Big Week at the Zoo

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.