I gave belly rubs to cuddly capybara brothers

Lancashire Post

Meet the adorable capybara brothers who are capturing the hearts of everyone who meets them.   Videographer/video journalist Lucinda Herbert gets up close with Larry and Moe and discovers why they are a 'friend to all animals'.  The nine year old males both love cuddles, belly rubs and wallowing in the mud!  Visit https://wilddiscovery.co.uk/ to find out how to book an experience visit.

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00:00they're both nine years old and they've been at the zoo for about seven years now they are really

00:06really popular animals everybody loves them and that is because they're so friendly so capybara

00:11are known for being very relaxed very chilled out and they like being scratched and stroked

00:16so um at the zoo we let members of the public come in and as part of the encounter and feed

00:21and stroke them and they do they're just they are just lovely boys they really really like the

00:25attention they eat vegetables fruit plants but the bulk of their diet is grass they mostly eat grass

00:34that's actually what their name means so the word capybara means master of grass

00:39and but they do eat something quite gross for their breakfast so for their breakfast they do

00:43eat their own poo which is not the most pleasant capybara naturally have quite dry skin and so a

00:49bit like hippos they roll in mud to help moisturize their skin but actually mud has loads of benefits

00:54that's why people use it at the spa and things it sort of moisturizes it um stops them from being

01:00bitten by flies it cools them down um and it also stops them from getting sunburned capybara are

01:07actually known for being friends with lots of animals one of their nicknames is a friend to all

01:13um yeah they so out in the wild they would actually form relationships with other animals so sort of small

01:18primates and birds will come and sit on their back and sort of pick through their fur

01:23and so they are known for just being very very friendly all around we do an encounter where

01:27the public can come in and feed the animals and it's almost always fully booked people absolutely

01:33love them and they've sort of gone viral on social media in the last few years and and we're really

01:39pleased about that because they are amazing so it means that more and more people are getting to learn

01:43about them wild discovery was originally set up nine years ago and with the aim to conserve species that

01:52are in in need basically of being conserved and all the species that we have in our captive

01:57environment are at risk of extinction in the wild so the sole purpose is about conserving those species

02:03in captivity and when given the opportunity to release into the wild we have that population conserved

02:11and we you know it enables us to to repopulate the wild populations again we've got some amphibians

02:18invertebrates we've got birds and we've got mammals so we cover the whole range of taxa so all of which

02:26bar a couple are either endangered or heading in that direction

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