesting.

I think you've changed my opinion.

-I'm glad.

-Yeah, it's great.

Earlier, we met Carl and Rasta,

two male cheetah that Amy and her team want to introduce

into one bachelor group.

If it works, Amy can keep all the cheetah here.

If it doesn't, some of them will have to go to a new collection.

Darren and Amy are seeking the help of an expert in the field, Mary.

She's Lewa's research manager and one of the few people in the world

who can help Amy with her issue back at the park.

The cheetah have a house that they come into each night.

They've got separate pens inside the house.

We're trying to get them to have that close contact with each other,

in the house, when they're feeding, but they haven't actually met.

Amy explains that after feeds, the older cheetah, Carl,

has been showing more aggression than Rasta.

Because Carl is the father to the cubs,

-he might be more territorial as well.

-Yeah, exactly.

So he might not want Rasta to come in and be close.

Cheetahs are so territorial that...

..like, even one male can protect the whole of the entire of Lewa...

-Wow!

-..as the territory.

He's going to be aggressive and he feels like he's...

He's the dominant male, he's definitely going to feel, you know,

-"These other males are not coming to my territory."

-Yes, yes.

As Carl is older and arrived at the park first,

there's little chance of him ever accepting Rasta,

the younger, new arrival.

If they were young and they grew up together...

-Yes.

-..then that would be good -

but now they are all grown-ups, and you're bringing in together.

-Yeah, try to bring them together.

-You want them to stay together.

It's... I don't think that is going to work.

It seems the difference in their age could be making things difficult,

but Mary isn't ruling anything out.

It's going to be fascinating to know how that goes...

..but, you know, that is in captivity.

It is a different situation in the wild.

So we will keep in contact...

-Definitely.

-Definitely keep in contact.

..and you will tell us how that works -

and if you succeed, you better document it.

-Yes.

-Definitely will.

Thank you.

It's not the answer the team were hoping for -

but on the drive back to camp, Darren spots another species

that he's been wrestling with how to display

back in Wiltshire - ostrich.

It's really interesting to see how these interact with each other here.

We're looking to run a group of ostrich together.

Darren's always wanted to keep a large group of ostrich,

but has never done it.

So this is a great opportunity to understand a group in the wild.

That's the male of the family and then that's the female.

The very young males are starting to mature, but once they are young,

they will always stick with each other...

-OK.

-..and then they'll split later on after maturity.

Back at the park, they've recently started incubating a dozen eggs

in the hope that they can form a larger group -

but no-one is quite sure if it would work.

Back home, we currently have a clutch of eggs

and we've got them in the incubators,

but our female's also sitting on eggs

that we don't want her to hatch out. That bloodline's no good.

So what we're going to do is, we're going to put some back under her,

-yeah, so she'll hatch them out of thinking they're her own.

-Yeah.

Let them grow up together and then they will have the notion that...

-Yes.

-..they are from the same family.

-OK.

Encouraging a female ostrich to raise unrelated chicks

as one family from birth is something Darren is keen to try.

Back at the lodge, he calls home to fellow keeper Mark.

-Hello, Mark.

-Hello, Darren.

Just wanted to give you a quick call hot off the press.

We came across a big family group of ostrich -

and as long as Mum and Dad rear them as their own,

they will accept them and they will grow up

-without any risk of inter-male fighting.

-Oh, brilliant.

The good news for you is you've got 11 out of 12 fertile eggs.

No way! Cheers, mate, thank you.

-Take care.

-Cheers, bye.

Another great thing to look forward to -

and if I can take a few more of those little pearls of wisdom

back from Africa, then it's worth a 13 hour shift.

Earlier, Jean and Eloise gave the tigers an enormous ship's buoy...

-Oh, is it going to go in? Is it going to go in?

-Come on, girls.

..hoping they'd play with it in the pool and cool off.

Well, the buoy didn't get wet...

but later in the day, it certainly got played with.

Now, if you've ever wondered what a tiger could do

to a ship's buoy, wonder no more.

-Eloise!

-Look at that.

They did a pretty thorough job, didn't they?

Yes. They definitely ripped it to shreds

and crumbled it up as much as possible.

And do you know what's amazing? This is really solid.

I mean, they've really gone to town.

That is quite an animal toy.

Yeah, they managed to get through it a lot quicker than we expected,

and, yeah, they love it.

Is this sort of thing important for the tigers

to have in their enclosure, to have that opportunity?

Yeah, we try and make our girls work really hard

and get as fit as possible, and giving them a new toy

is exciting for us to see what they do

and for them to figure out what they want to do with it, as well.

Well, I am impressed.

It looks like you've got a few little chunks of food there,

-on a knitting needle! I like what you're doing there.

-Yes, yes.

-Come on.

-This is?

-This is Shouri behind us.

-Shouri.

-Shouri's the one that had the most interest in this buoy

and she's he one that made the most mess out of it.

-Didn't you, sweetheart?

-They're keeping you on your toes.

-Definitely.

-Thank you so much.

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.

Keeper Polly is in Africa, earning her stripes

amongst some very rare zebra...

Seeing them out here in the wild, it's amazing.

It's overwhelming!

The park's gorillas give their verdicts on a new diet.

Both going for the tomato, as well.

Save some for the others, Evindi!

..and we'll reveal how an emu cools off in the summer.

When they're that hot, they need to cool down,

and this is the best way for it.

Yeah, he's just sat himself right in there.