At Taronga Zoo,
the health and welfare of all animals is paramount.
From the big exotics,
all the way down to the weird and wonderful.
Frances, we've got the bats for you.
We've got ghost bats,
which are an Australian species of bat, very special.
And two of those animals are gonna have a full health exam
in preparation for them participating
in a regional breeding program at another wildlife park.
We're going to put the bat into this chamber
and feed a little bit of anesthetic gas in here
so that the bat gets sleepy, and that will make it easier for us
to safely get its face into the anesthetic mask.
All right, if you can take that out.
Any bat in Australia potentially could carry a virus,
and so nobody should handle a bat
unless they're adequately trained and experienced
and vaccinated against rabies
and know that they have a protective titer.
So we follow special procedures when we're dealing with bats.
Tell me when you're comfortable.
Yep.
Liz has got special protective gloves,
because she is going to be the one
to restrain the head of the bat while it's in the mask.
So you'll notice she's got covered sleeves
and she's got special gloves there.
Come under my fingers.
Yep.
And that's going onto there.
Robert, I'm going to get you
to bring that examination light around.
I will hold his head in while you get your gloves off.
An important part of our examination,
funny as it may seem,
is to make sure that the bat is reproductively healthy.
Fit for service.
There you go.
And so it is important that we can see
the male external genitalia and that we know that it's normal.
So, Liz, I want to look at his, his head and his face
and teeth and so on now,
so you're happy if we take him out of here?
Yeah, that's fine.
So might need to just take that monitor off.
So, his little face, um, has got lots of folds
and things like that.
We're just conscious at the moment
that he's not breathing any anesthetic gas,
and so if we take too long, he will wake up.
Let's just have a look here.
The teeth are amazing.
Pretty fierce teeth for such a small animal,
if you look at the size of those canines.
There's so much about them to appreciate.
They're the largest carnivorous bat in the country,
found in some really weird places,
from tropical rain forests out into the sort of desert areas,
but unfortunately, like so much more of our wildlife,
they're in a lot of trouble out there in the wild.
So, importance of breeding programs
is just getting more and more as the years go on.
Okay, Liz, would you like to take him over and weigh him?
Sure.
And then we'll wake him up.
So Liz is restraining his head all the time,
weigh him and then we'll wake him up.
All right, so his body weight is 111.9 grams.
Are you recording that, Rob?
Yep. 111.9.
Only a mother or a ghost bat would love.
I agree.
They're really cute on that theory
of ugly but interesting.
Okay, so this little guy is really healthy.
He's in super body condition,
can't find anything wrong with him.
Everything in its right place, and I'm quite happy with him.
Yeah, Batman, Batgirl to go off to their new home,
hopefully to make more baby ghost bats
to increase the population as a whole.
Any animal that is going to be moving between wildlife parks
or zoological institutions need to be in great health,
and obviously we aim to keep them
in tip-top health here, yeah.
- Let's just give it air. - Sure.
Oh, oh, oh.
All right? Yep.
Only 'cause I could see its ears move.
"I'm awake!"
These are just now going into their own separate space,
so they're not interacting with the others
until such point that they travel off.
While the ghost bats wait to start their journey
to their new facility,
another species is at the end of their journey to Taronga.
Cheers.
How long is the flight from Wellington?
Three or four hours?
Oh, I think it's only two and a half.
I think the zoo itself is like another hour away.
They've been in the box for four hours now.
Yeah.
Today, for the first time in its history,
Taronga is receiving five South American capybaras
who've just landed on a flight from New Zealand.
We have just been like spitballing
a whole bunch of like South American names.
I wouldn't even know what a South American name... Pedro?
Like Diego and Pedro and...
Maradona. Yeah.
The first stop for these newcomers
is with Tim from exotics, who's been waiting anxiously
for their arrival.
And is excited to get his first glimpse.
Struggling to get a little peek inside,
but you can see a little glimpse of movement,
which is always very exciting.
Our first little glance at their new life.
So, should be really good.
Capybara are actually the largest rodent in the world.
They come from Central and South America.
Definitely a nice little smell to them already,
so that'll be fun.
Normally throughout the day
I actually look after our elephants.
So it's going to be a bit of a learning curve for all of us,
but we've got a really great team
who's really confident we're going to be able
to take some really good care of these animals.
Australia has some of the toughest quarantine laws in the world.
These are in place to protect the unique native animals
from diseases like rabies.
The container should come to about here.
Because it's an international transfer,
we have to be very, very strict.
Anytime we bring an animal in from overseas,
we want to make sure they're nice and healthy,
and any parasites or diseases they might be bringing in,
we want to be able to check them
before they enter the greater population.
One, two, three.
This one's leaking urine.
That is why we have the quarantine status,
because that's why we've got to put the tarp down.
'Cause he's obviously excited to be here
and the urine is coming out.
So they're mopping up the urine,
or they've cleaned up the urine now,
so these boxes will go into quarantine as well,
so they're all cleaned properly.
Last one. Very exciting. Nearly ready to go.
Um, we have just found out that the Wellington keepers
have put a few names on top of the crates.
There's some good ones,
and there's some questionable names floating around out here.
Like humans, when animals fly around the world,
it can be stressful, so the team is hoping to get
the capybaras back to Taronga as quickly as possible.
Oh, definitely time's critical,
because the animals have been in the crate
for probably four hours.
We want to get them back into quarantine and released,
so they can check on their condition and stuff
and get them out of the box.
No one wants to be stuck in a box for a long time.
All right, guys, I think we're ready to rock and roll.
Let's do it.
So the quicker we can get them back on the road
and get them back to the zoo,
the better it is that it's going to be for them,
and we can get them settled into a new home
where they'll be nice and comfortable.
400 kilometers away at Taronga's other zoo,
one of their most loved species is the ring-tailed lemur.
So, lemurs are a lower-order primate.
They are our very distant relatives.
While they may look small and cute,
their personalities are actually big and boisterous.
Ring-tailed lemurs are a matriarchal species,
so they are run by females,
and they have a very strict hierarchy.
I sometimes think it's a little bit like Bold and The Beautiful
because they can be so dramatic.
The ring-tailed lemurs are one of Taronga's
biggest breeding success stories.
We established a breeding program for them in 2013.
Just in the last few weeks we've had two female babies born,
which is really, really exciting.
We're not sure on the sex of the third one that we have pending,
but we'll find out pretty quickly.
But the Animal Kingdom moves
to the beat of its own drum...
I've just got to find the nurse now.
...as vet Michelle is about to find out.
I've had a call from Sasha
who's one of our primate keepers.
I'll just grab a primate form.
And she was concerned that she'd observed a big fight
in our ring-tailed lemur group.
And the individual who seemed to come off second best in the fight
was one of our adult females,
and she's actually due to give birth any day now.
The ring-tailed lemur Noah is possibly in labor
and has been beaten up.
She's missing a finger.
Her lip is torn completely open
and there is a lot of blood from her vulva.
So the question is, is the blood from the vulva
due to the pregnancy or is it a bite?
She's had stillborns before.
Yeah.
So there is a potential that it could end up being a caesarean.
Okay, so just surgery kits.
It sounds like she sustained some pretty nasty injuries,
and given she's at a pretty precarious stage of her pregnancy,
we need to be really careful with this one.
We have had incidents of fights in the past,
particularly in breeding groups
where obviously emotions and hormones can be pretty high.
Hi, again.
I brought a net, too, did you want that or...
-...a towel will be enough? - Yeah. We will skip the net for now.
The first thing I noticed was that she had blood
around her vulva,
which meant that she could have been in labor.
So, we were all a little bit worried,
because she is the last of our three females
that was needing to give birth.
So the timing was pretty terrible.
You want a towel or prefer not a towel?
No, not a towel is easier, I think,
and then obviously if she grabs the door, the mesh...
I'll give you a hand.
Ordinarily with a routine health exam,
we get the animals familiar with being put into a transport box,
so that when the day comes it's all very non-stressful,
but in an emergency, unfortunately,
we don't have the time to do that.
Want me to move down the other end?
Okay.
All right, baby girl.
Covered in blood, missing a finger,
and heavily pregnant,
the mum-to-be, Noah, has the odds stacked against her.
Go ahead.
Starting to hear the radio, we're getting close to the zoo.
Yeah.
It's just over the water.
Five capybaras have arrived in Australia
from New Zealand.
Here we go, boys.
First big trip over that Giant Coat Hanger.
Welcome to Australia.
And while their journey to Taronga
may almost be over...
Oh, this is better looking than New Zealand.
It is.
...their longer quarantine process is about to begin.
We've just arrived at the vet hospital here at Taronga Zoo
and now we're just about to move them into the quarantine dens
where they're going to spend the next two weeks.
Plan is we're going to offload them from the truck.
- People lifting out here... - Yep.
...in regular uniform
will pass through the double green doors
to quarantine staff in gowns.
Beautiful.
We'll put them on the scales we have in quarantine,
get a weight of the animal in the crate,
and then take the crate into the den,
unload the animal, we're gonna check the microchip of each one as we go.
You got 'em?
Got me finger, too.
This is the quarantine for the zoo.
So, any new animals coming into the zoo get quarantined,
but these animals because they've come from overseas,
quarantine is particularly strict.
That's why we've got the quarantine officers here
to oversee the whole process of unloading.
Want me to lock it? Yes, please.
This is the last part,
we're just disinfecting everything
that came in contact with the boxes.
Because we had a bit of urine spill on the floor,
so we're just cleaning up,
making sure everything is nice and safe and good.
Things have to be done, they have to be done.
A lot of work goes into bringing an animal
into the zoo from overseas...
7-8... 78.9. And do we have a name?
This is Diego.
Diego.
...especially considering no one from Taronga
has even laid eyes on their new capybaras yet.
I haven't seen these animals. They're very cool.
They're like giant guinea pigs, except they're just one color.
So if you can imagine a guinea pig about that size,
these guys are that big; 30 kilos.
They're really cool, charismatic animals.
We can't wait to open up the boxes
and see who we have in there.
We're going to give them some food, some greens,
and some cubes and hay ready to go.
So that'll settle them down, see how they are.
Come on. Come on.
With the capybaras now in their temporary home
for the next two weeks,
it's a long wait for the rest of the zoo
to catch their first look at this playful species.
After suffering serious wounds in a fight,
pregnant lemur Noah has arrived
at the Western Plains wildlife hospital.
Just try and help you and work out what you've done.
Are you going to give her an injection
or are you going to...?
No, we're just going to go straight to gas, yeah.
Before Noah can be examined,
she needs to be sedated.
Whilst we would always like to avoid anesthesia
at this late stage of pregnancy,
in this case it's important that we determine what's going on
and we will do our best to make it as quick
and smooth for her as possible.
Let's just check...
Now Noah's calm,
Michelle can turn her attention to the source of the bleeding.
This feels okay.
I have to go all the way up. That's a bit worrying.
If we've got internal bleeding and it's uncontrolled,
then obviously that can be life-threatening.
And in this case we're dealing with both the mum and the baby,
so we've got two lives that we're concerned about here,
and we need to really make decisions
based on what's best for both.
Yeah, I think it's a torn vulva.
It's not really ideal
just before you're about to give birth, is it?
Thank you.
She has sustained a nasty injury to the vulva.
That's certainly better news in terms of
life-threatening illnesses right at this stage.
It looks like she's very close to giving birth,
and we'd like her to go through that process naturally if possible.
We will just start clipping this up.
But first they'll need to use ultrasound
to determine if the baby has survived the attack.
Oh, darling.
It's a bit of a pitiful sound, isn't it?
Can you flick the lights off for me, please?
Thank you. Just, yep, that's the one.
How confident were you about the abdomen size
going down overnight?
Just before when I came in
and I found that they'd had the fight,
my main concern was making sure that she still had the baby
and she hadn't dropped it somewhere.
So I did gently palpate her stomach
to try and feel for the baby,
and usually the head is the most obvious thing that you can touch
and know what it is,
and it didn't feel anything like it did yesterday.
We need to confirm that the baby is alive and well.
So while the vets in Dubbo fight to save the life
of this lemur and its unborn baby,
back in Sydney...
These three are the elusive ones.
Taronga keeper Adam is fighting to save
the Bellinger River turtle.
They're amazing.
They are a really pretty turtle.
The bright yellow in them makes them quite attractive.
They're definitely one of Australia's,
you know, prettier turtles.
The adults, the females,
get about that size, so in proportion.
They get up to like 1.5 kilos, maybe a little bit bigger.
The boys are generally a bit smaller, the males.
And they're around the 600-gram mark.
A lot bigger than these guys, a lot bigger.
The reason these turtles are so special
is that Taronga Zoo hold
the only Bellinger River breeding turtles in the world.
Named after the Bellinger River
on the New South Wales north coast,
these turtles were decimated when a disease outbreak
swept through their once-pristine habitat.
February 18, 2015, a group of young men were kayaking
along the river and they came across a pond
with 53 sick and dying turtles.
But this was only the tip of the iceberg.
Every animal that was infected went on to die,
and over a period of five to six weeks,
the species was driven to functional extinction.
Probably about 90% to 95% of the population was lost.
Finding out exactly what was happening
fell on the shoulders
of Taronga pathologist Karrie Rose.
You can see the damage right here. It's just dead.
So, within two days we had received animals to investigate
and try to find out what was going on
with those poor turtles.
Here we go. This is one of the animals that had incredibly swollen eyes.
The turtles were turning up blind,
they were pawing at their eyes,
some of them had the skin ulcerated all around their eyes.
So it was really a grisly finding.
This is the spleen.
It's meant to be full of lymphocytes,
so really quite blue.
So much damage to this tissue.
You can't even tell what it's supposed to look like.
We knew we were dealing with a large-scale explosive outbreak
right from the very beginning.
The decision was made that Taronga would lead
an expedition to the Bellinger River
to rescue the remaining turtles.
Our biggest worry was that the species would go extinct
before we had a chance to even find out what was happening.
So the last group of adult animals
from the last pond upstream were taken into a captive breeding program
before the virus swept through.
Really only a few more days
and the species would have been extinct.
So, this out-of-the-way, fenced-off section
of Taronga Zoo is the last hope for the Bellinger River turtle.
Where there's more rock, then they're really active.
In the wild there's no breeding,
so we have the last 16 remaining breedable adults
in this facility.
This is it, this is the future of this species.
Pregnant lemur Noah has been brutally attacked
just days before giving birth.
We were all a little bit worried,
because she is the last of our three females
that was needing to give birth.
We've already had two successful young to the other two females
in that group a few weeks prior.
She was the last piece of the puzzle,
so the timing was pretty terrible.
Can you just flick the lights off for me, please?
With Noah now stabilized,
Michelle turns her attention
to finding her unborn baby's heartbeat.
In the past she has had a stillbirth,
and she also has had infants that haven't survived
after the first week or two of life,
and in this case we're critically looking
for whether or not there might be a heartbeat
and the baby's still thriving in there.
Just really nervous.
She is a really good mum.
I have seen her pine for lost infants before,
and it's a pretty heartbreaking thing to see.
Got a heartbeat.
Baby's still alive.
- Do you want to see it? Yes.
We might be, we might try and be super quick anyway.
- That little flutter, yep. Yep.
The baby has a heartbeat.
Doesn't quite look as vigorous as we would expect,
but that may be just because she was just about to give birth,
and now mum has been put through an anesthetic.
The only other thing that might be handy
is for us just to get a quick x-ray
just to see the position where it is.
So that's the head there, just heading towards the pelvis,
and then there's the spine down the middle
and the limbs coming off at the side.
So, in perfect birth position.
So, fingers crossed, everyone.
Just because it has a heartbeat now
doesn't necessarily mean that things will go smoothly,
but it's obviously a step in the right direction.
It's all right, darling.
I've just given her an injection of an antibiotic
and it's safe for the baby as well.
The lip tear and the finger injury,
although they look quiet nasty,
they're certainly not life-threatening.
Hey, Sasha? Yes?
What do you reckon the chances of her
keeping staples in her face are?
Pretty slim?
Um, well, it depends.
Do you think she's going to do more damage taking it out
or do it will be much more...
No, I think it would just be back to how it was.
No harm in trying?
No harm in trying.
'Cause she'll be kept either on her own
or just with one other individual.
Yep, okay.
Let's just clean those wounds.
Have you got the stapler handy?
It's just a lot quicker to do this than try and stitch it.
And we can worry about trying to remove them later.
Oh, goodness.
Just give you a little bit more gas, Missy.
How's it going?
Good. So we've got, um, it is a vulva tear
and a lip tear and all the rest of it.
The baby's got a heartbeat.
So I'm tempted to just wake her up.
Can you determine whether the cervix is open or opening?
I think it probably is.
I can get to the length of my finger,
my small finger, so, yeah.
So she may deliver the baby overnight.
She might and I'm thinking if she doesn't,
then maybe we need to intervene. Do you agree?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it'd be, I presume you're thinking
that it'd be better for her to do that
up in the facility where she's familiar.
I think so. Separate.
Yeah. Okay.
I mean, I'd like to see it moving a little bit more
than it is, but the head is getting close to that pelvis.
It's in the right position.
That's... that's the baby starting to move in
towards the birth canal and getting ready.
All right, let's get her back in pet pack, then,
and we'll reconvene in the morning.
Very good. Sounds like a plan.
I think mum is going to be fine.
I think it's a bit touch and go for the bub,
and Noah has had a stillborn baby in the past,
so that is in her history.
So it's not outside the realms of possibility
that things might not go that well,
but so far everything is looking okay.
She could have done without the injuries for sure,
but anyway, they are what they are,
and we've given her the treatment she needs.
Fingers crossed that she gives birth naturally,
because the stress that she's just gone through
because of all the fights and everything
and obviously the additional stress of having the GA
can cause complications, but obviously the fact that the baby
is currently alive right now is hugely promising,
so we'll just have to see how it goes.
Ready?
Yeah?
The vets have given Noah every chance
to have a natural birth.
Yeah, okay.
And it's a nervous night's wait for Sasha.
In 2015, the Bellinger River turtle was pushed
to near extinction when a virus swept through
the river system they call home.
This is our quarantine facility
of our Bellinger River snapping turtles.
They're classified as critically endangered,
and this is where we house all our 16 adults of this species.
Year-round these turtles are kept
in an environment purpose built to encourage breeding.
So, listen, what I need you to do is take off your boots
and I want you to step into these white boots
and come forward.
So don't take the boots to you.
You step in and come forward to me.
Today we're going to ultrasound
six of our female Bellinger River turtles
and see if they have eggs.
I'll grab that off you now, Charlotte.
Senior Vet Larry has come down to ultrasound
the females in the hope that the previous mating season
has been successful.
The most important thing
is that the screen is in the shade.
Who are we doing first, Adam?
Number 11.
She is my favorite turtle here.
From day one, like when we enter the facility,
she used to live in the tank behind me,
so she would greet us as I would come in.
She'd sort of look up and look at you.
So she's the only one that's really shown any interest in us,
so to speak.
So, I sort of like her. There's something about her.
I just find her pretty cool.
Okay.
She's bulging. Yeah.
I don't think I've ever not been happy
to see eggs turn up on this screen,
because you know that you are doing things right.
You know that the animals are happy.
Animals won't breed if they're not in condition
or they're not, if they're stressed.
It's so crucial that every one of these girls lay eggs for us,
because there's no other Bellinger River turtles
producing in the world, only the ones that we have here.
So we've got a great situation here.
Straightaway we can see she's got eggs,
and this is amazing, this is brilliant.
So these female Bellinger River turtles are so important
for what we're doing.
All right, we're done with her.
From the original animals that we brought in from the wild
back in 2015 during the die-off event.
Shazam.
So again, a nice lot of eggs there in this one.
And we've got four girls that are pretty good.
It's always very exciting to see this,
and, of course, now that we know these guys have got eggs,
Adam will start preparing for them laying their eggs.
There's quite a bit of preparation to be done,
isn't there, Adam, for laying the eggs,
and then of course beyond that, the incubation of the eggs.
These are the hardest ones to catch, too.
But it's the two youngest ones
that have never produced eggs before
that has the team on edge.
Okay, so this is number three.
Number three.
All right, this will be exciting.
All right, so this is one of the younger girls.
If we get eggs out of these girls,
it means that they're happy,
it feels like we're doing everything right for them.
It's so important for what we're doing.
It's so important for this program
to have all our potential breeding girls producing eggs.
It's really important.
You're so excited you're not holding the animal still.
I know, I'm actually like, a bit, um, shaky
'cause I'm like really excited.
Fingers crossed.
Taronga has welcomed five capybaras to the zoo,
and the world's largest rodents
are halfway through their two-week quarantine stay.
Hey. G'day, Larry. How are you going, mate?
- Good, how are they? They're good.
So I've just come up to the wildlife hospital
this morning to come and check on our capybara boys in quarantine.
I have to fight everyone else off to come up here and see them
so it should be great.
Well, they're your babies.
- They are. - Yeah, yes.
Although Tim will be responsible for the capybaras
once they go on exhibit,
with such strict quarantine laws in place,
he's still yet to even see them.
It will be nice to get in there and kind of check them out,
give them a bit of a scratch, should be great.
All right. Let's do it.
So, all the keepers have been, like, dying
to get up here, like Gabe and everyone, like.
So I can open up and let them into this den
so you can get a closer look.
And now they're all going to go back to bed.
No, no, it's time to rise and shine, pretties.
Come on, boys.
Hi, everybody.
Good boys.
Here is the first one coming.
How are you doing, big boys?
It was great to finally get into the dens with them
and kind of see how they're going.
Took a little bit of reluctant few steps for them to come in
and get nice and close to us,
but they're getting nice and strong
and the water was a great motivator for them.
Hi, buddy.
Their little noises are so cute.
They're doing a lot of really cool
natural behaviors in there.
They're slowly settling in.
Having a little bit of a snack is always good,
means they're getting nice and comfortable.
Oh, yummy.
A little bit of kale as some bribery is always fun
to get them nice and close so we can get a good check on them.
What about more?
Here, boys.
No?
So Tim is still in there.
We can't prize him away from the capybara,
he loves them so much,
so we'll just have to wait a sec for him.
Hi.
Putting a new species on display
is a big event for the zoo.
Just going to do a quick run-through.
Make sure everything is ready for their arrival.
And soon-to-be capybara keeper Johny
is making sure everything is just right.
As you can see here, we've got everything a capybara might want in life.
They've got a nice mud wallow over here,
which we'll refresh just before they get into the exhibit.
Capybara love to be in water and they love to interact
and kind of play with each other in water.
So it's a nice social area for them to play in.
The water is almost like a second home for them.
Here we have a couple of lean-to shelters,
which will provide them with a bit of shade,
but also a bit of protection from the rain,
and we've installed a couple of heat mats underneath them
as well just to give them that extra bit of warmth
on those slightly colder Sydney days.
So with capybara being very gregarious and social animals,
they're very playful animals as well,
we will hopefully see them running in and out of this log.
And being rodents, they will gnaw on this log
and on this wood to keep their teeth in really good nick
and also to help keep their teeth
to an appropriate length as well.
I think they're going to absolutely love this.
As far as real estate goes, this is prime capybara real estate.
Just making sure that there's nothing that's blown in here
from the wind in the last few days.
I think once they get their bearings
and once they become comfortable they're going to be very playful
and they're going to really interact with the environment
and the habitat really well.
With everything in place
and anticipation amongst the zoo staff high,
all that's left to do now is wait.
Yeah, buddy.
Facing extinction,
the Bellinger River turtle's last hope at survival
is the breeding program operating out of Taronga Zoo.
To ensure the genetic diversity
required to keep the population viable,
each of the six breeding age females needs to carry eggs.
I mean, this is a critically endangered species,
and every single hatchling that we get out of these guys
is contributing to the survival of the population.
So far, each of the four turtles examined
have been found carrying eggs,
but it's a nervous wait for the final two,
who after several years of trying
are yet to fall pregnant.
I'm... really...
You're so excited you're not holding the animal still.
I know, I'm actually like, a bit, um, shaky.
Fingers crossed.
Okay. Yes.
She's got eggs as well.
Woo-hoo.
That makes me smile a lot.
With five out of six turtles pregnant,
it's been a successful day,
but for Adam, the result of this final ultrasound
could make it truly a day to remember.
All right, here we go.
Okay.
I'm containing my excitement.
Adam's always excited.
But today particularly.
Are you ready, Adam?
Yes! I knew it!
I mean, this is the great thing with this,
you know, doing the ultrasound,
you get this instant result with these guys. It's just...
Her eggs look fantastic.
I know. Look how nice they are.
Photograph that.
So you can see, you know,
the perfect structure of the egg there.
I never get sick of seeing those.
No, it's such a buzz, isn't it, to see these eggs?
I want that on the fridge.
Hopefully they are fertile and they will hatch
and we'll get another bunch of hatchlings.
So this is just like one part of the process.
We find that we have eggs,
then they've got to lay the eggs,
and then we have to incubate and hatch the eggs.
So it's a long process, and each process has its risks.
So this is just part of that journey now.
And this is where we start getting a bit anxious
and a bit, you know, really want them to do well.
With all six Bellinger River turtles
now carrying eggs, it's a great result for Adam
and the species as a whole.
She's carrying the future.
I like those mornings.
They're the things that keep you going when it's raining
and you're up here working on them
or, you know, it's really hot.
Just first time things happen is really amazing.
I've got to stop saying it's really amazing.
It's really amazing that I say it's really amazing.
What's going on?
Yesterday pregnant lemur Noah was attacked,
losing a finger and raising fears for her unborn baby,
but after a stressful night,
keeper Sasha finally has something to smile about.
So I came in to check on Noah again
at about 10:00 PM last night.
Hey, Noah.
I had my fingers crossed, but I was a little bit nervous.
But I came in to find that she had had the baby
since I had been last there to check.
How are you going, beautiful girl?
The baby was alive.
It seemed to be thriving. She seemed to be pretty happy.
It was just the best outcome possible.
I was just incredibly relieved.
Definitely a couple of small tears were shed.
I was very, very proud of her,
and I don't think that I realized just how stressed I was
until that stress was no longer required.
Trust everything has gone well.
Um, yeah, she looks good.
The baby is in the right position for suckling,
so I assume that she is.
Gee, she looks well, doesn't she?
Yeah.
Her finger looks pretty good.
It is swollen but everything looks clean.
Staples are still in, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah, she took her meds fine.
Have you seen her vulva?
I haven't. Not yet.
But I can, I can definitely achieve that
by the end of the day.
Okay, all right.
I won't go in and disturb her at this stage.
Everything looks perfect.
Mum looks strong.
She looks settled.
She's really holding her in the right position, isn't she?
Yep. Looks great.
Baby is in the right position for suckling.
Sasha tells me she got a pretty close look,
thinks the baby's a little girl.
This is a great result. And this is her dad.
Yeah, so he's just chilling. Yep, great.
He's good.
You being a good daddy?
Hopefully in a week's time her injuries will heal even further
and we'll have a baby who's feeling stronger and thriving
and reintegrated into that group.
Okay.
Yeah, and she doesn't seem overly stressed,
like she's handling it pretty well.
So, yeah. She's doing all right.
And we'll put some of the others in with her later today.
But just not the main instigators, of course.
So the last couple of days have certainly been
an emotional roller coaster.
I do find that if you work with ring-tailed lemurs long enough
that you're not unfamiliar with that range of emotions.
Great stuff.
I know. Very exciting. Very exciting.
Yeah, every day is a good day being a lemur keeper,
but, yeah, baby season is always a really exciting time of year.
Good work, Noah.
Yeah. Good job in the end.
Yep. She sure did.
It's early days, but mum and bub are both doing well
and the endangered ring-tailed lemur population
has another birth to celebrate.
The Bellinger River turtle's future is contained entirely
in the breeding pools of Taronga Zoo.
I just have to be careful
that I don't squish anyone as I jump in.
Now six days after the ultrasounds,
Adam is doing his daily checks.
All right.
You know what? I think we have some eggs.
She hasn't closed up her nest completely
and there's quite a few in here.
We're happy.
So I'm just sort of digging out this nest
to open up some space to get my hand in it.
I don't want it to collapse on me halfway through,
just makes it a little bit harder to get the eggs out.
And I'm just going to start pulling them out.
This is the nerve-racking part.
I have to be really careful of doing this.
Each one of these little eggs indicates the species surviving.
So each one of them is critically important.
I'm even more excited because there's still so many in here.
It's like I'm going to need another container.
This is great.
So this is the last one.
Wow, that's exciting, we got 13 Bellinger River turtle eggs,
which is amazing.
So now I'm going to take these off to our incubator
to give them every single chance to hatch,
and you know, what's remarkable
is we've still got another five girls to lay eggs,
so potentially we have a chance of increasing
our wild population
by, you know, 50% or more from this season,
which is truly amazing.
It's pretty hard to believe.
While it's still a long way to go
for these tiny little eggs,
Adam couldn't be more proud
of the conservation efforts of Taronga Zoo.
It just shows that zoos are worthy places
to care for animals and to look at repopulating the wild.
This is why we're here is to showcase we do do this stuff
and we do do it well.
The arrival of a new species is always a huge moment
at Taronga, and after months of planning,
the zoo's newest furry celebrities
are about to take center stage.
They're very similar to their guinea pig cousins.
Biggest guinea pig in the world?
Pretty much, yeah.
Yeah, unreal.
Sarah to Gabe.
Go ahead, Sarah.
We're ready to roll.
Okay, thank you.
Today is the big day.
The capybara are finally going to come out of quarantine,
and we're going to move them down to their exhibit within the zoo.
Then we can start doting on them as much as we possibly can.
50.5.
The capys themselves are quite large,
but then the purpose-built crates
that they're going to be into are even heavier.
So at this point we're here to provide some muscle support.
Big relief to have this trickier part of the job done
and I just can't wait to get them in the exhibit
and get them the fresh air and sunshine
and deeper pool to swim in, yeah, and enjoy them.
Gabe to Johny. This is Johny.
Johny, we're just coming down the road towards you now.
Copy that. We're all here waiting.
Grant's even here.
Wouldn't have missed it for the world, would he?
There's a new species for us as keepers,
it's a very exciting day.
We've been looking forward to this for some time.
We're looking forward to getting a chance
to start caring for them,
and learn a bit more about them as individuals
and find out a bit more about their individual characters
and personalities and really start to bond with them as well.
Three, two.
So the plan is we're going to let these two
out of the crates, and then when they're far enough away,
we'll move these crates out, put another two in position,
and then repeat until all five have been released.
Sanchez and Carlos.
Capybara can be quite flighty animals,
so we don't want to go in there with lots of energy
and try pushing them around too much.
It's all very much going to be on their terms
and how comfortable they are.
This is their new home now.
So they don't look too agitated,
and they're being so adorable for us,
so it's kind of exactly what we want to see in them.
It's great. It's exciting.
When we picked them up, they were just in the box,
so this is the first time I've seen them out of the crate,
so they're quite a beautiful animal.
And they're just so cute, look at them.
How can you not like them?
They're very inquisitive, so.
Okay, everyone's in position.
It's time to let the capys onto exhibit.
Well, I'm very happy to officially declare
Taronga Zoo's capybara habitat officially open.
There you go.
Tim Bennett. Go ahead.
I think you're scaring them there.
They were very tentative.
Some of them were a little bit more wary,
but that's completely fine, they're all different.
You're a big, brave boy, huh?
You big, brave boy.
Want a little bum scratch?
Yeah.
Yeah, really looking forward to looking after them.
Capys are great little animals.
They're very social.
They'll be displaying a lot of natural behaviors.
The exhibit is suited for that, so they can be grazing,
they can be in the water, they're very aquatic,
so they love the water.
Ooh. That's deep.
That's the deepest water they've been in.
So it'll be good to see the five of them out there
and doing what capys do.
Oh, they must love being able to actually submerge.
They're like, yeah, play-fighting in the water.
I feel great. It's been a pretty unbelievable day.
Like it's a massive "we did it" moment.
like the vet teams, our teams,
the drivers, Grant did a fantastic job.
Yeah, we're over the moon.
Like, I couldn't have pictured this day going any better.
Captioned by Visual Data Media Services