Big Week at the Zoo

Helen Skelton and Nick Baker meet 'Carnivore Kim', who works with big cats and polar bears. In the longest heatwave since the 70s, JB Gill heads to Chessington Zoo to find out how they keep the animals cool, while Jersey zookeeper Gordon explains the dangers to his Sumatran orangutans.

Yorkshire Vet star Peter Wright does the rounds with Jersey vet Andrew Routh, including a procedure on the most critically endangered tortoise in the world, the Ploughshare Tortoise. Helen Skelton makes a trip to Edinburgh Zoo to prepare food for the pandas.

Carnivore Kims pull together a team to treat Alyss, one of her Romanian lions. Steve Leonard heads to Flamingo Land to follow their vet Gemma as she makes her rounds of the 140+ species on site.

At Colchester Zoo, two female rhinos are waiting for the return of prospective paramour Otto. At Chessington, JB Gill gets introduced to Olga, Tsar, Kalinka and Kyra - the tigers he will be taking care of today. Back in Yorkshire, it's pedicure time for the zebra.

Steve Leonard meets Jordan, keeper of African-native 'Painted Dogs', a successful hunting species whose conservation he has been very involved in. Meanwhile in Hull, Miranda Krestovnikoff visits The Deep aquarium, where she helps to massage a turtle that was injured by a boat propeller.

Helen Skelton and Nick Baker return to Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster, to celebrate the work that British zoos perform in the service of worldwide conservation. In the first edition, they drop in on three one-month-old endangered tiger cubs, Yorkshire Vet star Peter Wright befriends a tame tapir. JB Gill assists as a pygmy hippo is given a much-needed dental procedure and helps determine the sex of a baby sloth, while attempts are made to encourage two rare Chinese alligators to breed.

The Yorkshire Vet's Julian Norton assists with a procedure on a giant Aldabra tortoise, while Helen Skelton helps to look after the only family of polar bears in captivity in the UK. One of the zoo's male Asiatic lions is being transported to Tehran, but is almost immediately replaced by a newly arrived female.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park welcomes the arrival of a baby aardvark, and at Knowsley Safari Park, a male and female Amur tiger are introduced for the first time. However, the encounter comes with a high risk, as if things go badly, it could lead to death to either animal. Elsewhere, comedian Susan Calman spends the day assisting the staff at Blair Drummond Safari Park in Sterling.

Strictly Come Dancing stars Janette Manrara and Aljaz Skorjanec swap their dancing shoes for wellingtons to help care for Blackpool Zoo's herd of Asian elephants. Paddy the Mangabey monkey's keeper hooks him up with a potential new mate, while at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Helen Skelton has a close encounter with a rare Amur leopard.

Eastern black rhino Olmoti prepares to leave home for a new life in Rwanda, returning to her ancestral roots in an attempt to ensure the future of her species. JB Gill reports on an ambitious project to get bears and wolves living side-by-side in the UK for the first time in centuries, Plus, a chance to see how Hanako the rare brown bear is getting on, 12 months after being rescued from a confined enclosure in a Japanese museum.