When people think of Australia,
they think of spectacular landscapes and iconic animals.
We've been isolated as a continent for such a long time
that our animals have evolved
and they're, you know, they're crazy to look at, definitely.
But this year the postcard images
have been replaced by a country in crisis.
The bush fire ripped over the mountains,
straight towards packed holiday spots.
Midday in Batemans Bay.
Record heat and record drought
has led to record bush fires.
Hey, hurry up!
Hurry up, put it there!
The sheer scale of these fires
is hard to comprehend.
With properties in the line of fire,
water bombers were scrambling.
The amount of land destroyed by the fires
is larger than the area
of Denmark and the Netherlands combined.
A wall of flames coming down this hill here,
and it was coming straight at us.
And that has led to catastrophic loss of wildlife.
A koala makes a dash from burning bush,
but frightened and confused, runs straight into more danger.
Over a billion creatures have been killed.
This has been an ecological disaster.
Taronga Zoo and other animal hospitals
across the nation have been inundated
with burnt and injured animals.
But unfortunately when they walk across the fire grounds,
they do cause some really nasty burns,
but you can actually see the singed fur
on the side of his paw there.
It really hurts to think about
what these animals have gone through.
Poor koala's copped a bit, unfortunately.
But Taronga vets aren't just waiting
to receive injured animals.
They've taken the fight to save Australian wildlife
to the front line.
Hey, it's Kimberly.
I am currently down in Bairnsdale, Victoria,
helping out with wildlife rescue groups.
So just want to give you a little bit of a look around
at the situation we're dealing with.
I was speaking with my mom in America,
and all of America is asking what's going on
with these bush fires, and I let them know
I'm down in another state
helping with wildlife triage down there, and it's intense.
The urgent need for veterinary help
has led to the RSPCA setting up mobile animal hospitals.
We've got a range of vets who are coming to help
from a range of different agencies,
and it's been such a godsend to have people who are experienced
and skilled here to help with the animals.
And Vet Kimberly has eagerly swapped
the Sydney Harbor views...
His heart sounds really clear.
...for a cramped van in a country car park.
Make sure there is no evidence
of burns or inhalation problems.
So far with the help of Emergency Vet Caroline...
120. 120.
...they have rehabilitated dozens of koalas.
This will help get his guts moving.
Hopefully he'll be interested in eating on his own soon.
There is one koala who has caught their attention
and he's in a particularly bad way.
But Kimberly and Caroline refuse to give up on him.
He's a lot of work, but he's worth it.
So one of those bandages have just come off.
You can see he's got quite raw pads.
The worst burns are the ones that we've seen.
But we just thought we'd give him a chance.
He hopefully will heal.
Sadly this little koala has been through so much
that his body is starting to give up.
New for him, he's got some diarrhea.
And that's the problem.
While their burns are easily visible,
the damage caused on the inside is not so easily seen.
Once their intestines get imbalanced
sometimes it's really hard to improve that.
Cut it right here.
They know they've done everything they can for this koala.
Abrasions on his nose,
so I am just going to put some Solosite protective.
That's good for now, we're just--
His fluid bag is finished.
So I'm gonna turn that off and we'll let him wake up.
They fear all they can offer now is compassion.
I'm just rubbing him to stimulate him to breathe,
because they like to hold their breath.
It's normal, but it can be very disturbing
if you're not used to that with koalas.
Yeah.
Come on, my friend.
But sadly for this koala,
compassion may not be enough.
That's a nice breath. Thank you.
Reckon. Sit up.
Sit him up and lie him sort of forward.
Sometimes they like to breathe a little better
in a more erect position.
Good one.
He's fighting hard but the odds are against him.
Might just have a listen or a feel of his pulse
and see if he's still on track.
Where's my stethoscope?
I hung it up here.
I can't hear it.
Despite the heartbreak of the bush fires,
back at Taronga, life must go on,
and there are plenty of hungry mouths to feed.
From fruit to fish, grubs to worms,
and everything in between, all the animals' menus at Taronga
nutritionist Michelle Shaw.
I'm Australia's first and only zoo nutritionist.
There are only about 30 zoos in the world
that have nutritionists on staff,
so we're kind of a small group.
Michelle's certainly got her hands full.
It's different every day.
There is constantly a mystery and there's something to solve.
And because of the record hot summer
Australia has just experienced,
she's about to get a whole lot busier.
Drought and bush fires are destroying farmland
and sourcing food for the animals is becoming harder
and more expensive each year.
In preparation for a difficult future,
Michelle has an innovative grass
that needs much less water to grow.
So how do you think the tigers will like it?
I think they'll like it.
I'm really curious to see what the cubs do actually.
Hello!
Special delivery.
Oh, my goodness, thank you.
So what do you think, Ben, does it look good?
It looks amazing.
I'm really excited to see
what the cubs are going to do with it.
Me, too.
I think they'll have fun.
So this hydroponic fodder.
It was grown without any soil or anything,
just with water, and it retains all the water.
You can see how moist it is, right.
Let me taste it.
Very moist.
Mmm-hmm, very good.
I am trying this hydroponic barley fodder
with a number of different species,
because I want to see how this food
could be incorporated into their diets.
Hydroponics takes about a liter of water
to make one kilogram of this fodder grass,
and hay could take 200 liters of water
to make one kilogram of grass.
So I want to see if this hydroponic fodder
could be, replace maybe 5% of their dried grasses,
their grass hays, or some of their pellets,
and that'll help us in the future
when it's, sometimes hay is very difficult for us to get in a drought.
So it's nice to have something that's consistent all year round.
Part of her trial today is to see how
different animals around the zoo react to the grass.
Whether they use it for food or enrichment.
Now these are in kind of big mats,
but do you need it cut up at all
or are you just going to put it in?
Umm, I think we can just pop it in, in a big mat
and we'll see how they go with it.
I think they'll have more fun playing with something big
that they can tear apart, so.
I think so, too! I can't wait.
It'll be exciting. Cool, thanks, Ben.
Cool. Have fun!
Thank you, guys.
First to trial the new grass
are the Sumatran tiger cubs.
Put one there.
Maybe one over here, so there's no, no arguments over it.
Sounds good.
Cool.
Let's see what they do.
In Victoria...
Come on, my friend.
Taronga Zoo Vet Kimberly is on the front line
to save koalas injured from the catastrophic bush fires.
Sit him up and lie him sort of forward.
And during a checkup this young male koala
took a sudden turn for the worse.
So he has been improving
over the past few days,
and we were really hopeful that he would continue to improve,
but when we anesthetized him to change his bandages
and check him today, we noticed that he had developed diarrhea,
which can be problematic for koalas.
I think he's, I think his, umm, he's not breathing very well,
and I think his heart has now stopped, so.
I don't hear anything.
No, I don't hear any heartbeat.
No. Is that you or him?
No, it's him.
I'm not hearing his heartbeat.
Yeah, I think he's, I think he's dying,
and that's fine for you to film it.
So this may be our first fatality, umm.
It's, umm, when we have a really sick koala
in this triage situation, it's a "do not resuscitate"
because they're already quite compromised.
We're trying to give this guy a chance,
but it's not looking too promising.
Even the most experienced vets
struggle to remain unaffected in these moments.
Do you hear a heartbeat?
No, I don't either.
I think he's just taking some
last sort of agonal or reflexive breaths,
but there's no heartbeat. Yeah, put that on.
That color is terrible.
Yeah.
Well, he's possibly choosing his own time.
Yeah, it's...
All right.
No, his color is gone.
Okay. He's gone.
So unfortunately he's passed away.
Pretty sad.
Yeah, he had a few things going wrong with him,
and, yeah, that's what's happening down here
in the bush fire triage.
You want to save everybody, but you can't. You can't sometimes.
It's sad and it's hard at the time,
and you know, we just have to remember that we're doing,
trying to do the best that we can for these animals.
Aww.
Yeah, it's, umm...
We're both actually usually quite stoic,
but we've been working such long hours and so intensely
with these patients that we're exhausted.
We're exhausted.
It's so rewarding, this work, but it's so exhausting.
I'll be thinking about him for a little while, yes.
But yesterday we had two moms
and two smaller, like, back-young-size joeys
that went out back to the wild really happy
and another mom with a joey in her pouch.
So that's like six animals we've just put back out
to the wild successfully, so it's very good.
And this is our first, first, umm...
He was always on the...
He was on the cusp.
Yeah, the cusp of shall we keep him or not.
Oh, it's still not real, because we're so,
they've been such long days and we're tired,
and the reality of what happened today with him
will probably sink in in the next couple days
when I'm heading back to Sydney.
Yeah.
As distressing as it is for Kimberly and her team,
they can't let their emotions slow them down.
The pace is relentless, and they've just heard
that more injured animals are on the way.
When it comes to giving care to its animals,
Taronga is world class.
But there's a special type of care at Taronga
the elderly residents of the zoo.
And one of the most beloved...
...is Murphy, the 16-year-old Californian sea lion.
Good boy, Murph. Come on in, Rhee.
Over the last few months,
Taronga staff have been keeping a very close eye on Murphy.
Rhee is going to stick you, okay, right in there.
As they've noticed he has a limp when he walks
and pain in his flippers.
Good boy.
Beautiful and relaxed.
Excellent.
But they've also noticed
he's not getting better.
Nice and slow.
Good boy.
So Senior Vet Larry has come down
to conduct an x-ray.
Over the past few months he's sort of had this strange, fallen gait.
Sometimes he's a bit lopsided.
Sometimes he spreads his front flippers out, not quite right.
What we will do before we actually x-ray him, I want to see him...
Have a few-- watch his gait. -...going up and down.
Yeah, yeah, that's fine. We'll get him to do a few... a few runs.
What we're looking at now
is whether he might have a problem in his neck for example.
Come! The bones in the neck,
there might be some degeneration there.
They could be pressing on a nerve or something like that.
The challenge is that he's so huge
and getting a decent x-ray through the massive amount
of tissue that we've got to go through
is probably the biggest challenge for today.
Wow.
That's crazy.
295 kilograms.
He weighs several hundred kilos,
so we're not going to be able to get him up to the hospital.
It's much better to come out here where he normally lives
and we do the procedure here.
We've got some good portable x-ray equipment,
and it's certainly much easier to do here.
But maneuvering a massive sea lion
into an exact position is far from a simple process,
and it all hangs on the relationship
between Keeper Jacob and Murphy.
Stay.
So a bit further forward
so just the back of his head is on the edge off the plate, okay.
Good boy.
A tiny bit more.
Jacob can position him perfectly on this plate,
better than parking a car, you know.
It's how precise he can position Murphy on this plate
is incredible to see.
Okay, stop.
Stay, good boy.
That's good. Let's get that.
While the first set of x-rays seemed easy,
it's the second set that's really going to test the team.
If I stand this side of him like that, Larry.
I mean, that's perfect.
If he does that, that would be brilliant.
I can get him to do that. That's easy enough.
So we are going to try and do a side view of his neck.
So Michelle is going to hold the plate,
and I will be positioning the x-ray beam
and Jacob will position Murphy.
You have to improvise all the time.
You know, the textbooks are written for dogs and cats
and domestic animals, but our animals are so different
-that we're always improvising...
...and, you know, working outside the box, so to speak.
And up.
Good job, Murph. - Just a little bit,
see how his head is straighter actually?
That's the way. That's the way.
Hold there, buddy. Murph! Murphy.
No, no, you stay exactly where you are, Michelle.
Stay exactly where you are.
Hold, Murph, good job, buddy.
You could see how, how amazing Murphy is
and the training that Jacob and the rest of the team have done with him.
I mean, he is so disciplined, it's incredible.
Okay, are we all ready?
Good!
I think we've really got the technique,
this is actually spot on now, because I've got a great image
of the vertebrae right in the middle.
The interesting thing is his vertebrae are really big.
So in that whole image I can only see three vertebrae.
So there is a lot more of his spine that we could be looking at.
And hopefully Larry's captured enough
to solve the mystery of what's ailing Murphy.
Tackling the drought and bush fires head on,
Taronga's nutritionist, Michelle is testing out some easy-to-source,
hydroponic grass on various animals.
Hydroponics takes about a liter of water
to make one kilogram of this fodder grass,
and hay could take 200 liters of water
to make one kilogram of grass.
She's trying it on animals all across the zoo,
starting with the tiger cubs.
Oh, yes, yes.
KEEPER #Oh, look, here they go.
KEEPER #Oh, so cute.
KEEPER #Oh my god, they're stunning, aren't they?
Come on, babies, come on, babies.
Do it. Do it.
Oh, there is a bit of motivation.
After some initial hesitation,
the first test is a roaring success.
They're really ripping it apart,
and the good thing about this grass is that it's so dense.
When they grow things hydroponically,
the roots are so dense that you can't just,
it doesn't pull apart very easily.
So they really have to work at it,
and we want them to use all of those natural instincts
of pawing at things and pulling at things with their teeth
and really exercising all of those muscles around their,
around their jaws and um, and interact with it
like they would, like they would possibly a prey species.
They could have come in here and ignored it completely.
There's grass in their exhibit.
So there's other things that look similar to it,
but they went in and you could see they're interacting
with each other over it as well, and that's really what we want.
Behavioral enrichment.
We want them to have something that they can destroy,
because they really love to destroy things,
and something that the keepers will find fun to clean up later.
While the grass went down a treat as a play thing,
the real test is getting the animals to eat the grass.
So her next stop are the capybaras.
So where do you think?
I think a good spot is where the hay is
at the moment, yeah.
Okay. So we'll just put it out on the rocks.
Yeah, just on the rocks there, where the hay was.
What do you think?
Is that going to be good for you?
Bon appetit, guys.
With the hydroponic grass,
that's something that is much more natural
in terms of the moisture content that they would be getting.
These are swimming animals,
they like to eat water plants and things like that.
Their diets are really high in moisture normally.
So adding some of that moisture would be good for them.
There we go. Rodney's all over it.
That's successful.
Yeah, he looks pretty comfortable.
He does, he hopped up on the rock quite easily
and is quite happily munching away on the grass.
- That's Sanchez just there. Okay.
That's our boy.
And with this, it even floats.
So at some point we might be able to, like, depending on how
the waterway is, we'll be able to actually add it in the water
and they can eat more naturally like they would, right.
Excellent.
So you'll be able to see all that natural behavior
where they're swimming and then...
Grazing and swimming.
The capybaras were a success.
So they've really taken to the barley fodder.
They ate it right down to the roots,
which is what we want to see with them.
Because that grass is so full of moisture and nutrients.
It's something that will be a high energy source for them
if we're trying to put weight on them in the winter
or if we need them to improve
their kind of behavioral enrichment as well.
Well, that's good, Johnny. Thanks.
I think we'll, umm, yeah, we'll let you do your keeper talk.
Awesome. Thank you.
Thanks, Johnny.
So far it's two out of two,
and Michelle is keen to see if she can keep the ball rolling on the next stop.
With the devastating bush fires raging across Australia,
hundreds of conservation groups are helping to save
endangered animals, including Taronga,
who have taken on 12 koalas, rescued from bushland.
From the moment that we heard that we would likely be
receiving these wild koalas from Kanangra,
we instantly had to start setting up a facility for them.
Where they're living at the moment wasn't set up,
wasn't ready to go.
So we had to source furniture for them,
which is the branches in which they sit on,
work out the logistics of acquiring browse
to feed 50% more koalas than we currently house.
So it was, it was a huge task
to get done in such a short time frame.
So the 12 koalas that have been brought to us, you know,
they were in the line of fire,
and a mammoth effort on part of Science for Wildlife.
They've a major crew there that have done an amazing amount
of work just out in the bush, managed to get climbers in
to retrieve the koalas from that height.
It took hours and hours to do.
In fact, by the time we received the first koala,
it was well into the evening.
So it was a 48-hour task
that just felt like it was never going to end.
Obviously they were shaken.
They've just done a three-and-a-half-hour trip
from Kanangra, plus however long it took
to actually capture them from the trees.
So, you know, they were very nervous animals, very quiet.
You know, they were drawn inward a little bit.
You know, they weren't engaged at all with us,
and they were slightly dehydrated,
so the first thing that we did was weigh them,
give them fluids, and then move them to the new facility.
So as I bring them down,
I just gently touch their hands and make them let go.
She wants to move...
Given the sheer volume of the koala population
that's been wiped out due to bush fires,
these 12 koalas are extremely significant,
and they will play a vital role in future repopulation efforts.
The 12 koalas that have been saved
were from a very genetically valuable population.
They're chlamydia-free, and in fact the first koalas found
living over 1,000 meters elevation.
The enormity of this fire is massive.
If these animals weren't removed from it,
it is highly likely that they would have been lost.
Although the koalas are now safe,
the keepers can't relax.
They now need to find a way to feed an extra 12 hungry mouths.
Taronga has a vast collection of animals
from all over the globe.
But it's one of the less exotic parts of Taronga
the Backyard to Bush.
Here at Backyard to Bush, this is our farm area.
These are all of our goats and our alpacas.
So this is some of our farm animals.
In the morning they're all running around, having fun,
playing with each other.
While they all enjoy each other's company...
Okay, come on, Twinkie. Let's go for a walk.
Part of their enrichment comes from
going on walks throughout the zoo.
Yeah, we take our goats for walks
quite often here in the zoo.
Come on.
We do that usually before the zoo opens.
All right, let's keep going.
And so that's a chance for our goats to leave their home
and just really stretch their legs.
It's really important for some exercise.
And today it's mother goat Twinkie's turn to hit the road...
...or more like the buffet.
Being a goat, she loves food.
So on her walk, she stopped, and I think she ate food
that was a little bit of a luxury for her.
So she had food that she probably doesn't get every single day.
So she was a little bit spoiled.
She is going to be eating this for as long as I let her.
No, not my pouch.
First stop on Twinkie's tour of the zoo
are the ever curious meerkats.
What do we have here?
The meerkats straightaway came over to the glass.
They had their paws up looking at her.
What are these?
Good girl.
This is a meerkat.
But this walk isn't just important for Twinkie.
It's actually a really nice experience for the meerkats
at the moment to have a really unusual animal
that they've never seen before,
and they're working as a mob to work out, is this goat a threat
or is he just kind of inquisitive,
and they want to go and check him out.
There were times where Twinkie felt a little bit unsure
about seeing the meerkats,
and so you saw her move away from the glass.
Twinkie, let's say hi to the meerkats.
There was probably a little bit of an unsettling feeling there
for her, but that's actually a really cool enrichment to have
and for her to experience.
After a quick bite to eat,
Twinkie's off on her next adventure.
From the very small to the very tall.
Who's saying hello to you this morning?
Hello.
The giraffes, um, stuck their head over the fence
and had a really close look at Twinkie.
Just for them also seeing a goat walking past their home
is something quite unusual.
She doesn't usually walk past them,
and so they couldn't help but also be curious
and say good morning to Twinkie as well.
A few more snacks...
Come on.
...and it's off to visit the final animal for today.
Kibali, the western lowland gorilla.
Oh, you definitely haven't seen this before.
You're very curious.
Good girl. Oh.
He's definitely having a look at you, isn't he?
This is a really dominant male.
You saw him come out and check to make sure
that, yep, everything's okay.
I'm actually still really interested in you, though,
so he sat there and kept watching her.
And you saw that from Twinkie as well.
She stood still, eyes were quite alert.
So for her, she was also thinking and experiencing
the same thing.
My heart was also pounding.
I was really excited for the both of them,
and just to see and experience that they were totally aware
that they were meeting an animal that they've never met before,
and just watching that behavior is why we do the job that we do.
It's just incredible to kind of see
those really social interactions between animals.
While it may have been more of an eating tour
than a greeting tour, it's still been an important part
of Twinkie's life at the zoo.
It's really important when we're looking after our animals
here in the zoo, we want them to be accustomed to everything,
and she's completely comfortable where she is.
All right, Twinkie, come on, we're heading home.
she can probably skip lunch.
Oh, you want more pellets.
Had a bit of a buffet this morning on your walk.
Let's go back home and see all the other goats.
Murphy, the elder statesman
of the marine precinct, just underwent a series of x-rays
in an attempt to work out
what's causing his inability to walk correctly.
Good.
Now back at the animal hospital,
Larry is hoping to rule out any serious spinal issues.
What we've got here is the back of his skull
and the first vertebrae and the second vertebrae there.
So if we look there, so this is the skull.
We just happen to have uh, a...
bones from another California sea lion.
So if you look at that, you can match it up
- to what's on the x-ray. You see? All right. Yeah.
So we've got some reasonably good images
of the vertebrae and the back of his spine.
I mean, obviously it's not as clear as we would like,
because he's got the massive amount of tissue to go through.
But there was just one little, little spot
that sort of piqued my interest.
See that little bit of, odd bit of bone
that just seems to be sitting out there?
Yeah, right. What is that?
It's a suspected fractured spine.
I'm just wondering whether that little bit of bone
- belongs more to the hyoid... - Right.
...rather than actually the vertebrae.
It would be hard to imagine how he could possibly fracture
a bone in his neck.
Um, who knows? I don't know.
Maybe it's something he's had for years.
Yeah. So what kind of plan should we go about this
and how to actually manage this?
Yeah, I mean, I think there's several things we can do.
We know already that we've given him some pain medication
from time to time, and he does seem to get better.
Obviously getting his weight down a little bit would help.
Yeah, that would help.
Also just manage, you know, what you do with him.
Put him through, you know, things
where he's going to be, have a lot of activity.
Which is going to be hard for him,
because, you know, he's just so keen to do everything.
Because of his age,
the risk of surgery is not an option.
So all Taronga can do now
is make his remaining years as pain-free as possible.
Murphy's an elderly animal,
and we pay particular attention
to ensuring the, you know, good quality of life of our aging animals,
and I think what we're doing with Murphy is a good example of that.
We have a plan.
You know, we can put him on medication,
we can manage his environment,
manage his activity to make him comfortable.
All right, hey, buddy.
With Murphy, I work with him every day.
I see him more than I see my family,
so I will do anything to make sure
that he has a comfortable, healthy life.
It's been two days since the rescued koalas
were saved from the bush fires,
and keeper Nick is checking in on their progress.
Due to the fact that they are wild animals, you know,
we really need to keep hands off as much as we possibly can.
These animals are obviously not used to people.
In fact some of them probably haven't even seen people before,
so we'll just be a bit quiet.
This is one of the adult males
that has come in from the bush fire area.
All of the animals that came in, obviously they've come from
prolonged drought as well as these bush fire issues.
So they are actually a little under hydrated.
So some of the things that we look for first up
is just his eyes, looking straight onto him,
seeing whether or not he's actually vibrant,
looking for his responsiveness to me.
So koalas will quite often, when they greet another animal
or a koala, they're actually greet with their noses,
and crazily enough, it actually works with us as well.
So when I first look at a koala in the morning,
I'll often greet it like that, and it gives me a bit of a gauge
as to how that animal is tracking,
and if he wasn't feeling comfortable,
I would most likely get no reaction at all.
So the fact that I have had that little bit of engagement there
tells me that although he's not amazing,
he's doing a lot better than he was when he first came in.
The koalas continue to improve,
and Taronga will allow them to recover in their own time.
It takes a lot for these animals to adapt
to such a dramatic change.
From being obviously in the wild, 12 meters up a tree,
not ever having seen anybody,
to then being in such close proximity.
Different type of leaves as well.
You know, eucalyptus is actually quite different
depending on the elevation in which it grows,
and these koalas are actually from 1,100 meters.
So the food that we have in our plantation,
that we provide to our zoo koalas,
is grown at around about 50 meters.
So there is quite a distinct difference there.
So we need to try and get these animals transitioned
onto our local available browse.
Koalas are one of the most fickle eaters,
and Taronga has had to go to extreme lengths
to ensure a continuous food supply
is readily available for them.
So they acquired three eucalyptus plantations
90 minutes west of Taronga
at the foot of Sydney's Blue Mountains range
where a whole team of zoo staff work all year round
growing and harvesting trees.
All good, Toby? Yeah, mate, it's two.
You can cut them.
How many do we need today?
We need 60 of these.
But we'll give them 65
'cause they're a bit short from last cut.
Copy.
And the amount of food a koala needs to eat
is staggering.
They're talking about 200 to 300 grams a tip.
So we was to cut that down and weigh it,
you're talking about 200 to 300 grams of tip per koala per day.
So when you magnify that in terms of how many sticks
we need to get, branches-wise, it adds up to a lot.
So we're talking roughly 600, 605 sticks a week,
and it roughly averages out 1,000 trees per koala a year
to get a sustainable amount of food.
But since Taronga has taken on 12 rescued koalas,
it now means extra stress will be put on this plantation
to keep them all fed.
We're probably looking at an extra 300 sticks a week
just to deal with these koalas.
So, yeah, so we'll have to talk about how we manage it
workload-wise, but it's going to be more, mate.
We've got to, I guess, just band together and do what we can
to, you know, see them through.
Our team needs to step up and
do their bit to help the recovery of these animals.
And at the end of the day, we're a conservation society,
and everybody in the whole organization,
including our team,
are committed to providing that service.
While the koala team are busy working through
the effects of record heat, so is Michelle,
who's testing a new type of grass
that requires much less water to grow.
Okay, so I got two, but that's way too much for them.
Yeah.
So what do you think, like
how many do you think it should be cut into?
Um, okay if we do three.
So cut one there and one there, then we can spread it out a bit.
Okay.
She's come to the wildlife retreat
to see if our Australian native animals enjoy the new food
as much as the exotic residents have.
So we'll just feed on these two stations here.
These two?
Yeah, so maybe one on that one
and two on this one, I think.
So this is our group of red-necked pademelons.
So we have five adult females.
Two of them have pouch young at the moment,
and then two of them also have joeys at their foot.
So that means they've emerged
but they're still hanging around mum a fair bit.
They're an Australian macropod species.
Which is... macro meaning big and pod meaning foot.
So they're the big-footed marsupials.
So your kangaroos, wallabies are the ones
that people typically think of.
These are just another branch of that family tree.
They definitely melt hearts.
Well, they come out right away.
Yeah. They're so good.
Very food motivated.
Now where is mum with the little joey?
- I believe that's her on the left. - Is that Pink Toe?
Yeah, Pink Toes is on the left.
She'll usually eat by herself
because she'll push the others away.
Pademelons would normally get something that's high in moisture
in their natural environment because
it's a growing plant that they'd be eating.
So they would be grazing, they would be browsing
on living plants, and so we want to give them something that's
higher in moisture, it fills their bellies,
but also provides
a pretty energy-dense nutrient package as well.
It's definitely a winner.
So I think that the hydroponic fodder is something that
could potentially be a supplement to their diet.
It would be something that we could provide
as consistent nutrition year round.
So during the winter
when we don't have a lot of browse available,
when there's just not a lot of growing going on,
then we can provide something fresh for them then.
And Michelle's last stop for today
is the biggest of all.
Lex? Hey, Michelle.
Here it is. Thank you.
Here, I'll give you a hand.
Thanks.
The elephants.
Yeah. Oh, it floats so nicely!
I was not sure if a full pad would float.
So we have tried the hydroponic grass on so many species.
We're trying it on everything,
because I want, when you're feeding a zoo as well,
you need to be very flexible and feed as many species as possible
with very few feed items.
So this is one of those feed items that's versatile.
We can feed it to many different animals.
Whether it eats grass or not,
it's something that could provide something enriching for their environment.
While mixing up food sources
is something Michelle is always keen to do,
she's also trying to future-proof the food supply
for Taronga's hungry residents.
We're having many more extreme heat events
than cold events in Australia,
and we're also having much less rainfall
than we would normally have, and it means that in the future
we're going to have a lot more trouble growing hay,
we're going to have a lot more trouble growing grains
that we need to make the pellets
that we give to some of the animals,
and so we have to look for alternatives,
and look for innovation, and one of those is hydroponics.
So we are, obviously, we have to look for things
that we can reduce the amount of water that we're using,
and we need to find alternatives
so that we're not competing with the human market as well.
So we're getting the most out of this fodder.
Fires continue to rage across Australia.
They've been burning for several months now.
The exact amount of damage caused by the fires
may never be known.
But what is certain is that Australia will be dealing
with the fallout for years to come.
It's really hard to get your head around.
It's almost overwhelming
to even conceive of all these bush fires.
Australia's on fire, and it's really, really hard to see it.
I think a lot of people are having difficulty
accepting what's going on.
While the houses can be rebuilt,
roads can be repaired and the bush will regenerate over time,
it's the loss of wildlife,
estimated at over one billion animals,
that could take decades to recover.
I do worry that we're helping these animals
and we're doing great work for these particular individuals
and we have to cover their welfare
and make sure they're healthy and comfortable.
I do worry about putting them out there
because it is early in the bush fire season.
We could see this going through a long, extended summer.
But Taronga won't let that thought stop them.
They will continue to treat and rehabilitate
these injured animals until the last one comes in.
It is Taronga's role obviously to be leaders in conservation,
and I think that's what we're doing right now.
You know, we're not only preserving habitat,
but we're actually saving populations of animals.
It doesn't really matter how much this costs.
It's something that we certainly
weren't ever going to turn our backs on.
It's so vital that these animals were saved.
It's the resource implications in feeding is astronomical.
So the burden is huge,
but it's certainly one that absolutely we have to take on,
and certainly a challenge that we couldn't pass up.
Like all the other animals at Taronga,
the wild koalas only get the best care
while they wait out the fires.
We absolutely are providing
temporary accommodation for these guys.
You know, well-hydrated leaves, misting systems,
perch to themselves.
Like, they really don't have much to worry about here.
But the wild koalas in Victoria don't have
the luxury of being accommodated at Taronga.
They have to go straight back into the bush.
All of the other koalas we've worked with,
they've been released.
And are we putting them back in an area
that might then get burned?
And it's a struggle in the face of such trauma to remain upbeat,
but it's exactly what Kimberly is doing.
It's really hard to even think about it. Like, it really hits me when
my family and friends from America
check in and go, "We see what's happening."
And it's around the world.
The smoke's going around the world.
So everybody is affected and everybody is concerned.
And that's-- I'm getting all choked up--
that's when it really, really hits me.
That this is so big and so real.
It's not just a little regional problem down here.
It's not just a problem in New South Wales.
We're all sharing this burden.
The whole world's going to share it.
So, yeah, ooh.
It's big.
Oh.
I can't think about it, I've got to go fix some koalas!
Oh.
Okay.
Hold on, I'm here.
I heard you had two more.
And on cue, another two koalas arrive,
delivered by the army, and the cycle begins again.
So this young one was on its own?
Yes, he was way up on the tree by himself,
all burned out everywhere,
and there was no vegetation for him to get to.
Okay.
Good, I'm glad it's just two,
because it's been a busy morning already,
and we have the new team coming in.
Lizzie!
Kimberly!
Oh, my God, I'm so glad you're here!
As Taronga Vet Nurse Liz arrives
to take the reins from Kimberly,
all they can do is exactly what they've been doing.
- Two koalas just arrived. - Okay.
I'll go in and get started.
Just come on in and we'll show you guys around.
And that's treating these animals with the care,
dignity and respect they deserve.
Look at how cute.
I will just hold that part.
Okay. Oh, so cute.
What do we have?
It's a little girl. It's got a pouch.
Okay.
It's really hard to even think about it, like,
I've got to go fix these koalas, so I've got to stay focused.
Oh, it's really hard.
I get quite depressed when I think about what's happening
with the environment. So I'll do what I can.
Captioned by Visual Data Media Services