Animal Park

Every year, visitors to Longleat Safari Park get to see thousands of exotic creatures from around the world, but three years ago a native species made an entrance like no other! Unseen in the grounds of the park for over 400 years, the Eurasian beaver unexpectedly made an appearance on Half Mile Lake. Happy in their new habitat, the beavers quickly set up home and began breeding. Soon, more were discovered in the woods! Today, we continue this amazing comeback story with conservation and research manager Dr Tom. He takes us to a secret location to view "camera trap" footage for the first time. Amazingly, it reveals several beavers and clearly shows that one is pregnant. Excited, Tom moves onto the next beaver site only to discover that part of it has been destroyed by human activity! It's devastating news. Will this cause the beavers to move on, or will they attempt to rebuild their habitat? Wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin heads out in search of Bactrian camels, as he wants to help the keepers determine if a young male he met last year is growing into the leader of the herd. The good news is that his long lens does reveal some encouraging behaviours such as sniffing the girls. The young camel does this by pulling a funny face known as the flehmen response. But what will the rest of Hamza's time reveal? Does this young camel still have some growing up to do? Zoologist Megan McCubbin turns her attention to an African cape porcupine called Sprout. In the wild, a porcupine would be lucky to live to ten, but sprout is 23! The keepers have worked wonders by encouraging her to work for her food, which in turn keeps her body and mind active. Today, Megan is encouraging Sprout's natural instinct of foraging for roots and bulbs - but will the porpcupine manage to find her buried treats, or will Megan be a soft touch and feed her by hand? Elsewhere, we get one final look at the four tiger cubs that were born this summer.