FEMALE NARRATOR: Babies are vulnerable
and for many species, there's safety in numbers.
Being part of a gang is essential
for the survival of some animals when they are young.
For Australian fur seals,
black bears, meerkats and alpacas,
the more really is the merrier.
(♪♪♪)
(Birds chirping)
There's nothing cuter than puppies.
Or maybe there is.
Seal pups might just edge out the canines in the cute battle.
It's hard not to like them.
Their friendly critters are very social
and don't stray too far from their group.
The Australian fur seal or brown fur seal
stays close to land throughout its life.
Australian fur seals are a really charismatic creature.
They're one of the top predators in the marine ecosystem.
They're distributed throughout Southern Victoria,
Southern New South Wales or in Tasmania
and some parts of South Australia.
The Australian fur seal is different from other seals
in that its flippers are strong enough,
that it can run around on the rocks.
They start off small and cute,
but they'll grow up to be pretty big.
Australian fur seal is a brownish color
and they have a golden hue to them as well.
They're quite a large fur seal in Australia.
They're about 100-kilos for a female.
That's 220 pounds.
And an adult male can be up to 6-feet long
and weigh 660 pounds.
Seal babies, like this little guy,
are called pups.
He, like all other pups, looks slightly different
than adults.
When seal pups are born,
they have what we call the lanugo coat,
which is really dark brown.
Their coat is not only darker, it's also softer and thicker.
It keeps them warm and dry underneath like a wetsuit.
But in a few months, as they get older,
they'll begin to shed their coat,
a process called molting,
and they will turn the same grey color as the adults.
Unlike other species of seals and sea lions,
this little guy will grow up to be quite the socializer.
They quite like lying next to each other
and around each other
as a lot of other species prefer to be sitting on their own
on their own rocks.
Every October, large groups of seals
take that love of socializing to a whole new level.
It's time to make babies.
The mating process of the Australian fur seal,
that goes over a few months
from October right through to December
when the males come ashore and they start holding harems
and they guard those harems very vigorously
against other males.
A breeding colony can have as many as 1,500 single seals.
Loud aggressive males become so focused
on protecting their harem and their breeding ground
that they won't even go out to sea to grab a bite.
The breeding colony is a noisy place.
It's full of seals and full of harems
and fighting males and seals running in and out of the water,
trying to get access to females and pups being born.
It's an amazing place to see.
As soon as this little guy is born,
he calls for his mommy.
(Seal bleating)
The birthing process can take several hours.
And then straight away, they start calling to each other.
(Seals bleating)
So that they develop the bond that they need
in order to find each other later on
when the female goes foraging in such a big colony.
(Seals bleating)
Each pup has a distinct voice.
That personalized call allows the mom
to find her own pup among so many youngsters
after she's gone out for some grub.
(Seal bleating)
And a pup makes sure he's heard.
We don't know what they say,
but they certainly make a lot of noise.
(Seals bleating)
Mom's shopping run can take a couple of days.
While he's home alone,
this pup takes advantage of his free time
to play with his pals.
I love watching the pups.
They're just always out for an adventure
and they have so much fun.
They're very curious about the world around them
and they're really exploring.
They're quite inquisitive.
They run around together in gangs
and they fall off rocks and they throw kelp around
and they play together.
When mom does get back,
she's usually bringing home seal favorites
like fish, octopus or crustaceans.
(Seal bleating)
Now that this pup has reached 2-months-old,
it's time for him to take his first swimming lesson.
(♪♪♪)
It will be another 8 months,
before he can learn how to catch his own fish.
In the meantime,
he's still very much dependent on mom and her precious milk.
But eventually, he will be cut off.
The weaning process happens
up to a month prior to the mother having another pup
and generally speaking,
she just starts to push the older pup away.
She wants to wean that pup before she has the next one,
otherwise, the older pup might out-compete the new one.
By the time he hits 11 months, this pup will be fully weaned.
When he's full-grown,
he'll be able to dive some 600 feet to forage.
When he does, this pup will have to stay on the lookout
for natural predators like sharks and orcas.
(Wave crashing)
But for today, his biggest worry is
getting a little shuteye -- in a really noisy place.
(♪♪♪)
The big black bear.
Massive.
Strong.
Well, maybe one day.
For now, they're just hangin' around.
I don't know if they learn that or they're born with it
cause they're awesome climbers.
I've never seen one fall and they can climb like crazy.
Baby bears are incredibly nimble.
Climbing is a good skill
for these North-American black bear cubs to have
if they wanna find food and escape enemies in the wild.
So is wrestling, as it develops fighting
and defense skills that adults need.
Instinct doesn't die completely in captivity,
but these 4 cubs, Scout, Blue, Kaptain and Klondike
live in a place called Bearizona in-- you guessed it, Arizona,
so they can concentrate on growing up.
When they're born, they're tiny.
They're size of a Twinkie or a stick of butter.
Then as they get bigger, they get longer and taller.
Right now, I think, they're 12 to 15 pounds.
Bear cubs are born while their mother is hibernating
during the winter months.
These cubs don't have their mom with them.
In the wild, they would stay with her for 17 months,
hibernating a second time with her
through their first birthday.
When they finally emerge from their den,
the young bear stick close to their mom until late summer.
At that point, females will stay within mom's territory,
while males stray farther away to venture off on their own.
But these cubs aren't really interested
in leading a solitary life.
Scout is little around (Unclear)
She's a tough bear for bein' the only female in there.
(♪♪♪)
And then Blue is pretty much a trouble maker.
He always, always has been.
He likes to stir up trouble.
And Kaptain and Klondike are pretty curious
or more the explorers, like that.
They're starting to get a feel for that they're a bear,
so they're acting big and tough now.
(♪♪♪)
They're already expert climbers.
But eventually, these guys will be able
to run up to 30 miles per hour to avoid any danger.
And they're getting lots of practice chasing each other,
even though they don't really need it here.
In the wild, bear cubs will be vulnerable to predators
such as coyotes, wolves and even other bears.
But bear cubs can't rely on their mobility alone
to survive in the wild.
They would need to learn how to stay away from people.
They would also need to learn how to build their own housing,
how to travel and look for food.
It wouldn't be presented to them.
And these cubs love their food.
(♪♪♪)
No wonder they're growing so fast.
By 5 years, these bear cubs will reach their full size.
A female like Scout could weigh 330 pounds.
And a male like Klondike, twice that.
They will eat as much as 20,000 calories a day
before hibernating.
With up to 85% of their diet being vegetation,
that's a lot of berries, nuts and grass.
But their fondness for food and keen sense of smell
could get these bear cubs in trouble
if they were in the wild.
(♪♪♪)
People will feed 'em, people leave trash cans open.
That's a easy way for them to get food.
They don't have to work for it.
They like the ease of the capture of the food
and they kind of get in the neighborhoods
and get into trouble that way.
But here at the zoo, they're staying out of trouble.
These cubs play all day.
They jump at each other.
They'll bounce and launch at each other, which is great.
They roll around, they bite, they wrestle.
They're always playin', that's great.
For Scout,
Blue,
Kaptain and Klondike,
playing together is an important part
of exploring their new world.
They can climb, play and learn
all in the company of their furry friends.
(♪♪♪)
In the wild, meerkat pups live in underground burrows,
the tunnel under the blistering hot deserts of southern Africa.
But these baby meerkats at the Perth Zoo,
were born just 6-1/2 weeks ago.
They belong to a complex group or colony
made up of as many as 20 other members.
Each group is a family made up of the alpha female
and alpha male.
Everybody else in the group is siblings or their offspring.
In this family, the dominant female is Tilly.
She is the breeding female.
She is also the mother of all of the juveniles
that have born in this exhibit.
And as such she is the boss of the group.
Like most alpha females, Tilly is older, wiser and larger
than any other female in the family.
Tilly's a really relaxed and experienced mom.
She's had quite a few number of baby's here
and she does a really good job with looking after her babies.
What the meerkat pups need most from their mom
is her sweet milk.
But to keep that milk flowing,
Tilly needs to stock up on some serous calories.
In the wild, she would leave the colony and forage all day.
So what does that mean for these little defenseless guys?
Not to worry.
Mom has that covered.
Because only the dominant pair actually mate,
there are lots of other members ready and able to help out.
Quite often an older sibling or a baby sitter
will stay with the kits and look after them,
while the mom goes out and feeds to get enough of a milk supply.
But the other family members do more than just babysit.
They actually teach these little guys
how to coexist together.
Older siblings in this group are really good
at teaching young kits things about life.
So they do teach them, primarily, how to eat
and that's mainly just that
the little kits will trundle along
behind their older brothers and sisters
and watch how they physically eat food.
(♪♪♪)
They can also pass on some killer grooming tips,
because it's always important to look your best.
(♪♪♪)
The father of these pups is the group's alpha male.
While he plays a key role in the family,
he's nowhere near as important as Tilly.
The alpha male is, basically, the female's stud, I suppose.
Yes, he's the breeder
and he likes to protect that breeding right.
Like, so he's basically the only one
who will mate with the alpha female.
In the wild,
because a dominant female like Tilly
won't mate with members of her own family,
the dominant male has to come from another group.
Since they've been born,
the pups have been learning how to perfect the one thing
that meerkats are famous for, standing up on their back legs
for sentry duty.
I love when the little babies are learning to stand up.
How to do sentry duty.
(♪♪♪)
Their little legs are a bit wobbly sometimes.
So in the beginning stages, they find it quite difficult.
They'll try and stand up and, sort of, fall over.
In the wilds of Africa,
sentry duty is key to the pup's survival.
Obviously being quite little, you're bit of a snack-sized
for anything that might wanna come and eat you.
So things like birds of prey, other predators,
like any of your, sort of, terrestrial carnivores
will quite often try and take a little meerkat pup.
As they get older,
these pups will develop an excellent sense
of sight, smell and hearing.
All things that will help them detect the approach of enemies.
But in the meantime,
the rest of the colony totally has their back.
If their siblings or other relatives
sense a predator coming,
they will immediately sound the alarm.
(Meerkat calls)
And that would usually send a response
to the rest of the group to run away and hide.
(♪♪♪)
In time, these newborn meerkats will learn
to master 30 different types of call,
each with its own specific meaning.
For these pups,
being born to the dominant female Tilly,
doesn't give them any special rights.
In a couple of years,
when they finally become sexually mature,
they will have to fight like all the others
to assert their dominance within the colony.
And while it may look like they're just goofing around
with their brothers and sisters,
they're really getting ready for that big day.
(♪♪♪)
A really big part of being a meerkat kit is
learning how to play with your siblings
and some of that play is actually to go on later in life
and learn how to fight other meerkats.
So all meerkat kits do a lot of tumbling, wrestling,
play-biting and that sort of thing.
So that is really important.
For these baby meerkats, power is truly in numbers.
Everything they do is for the family,
and in turn everything they do is for them.
Soon enough they will learn that in the long run,
showing their devotion to the family
can help them move up the ranks
and possibly even help them become
the next dominant male or female.
But for now sneaking up on your brother
and tagging him is just a fun game.
(♪♪♪)
Maybe it's the huge eyes or the long eyelashes
or the friendly trot.
Maybe it's the way they stick together.
But it's hard not to love alpacas.
They're gentle, curious and playful.
And their peaceful temperament
seems to match their tranquil environment.
Baby alpacas are called crias
and they don't waste anytime sitting around
once they're born.
Their bodies are highly developed at birth
so that they can escape predators right away.
Crias birth in the day time, which is great.
They are up and walking usually within 30 minutes,
which is very speedy.
They're up and running around within a few hours.
This incredible ability is common to all species
of the camelid family.
Llamas, camels, vicuñas and guanacos.
Crias have to start drinking milk
within a few hours of birth,
otherwise, they're unlikely to survive.
Within a couple of weeks, they begin to feed
on grass, hay and other plants.
Alpacas originally came from South America,
high up in the Andes Mountains at an altitude
of around 12,000 feet.
They adapted to survive in a harsh environment.
Alpacas have been domesticated for thousands of years,
but they were only recently introduced
to other parts of the world
like here in Akaroa, New Zealand.
Shamarra Alpaca Farm raises Alpacas for their fiber.
It's soft and luxurious
and can be processed into clothing.
Alpaca fiber's very fine.
It's as fine as cashmere or finer than cashmere.
It comes in 22 different colors
and has excellent thermal properties.
It's warmer than sheep wool
and also stronger than sheep wool.
The fur of a cria is particularly soft.
This baby fleece is known as alpaca royal.
We shear all our alpacas.
The youngest ones are about 7 or 8 months
the first time they're shorn.
But we shear them every year.
Yep, so all the babies get shorn as well.
Alpacas reach full maturity around 2-years-old.
Eventually, they can grow to 3-feet tall
at the shoulder blade.
Alpacas are social animals and they live in groups
with one dominant male, several females
and, of course, their offspring.
The males do tend to be a little bit more rambunctious.
They tend to wrestle a lot, which is quite sweet.
Females are a little more lady-like than the boys.
One of the things a young alpaca cria learns
is to stick with the herd
and that keeps it safe from predators.
In their native South America,
pumas and foxes pose a constant threat.
In North America, coyotes are a dangerous foe.
But here in New Zealand,
alpacas have no natural predators.
This makes it an ideal place to farm them.
What I love about alpacas, just their lovely nature.
They're so soothing.
They're quiet.
Just something endearing about alpacas.
You just, sort of, fall in love with them.
Growing up with company makes life a little sweeter.
Playing and hanging out with siblings and playmates,
helps these animals explore and learn.
For these creatures,
the more definitely is the merrier.
(♪♪♪)