Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Along with feeding all the animals at Longleat Safari Park, the keepers need to keep an eye on their mood, behaviour, love life and, of course, their health. And that’s before doing any training or coming up with enrichment ideas. It’s a never-ending job, and they must be ready for anything.

Kate Humble’s first job today is creating a new toy for the magnificent colobus monkeys. There are seven boys that live in the troop on ‘gorilla island’, and keeper Carys has attached three bottles to a broom handle and stacked them full of monkey treats. Each bottle has different-sized holes in its sides to increase the difficulty to reach the food. But will these monkeys be able to suss this puzzle out?

A devoted labrador owner, Ben Fogle has recently extended his personal menagerie to include Indian runner ducks. Luckily for him, they have some at the park, so he is joining keeper Abby for a crash course in caring for them. What they both quickly discover is that these ducks are not in the mood to follow orders today, and despite Ben learning their distinctive call, his ability to control them is certainly lacking. Ben discovers that with practice they will learn recall, but in the meantime at least they’ll keep the slugs off his veg patch.

Also today, keepers rally around Ghost, an ageing lion who is suddenly losing weight, Megan tests the reactions of a kookaburra, and Hamza is on hand as the keepers try to work out how to introduce a pair of porcupines to each other. With 30,000 quills each, the answer is… carefully!