Original subtitles

They're in love. They are in love.

Are you guys flirting?

Look at you.

Good girl.

Today is a fun day.

Yeah, it is.

All right, Suda. We've got some fun stuff for you.

Suda is our adult African male elephant.

He is actually going through a period called must right now. That means he has

higher testosterone levels than normal.

So right now he's just a little bit more on edge and just really anxious.

So peanut butter, honey, alfalfa? Yeah. Sounds delicious.

Right now we're putting just some fun things on a tire for Stubla for some

enrichment for today.

We'll give that to him, kind of put it in the off -holding for him and see what

he does with it.

The tire is super heavy.

It takes a couple of us to lift.

Hopefully he throws it around and gets a little bit of that testosterone out.

Yeah.

Let's go.

Oh, boy.

If I was an elephant, I would think that it looked delicious.

You can pick it up.

You can pick it up, buddy.

Just be prepared that if he starts to lift that thing, you've got to know

you're going.

Oh gosh, here we go.

Yeah, buddy!

Whoa, that was cool!

Good job!

In the wild, when males are going through moss, they're going to be

down trees and throwing huge logs around.

So being able to give him some enrichment that encourages those natural

behaviors is super cool to watch.

Man, his right temporal gland is... Yeah.

Wow, he's super trippy.

There's some pretty clear indications that we're able to tell that he's in

His temporal glands get really secretive, so he'll constantly have

down his face.

He'll also be constantly urinating. That is a very clear sign of moss.

And then he also just has a lot of extra built -up energy.

So he likes to throw things around, so we like to give him opportunities to do

that.

Hopefully that high testosterone is going to help us with breeding.

We're going to make sure that he's going in with the girls very regularly and

then maybe have some elephant babies here soon.

Do that. We want some elephant babies.

Good job, buddy.

All right, Stubla, have fun with your tire.

We have a bunch of different birds. We have over 80 species inside the main

aviary alone.

It's a wide variety of birds, and it's just great.

All right.

It's go time.

Yep. Four years in the making, just about.

Here in Sioux Tampa, we have two shoebill storks.

Currently, they are in what we call the back of the house. Over the past few

years, they've lived separately, but right next to one another. So they've

each other every single day.

But it's been four years since they've been together on habitat.

Hi, Lady Bill.

Today we'll be moving our female shoebill lady over to her new habitat.

We wanted to make sure that we gave the shoebills a nice water source.

They are from wetlands in Africa. Also tall grasses, things that they can hide

behind. One of the most impressive parts of the new habitat is how high it is.

It's going to give them the ability to fly, which is really cool.

So this is a really exciting time for us.

Going to your new home today, beautiful.

Shoebill storks are prehistoric.

That's, I think, the first word that comes to anybody's mind when they see

They're pretty large. They're about four feet tall.

They've got a very large clog -shaped beak, which is why they call them

shoebills. You're okay, man.

You're okay. You're okay.

You're okay, pretty girl. You're okay.

We're just stepping back here.

It is an honor to work with Shoebills. We're one of only two current

institutions in North America that has Shoebills.

We're very aware of what an interesting and cool experience it is for us.

Ready? Yeah. Do you want to go for the head and I'll get her body?

All right. All right, Lady Bill.

It's that time, ma 'am. You're okay.

You want to grab her head?

Yep. I'm going to flip her around this way.

All right.

Over the past few years, it's been quite the rollercoaster ride with Lady Bill.

She had a leg injury almost four years ago, and we've been keeping a close eye,

making sure she's basically 100 % before we do anything with her.

Make sure that tape's nice and tight.

We've been given the go -ahead from our vets that she is good enough to put back

on habitat, so it'll be exciting to finally get her back out where guests

see her.

All right, Lady Bill, you ready to go?

Off we go.

They're coming.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh, this is a huge moment. I don't think I've ever been so anxious.

It's been years in the making of putting her onto this habitat, so we're really

excited. All right.

Hi. Hi,

how's it going?

Good. Oh, my goodness, look at her.

Lady Bill has quite a medical history.

Years ago, it was looking really, really dire, and she made an astounding

recovery. She's a tough bird, and I am just so amazed to see where she's at

today. She's definitely strong.

She looks alert.

And her heart feels great.

I'm just doing a brief exam on her, just taking advantage of this opportunity,

since we have the hands on her, to just palpate her legs.

They look fantastic.

You need to look inside her mouth, too.

Shoebills have a very large bill with very sharp edges, which is really

advantageous for them in eating their fish, but also small reptiles and

They've got to be quick, they've got to be fast, and they've got a really nice,

big, sharp bill that can get the job done.

Great. Shut the guys and back away.

Strong. Nice and strong.

All right, let's let her go. Let's let her go. Yeah.

She said, I've had enough.

She's so ready.

There's always a little bit of...

nerves associated with having an animal move to a new place.

Are you just going to sit down?

Yeah, she'll just kind of rest there for a second.

Good? Yep. Good girl.

Here you go, ma 'am.

Oh, beautiful girl.

A few loose feathers.

Oh my gosh, look at her.

She's checking everything out.

So much new space.

She looks phenomenal.

She looks completely comfortable.

And it was really nice to just kind of see her take that long stride. I haven't

seen her do that in quite some time.

So from here on out, if you're looking for anyone on the aviary team, just come

on over here.

We'll be over here. Exactly.

On their breaks.

Given her history and the fact that there is a new habitat that she's got to

used to, we want to give her some time to get settled, to get acclimated,

we bring the male zero into the mix.

We'll see you later, lady.

She's like, what's the big deal, guys?

You're the big deal.

So I'm married to Colin that works in the Asia department.

We actually met here at the zoo. We were both interns at the same time.

It's super crazy. This is how we first met.

Yeah, cleaning and feeding giraffe yard.

Nothing but giraffe yard.

Being married to somebody else at the zoo definitely has its perks.

We don't even work on the same continent, so it is really nice being

over and see the Africa side of things.

Oh, man, this is so much fun. She has a whole bunch of fun coming over and being

able to see how the Asia side runs.

Can I touch her?

Of course.

Your hands are going to be dirty, though. Oh, my gosh, you're so fuzzy.

They do that.

Yeah, being able to hang out with Colin at work is super -duper cool.

We talk about poop a lot, which, like, gross. Who does that? But for us, it's

just part of the job, so it definitely makes having a partner in the field

fun. This was fun. Yeah.

Everyone likes date night at the zoo, even the animals.

Date night!

XOXO!

Tonight is considered elephant date night.

Breeding elephants is definitely a challenge. We want to make sure that we

that very small window where the females are cycling.

So over the last few months, we've been letting students stay the night with the

females. They have the option of going outside into the yard or staying inside

the barn.

In order to make sure that everyone is safe, we'll set as much food enrichment

out in the yard as possible, and we're going to be monitoring them very

Aw, the alfalfa has purple flowers.

Extra romantic.

Here at Zoo Tampa, we've had an incredibly successful breeding program.

It's the real measure of all the work our teams are doing day in, day out.

Sometimes we feel like maybe we're part of a dating program.

But certainly some animals are incredibly difficult to get to

as well.

Elephants are a perfect example.

It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort, and a lot of different people

putting in a lot of effort to make that happen.

Cool. Beautiful.

Decorated. Good job, guys.

All right. You guys ready for the main yard?

Yep.

Who knows, there's lots of fun stuff outside.

Right now, we have Majega and Ibali that are paired up with Jidla, so they're

going to be the ones that are going to be interacting with him and potentially

be breeding here soon.

Look at her run.

She runs every time.

Jidla, you ready?

Yeah, look at that.

Oh, boy.

Are you excited?

Yeah. Yikes.

We're going to let him cool down. Let him chill for a second.

Are you excited?

Yeah. We're going to let him cool down. Let him chill for a second.

Yeah, he came out pretty hot.

Yeah, he needs to be chill for day and night.

He has a lot of built -up energy.

We can tell that he's just really anxious. He has a lot of testosterone

now. We want to make sure that it's nice and controlled.

So we're just trying to get him a second to chill out and make sure that he's

okay before we put him out there with the girls.

Let me know when you're ready, Brandy. Yeah, you're good whenever.

Okay. I just didn't want him going out. It's super crazy.

And there he goes.

He's running.

Cute.

All we can do really is just set up the habitat to where we're giving them as

much opportunity as possible, outside into the yard or inside the barn.

Hopefully the mood is set and he gets the job done.

How's he doing?

Eating.

Typical Stupa.

All right, guys, let's let them be and head home for the night.

I think there is magic in the air.

It's 5 of 9 right now.

This is the first spot check. We'll have someone here every three hours or so

just to kind of check in on everybody, make sure they're doing all right.

Majega went out on habitat with Mavi and Mpumi.

It's like Mbavi and Sula are having a date night. Majega's watching the kids.

All the stars need to align to get an elephant pregnant, and that's why we're

going to do this 24 hours a day.

Having Sula in with the girls as often as possible is great for just the social

dynamic, but it's also really important for ensuring that we can put baby

elephants on the ground here.

What's everybody doing?

You can hear Mbali in the background just kind of vocalizing a little bit.

She's hanging out in the stalls here with Tudla.

So it's really cool to see these two in here, actually, because Mbali and Tudla

have such a really dynamic relationship.

Mbali will play with him and kind of push him around, and he just loves the

interaction. He'll, like, lay down for her.

That's why it's, like, so important and so cool to have these guys together, you

know. And the best part about it is it leads to a little baby elephant.

All the variables are in place, so now we just need to sit back and let the

elephants do the work.

All right. Good night, everybody.

So this is

Al,

and we have Dabby. So Al and Dabby, the Aldabra tortoises.

Aldabra tortoises are off the coast of Africa.

Dan, you want me to start moving tortoises?

Yeah, go ahead and start moving them. Okay.

Hey, buddy.

There you go.

We've got three aldabra tortoises.

Aldabian fly.

This is our big owl.

So he's our large male.

He's about 430 -ish pounds last time we weighed him.

Al's motivated. I know, but Dabby's in the way. It's a roadblock situation.

Dabby is one of our oldest Aldabs. She's in her 60s, so she's about midlife.

And Dabby's off.

I've been working with Dabby for 22 years. She's been here longer than I've

at the zoo, and she's a great little animal.

You got zero tortoises in? Yeah, I got zero tortoises.

Everything with Aldabra is... moves at tortoise pace.

So the key here is patience, and lots of it.

All right, you've almost got them. I'm going to go grab the golf cart and drive

it around here so we can drive it right in. They'll be in by the time we're

ready, and even then, I don't think they're going to sprint for the gate

fast.

Today we're going to add some rock in with the giant tortoises we have here.

These guys come from volcanic islands, so we're going to bury some of that rock

in here that they can walk over.

It's good for their foot care.

That way we're not in here all the time trying to trim nails and things.

So we're putting the rock work right next to the door here so they kind of

to move past it.

This is their new welcome mat to come in, but it's kind of a workout welcome

for them.

I'd never come over if you had a workout welcome mat.

This amount worked out almost perfect.

I know.

It's awesome.

We have the ramp all set up. We've covered it a little with dirt to make

it's not going to shift. We're going to let the tortoises out, and they're going

to experience it for the first time, and hopefully it helps out. So we'll be

able to tell almost immediately.

All right, you guys ready? Yep.

Here they go.

Bumper tortoises.

These guys were designed to walk on this stuff.

For sure. Now it's kind of like the entrances into the caves in the Aldabras

that they use. Exactly.

Oh, here comes Dabby.

You guys said you noticed some limping on this girl.

Yeah, it was her back right.

Dabby's just kind of scooting across the ground to where she wants to be.

When she puts weight on it to walk, she drops down and then rests and then moves

forward and then steps again.

I don't think she's been doing any sprints. You got any ideas for why she

be limping?

The only reason I could think is a big owl there.

Our most likely scenario for this injury was our big male owl doing a little bit

of breeding.

He is a little bit over 430 pounds, so when he mounts Dabby, she has a lot of

weight to carry.

With it being so long a week and she's still limping, it's time to get the vets

to take a look.

All right, let's get her feeling better.

So this is Charlotte. She is our prehensile -tailed porcupine. I'm one of

cutest porcupines you'll ever meet in your life.

She is definitely a crowd favorite here at Zoo Tampa, but also a favorite in our

team. Hello, everyone!

Yeah!

How's everyone doing today?

Good!

Prehensile -tailed porcupines live in the rainforest of South America.

Specifically, she is a Brazilian prehensile -tailed porcupine. And

just means hand -like. Yeah, and then you guys can see that tail wrapping

action. It helps her to grip onto tree branches as she's walking through the

forest, as she's sleeping, or as she's riding around on her hands.

We've had some concerns about Charlotte's health in the past few

could tell she wasn't feeling very good. She wasn't really...

interacting with her trainers the way that she used to, and she was kind of

denying some of her favorite foods that she had always really loved to eat in

the past.

Thank you so much for joining Charlotte and I.

Thank you.

It's hard to see any animal that we have under our care that you can tell

doesn't feel very well, so I'm really excited to be able to bring her to the

today and hopefully get some answers.

Good morning.

We are ready for Miss Charlotte.

Today we're going to do a dental exam on Charlotte the porcupine.

Because of her size and all of her quills, it's difficult to do injections

or any other options. So typically we'll do this and she just breathes in the

gas until she falls asleep.

I will use the gloves for the initial.

Yeah.

Otherwise your hands will get all pricked. No, thank you.

Forky pines can be very spiky, obviously.

So working with them, especially under anesthesia, where we need to move and

manipulate her body can be a little bit tricky because we don't want to get

ourselves dabbed by her quills.

Ready?

You okay?

I'm getting good.

Hathor's had the job.

Getting peed on, pooped on, bit, poked by a porcupine.

It's not something she's doing aggressively. She just has that constant

defensive mechanism in place.

I just want to look at her tooth really quickly.

At Charlotte's last exam, we identified an abnormal tooth, which was very

consistent with a tooth root infection.

Her tooth is still really discolored, so.

We'll see what the radiographs show us.

This tiny tooth was unfortunately not something we could get a good look at on

our previous radiology equipment.

Go for it, Rob.

Okay, prepping, shooting.

We're really excited. We were recently able to get new dental radiology

equipment. So what we can do today is get much finer detail of her jaw and

us direct the next step for treatment.

Oh, Rob.

Rob, it's perfect.

We were able to get really amazing images of Charlotte's teeth. And what we

see there is that there is an area of bone loss around the tooth root, which

consistent with a tooth root infection, which is what we had been treating her

for. The tooth is super stable.

So the next step for her is actually to continue the antibiotics in case the

infection is still there.

And then in about three to four weeks, we will repeat the radiograph to see if

there's any changes to that area.

Love you. You're so cute.

You're a good girl.

I'm very happy with the results that we got today.

Even though the tooth is infected, hopefully the antibiotics will clear it

a few weeks. And Charlotte will be back to eating her favorite foods in no time.

Come on, let's go.

So we have Sudla out with the rest of the herd, and he's showing a lot of

interest in one of our females in Bali.

Typically, a female African elephant is going to have a 90 -day cycle.

Within that time period, they're going to have a really small fertile window,

which can only last for like three days.

So it's a really, really small time frame that an elephant can actually get

pregnant.

Historically, Mbali has never had true 90 -day cycles.

She's been all over the place, never been consistent, which makes it even

challenging to predict when she can get pregnant.

Mbali and Sudla kind of have a private location. They always come over here to

the south side of the yard. It kind of tucks them away a little bit.

I don't know if it's his preference or hers, but I think 90 % of the time that

they're breeding, it always takes place over here.

Sula and Ibali are breeding right now, which is obviously a great sign.

But we're not sure if Ibali is fertile right now, so we'll do a blood test in a

few weeks to confirm whether or not she's pregnant.

Aviary to Florida.

Can you go to Channel 9?

AC Tiffany to Aviary Josh or Julie.

Can you guys come down to Shoebill?

We got a call that our female Shoebill lady actually tried to land and

fell and that she was bleeding.

Without getting a closer look, it's really hard to see exactly where the

is.

It's super concerning that...

After four years of rehabilitation and suddenly just a few days after moving

back into her new habitat, that we have something happening like this, it's

heart -wrenching.

All right, ready?

Ready. All right, let's go.

So you haven't even been in here a week, and you've already hurt yourself.

We need to get hands on Lady.

It's a little bit tricky because she now has a really high habitat. So if she

wanted to, she could easily fly right over our heads.

We also don't want her to get injured as we're trying to get hands -on.

So we're going to take it slow and really work together as a team to make

quick and painless as possible.

Hi, ma 'am.

Hi. Can you go back that way?

Oh, come back to her too, Josh.

Hold on. She's right at the fence.

Can you get her now?

Good girl.

Cynthia, you're good.

We know that Lady Bell has been bleeding, and it's really hard to tell

it's coming from.

Might need her.

Yeah. I can do wings if you want to do feet.

The next step is to try to find out where this blood is coming from and how

bleeding it is to try to figure out whether we need to intervene or not.

Jeez, did she, like, stab an artery right here or what?

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Did she like stab an artery right here or what?

The very first thing when Lady Bill is restrained is trying to figure out where

this blood is coming from.

Pull that wing out.

Okay. Ready?

Oh, it is her wing.

Oh, okay. I think it's just going on that side.

Yeah. Good.

We couldn't see this. All we saw was it dripping from here.

All right. I'm glad it's a wing.

Yeah. I was a little more worried when I thought it was a chest.

All right.

As I'm looking at this wound, thinking it's a pretty typical trauma scrape, not

a big deal, then I noticed that there is something protruding from it.

And so I started touching it, and I could tell right away that it was a

that was stuck in there.

Got a piece in there.

A bamboo?

Dang. Oh, poor girl. Oh, yeah.

She stabbed herself with a piece of bamboo.

Poor thing.

We're thinking Lady Bill was just exploring the habitat, flying around,

decided she wanted to land on some bamboo and see what it was, if it could

her weight. And then she found out very quickly that it could not.

It probably hurt a little bit, huh?

Maybe next time don't try and land in the bamboo.

Jeez, you did a number.

I need this bleeding to stop.

Oh, there's a hole. You see it?

You might have to put a stitch in this. Yeah. Yeah.

So next step is placing a little suture. You don't think with the stick out,

it'll stop on its own? Not so far.

Okay. It was in there pretty good. Yeah, it was just steep.

You're one tough lady.

At this point, lady is stitched up. We want to make sure that that bleeding has

stopped. So we are going to put a vet wrap on the wing.

How do we feel about yellow?

I think yellow would look fabulous on her. Yeah, gray and yellow, it's very

fashion forward.

We're going to leave this wrap on her.

It's not something that should stay on for a long period of time.

When she extends her wrist, it should just fly off.

I feel like we've made some good progress.

Let's just let her go.

We're going to let her go in the barn.

That way if we need to get hands on again, it's a smaller space.

We're going to let her get up, walk around, see how she does.

Kind of keep a very close eye on her, see what's going to happen.

Good job, sweetie.

You're okay.

Just chill out for a little while.

So is it because you didn't want Zero to come hang out with you?

It is unfortunate that she injured herself.

We want to make sure that she can navigate everything okay before we bring

male here.

It does prolong that process a little bit, I think.

We could let her out. All right. That would be great. Okay, let's do it.

We're hopeful that it was one small setback and that we're still good to

forward and we'll get Zero out here in no time.

Good job, ma 'am. You're all right.

She's going to show everybody her bandage.

She likes it. Very fashionable.

She looks great.

Check in later. Okay.

Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you.

This is Frilly, our frilled lizard.

We're very creative.

I know, I know.

You got your bucket?

I got the bucket.

We have a tortoise named Abby here who is kind of dragging her right back foot.

So, I mean, she's just not putting any good weight on it.

You can even see it in her trowel. Yeah. One size heavier.

So something's bothering her.

Yeah. Today the vets are going to come down and do some x -rays.

Hello. Hello.

How's she doing?

Still favoring that leg? I don't think it's, yeah, she's still favoring it.

Was it after Al?

It could have been Al stepping on her or, you know, breeding.

When Aldabras breed, the males climb on the females.

Al is about 430 pounds, where Dabby's about 125 pounds.

So she's got to carry that 430 pounds of male tortoise. These tortoises are a

lot of things. Graceful's really not one of them.

Well, we'll get her ads today, see if there's anything underlying that we

tell from our external exam.

So we're going to take some radiographs on Debbie. We want to double check that

there's no underlying bony issues that could be the cause of her current

lameness. So slide it straight this way? Even if I just slide it this way a

hair, we could get, like, just this side.

Even though they're slow, it can be very challenging to do radiographs on one of

these big tortoises.

Yeah, I'm going to see if she'll just back up.

She ain't going to back up. She's going to turn.

She's just going to turn.

We try our best to corral them, but if they don't want to sit still, they

probably won't.

This is the injured leg.

Down, down.

Down,

Debbie.

Luckily, we have some tortoise tricks up our sleeve, and her animal care staff

have some of her favorite treats, and that helps to kind of slow her down

because she wants to stop and take a bite.

I'm going to give her a piece of banana, get her to stay still a little bit.

Okay, ready?

Shooting?

We got really good shots with the joints really nicely isolated, so we'll have

really good comparisons.

Now we'll take the radiographs back to the hospital where we can get them up on

our big viewing screen and do a little bit more manipulation to the images to

get a really close look and make sure that we don't miss anything that could

happening with her bone.

All right.

Let us know.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your very perfectly positioned tortoise.

So darn cute. Oh, she sees the produce.

She's like, okay, I'm headed in that direction.

Bye, Davi.

Rafiki, come.

You all right?

Good girl.

And Bollie's coming your way.

Time for her.

Good girl. Hi, Bollie.

Let's go.

Recently, we have seen a little bit of breeding with our male and our female

Bollie. Chunk up.

Can you see that pretty tongue of yours?

Good girl.

It would be a career goal to have an elephant baby.

I have yet to see one be born or be able to work with a newborn elephant calf,

so that would be probably the highlight of my career. So we're super excited and

we're really crossing our fingers that Mbali is going to be pregnant.

Hi. Hi.

Hello.

So you guys ready?

Yeah. Today we're going to get blood on Mbali.

I'm hoping that the blood gods are in our favor today, right?

Elephants are pregnant for almost two years. It's about 22 months.

Turn.

Good.

Ultrasounds usually take place at the very end of their pregnancy terms. One

the early things that we can do before any ultrasounds or obvious pregnancy

signs come about is to monitor their blood work.

A lot of the times it's kind of determined by the weather on whether or

get blood, so I'm crossing my fingers.

We're ready.

Hey, pregnant.

Here we go.

Elephants are pachyderms, which means they have really thick skin, except

ears. Their ears actually have really thin skin, and that allows us pretty

the only spot to regularly get blood samples from.

You got anything?

No. They can actually shut off that blood flow to those ears. So this is

something that elephants definitely do voluntarily.

You might see the tracks where those vessels normally are. They just might

be filled with blood.

She's shutting them off. What?

You don't want us to know if you're pregnant, huh?

We tried to draw blood from Imbali's ear to see if she was pregnant, but we were

unsuccessful. It's a mystery.

So we're going to go ahead and try her other ear.

All right, sweetheart.

Here you go.

Hi, sweetheart.

Got two options here.

Okay.

Alright, sticking?

There we go.

Good job.

Good flow.

There we go.

Yay!

Good girl, Imbali!

Good job!

I'm super happy that we were able to get blood on Imbali today.

We're able to send it out, check her hormone level, and see if she's

How long does that stuff usually take to get back?

It depends.

But trust me, you'll be the first to know.

Well, we'll be the first to know, but then you'll be the first to know.

And Bollie is one of my most favorite elephants.

We're all hoping that she's pregnant.

I mean, who doesn't want a baby elephant?

Fingers crossed.

Love is definitely in the air.

Hey, Carly.

Thanks. You want to do something fun?

Yeah. All right. What are we doing?

Today is the day we're going to check our Incoterm boxes and see if there's

eggs in our three breeding boxes.

We're looking for Luigi, and then we need Daisy.

Okay. I have a little soft spot in my heart because I really love their little

mustaches and their little personalities, too. They all have

personalities.

You ready?

Ready. All right. Let me know if you see anything.

Which box are we checking? We're going to check Mario and Peach.

They all have names pertaining to Super Mario Brothers because of that nice

little mustache that Mario has.

So we have Mario, Peach, Daisy, Luigi, Toad, Toadette, Lemmy, and Sushi.

Our egg -a -turns, they are typically monogamous.

Mario and Peach are together, Toad and Toadette are together, and Daisy and

Luigi are together.

Can you see anything?

I'm not seeing anything.

No egg?

Nope. All right.

Let's check.

Daisy and Luigi.

So this is really important.

This is the pair that we really want to have eggs.

You see anything?

Can you tilt it down a little bit?

Oh, I see an egg.

You see an egg? I do.

Okay. They haven't been successful, so hopefully this is good news. Yeah.

We're really excited.

So now it's the waiting game. We have about 25 days, roughly.

We'll check the nest again and see if we have some little fluff nuggets.

All right, I'm moving. I'm going.

Oh, my goodness. You get to say good morning to all these animals.

What special little girl are you?

Anytime you can wake up, get ready for work, and get in a little early so that

you can take your daughter on a zoo hike, no other better way to start a

Back there, back there.

Back there?

Oh, yeah. I see them.

Tiffany and I met working with sea lions in the Caribbean.

Eventually, we made our way to the zoo here, where now we have the opportunity

to share this with our daughter.

Which one's your favorite penguin?

The little one?

The fact that Myla gets to be a part of the zoo with us is awesome. It's an

experience that I hope she remembers for her entire life. We want her to have an

appreciation for wildlife.

They're all looking at you right now. Yeah, they are.

Who's that little girl?

And is she going to bring breakfast?

Being able to not only come here every day, but also share that with my family,

it makes it that much more fun.

It's always a good time, and we're just happy to do it all together.

I think she's winning!

He's going to get you!

It's really cool.

to see my daughter grow up and be a part of this zoo.

And then the animals, too, you know, they're born here at the zoo. To watch

kind of grow up side by side, it's a cool dynamic.

Hi, girl.

Good girl.

Do you have a baby inside you?

Is there a baby in here?

Let me know what she says, because that would be so much easier if she could

just tell us. Great. Can you just let us know?

How are you feeling, girly?

Good morning.

Good morning. Hey, how's it going?

We sent the blood draws from Mbali to the lab, and we've gotten results back

So we've got the results for Mbali here, and so I'll let Stacey

deliver the news.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

We've got the results for Mbali here, and so I'll let Stacey deliver the news.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Well, the bad news.

She is not pregnant.

I am really disappointed.

Having elephant babies is definitely something that we're super excited

African elephants are endangered.

Each elephant is incredibly important to their population.

Being able to have elephant pregnancies and births would be super rewarding for

the entire species.

Good news is she looks like she's cycling.

Cool. Very good.

Very often, female elephants can become acyclic and therefore don't have the

normal reproductive cycles that they should have.

And this obviously makes it very challenging for them to get pregnant.

It's unfortunate we wanted her to be pregnant, but the good news is that

showing signs of cycling, which she had not been before.

So that's good news. She's doing what she's supposed to be doing. Yeah.

Within Bali, there's been a lot of guesswork.

So in the mere fact that the results today have told us when our next window

it's priceless.

That gives us a target window and something to look forward to.

I'm just glad that she's cycling.

Me too.

And we'll just keep doing what we've been doing. Oh,

my

gosh, she's in the pool.

Look at her.

Oh, I love that.

Hey, Debbie, how's your foot feeling?

So the x -rays came back negative, nothing bone, nothing dislocated,

broken. Good. So there's probably just a little bit of a strain she's got there.

The plan is to keep going with the vet's recommendations as far as medication,

and then I want those guys to make sure she's walking and putting weight on

that. I truly believe it'll make her heal quicker.

Let's give her some physical hydrotherapy.

Who doesn't love a little, like, apple bobbing?

We got to get those little weights. We can do the water aerobics. There she

goes.

You can see she's not really limping so much in the water. Helps take the weight

off of it.

Looks like she's moving it a lot more underwater.

It's just showing she feels a little more comfortable under there.

But it'll bring strength back into it.

She will heal.

Like I said, it's just going to take time.

Tortoises don't do anything fast.

Tortoises are slow to recover, so this will be a long process. But Dabby will

recover much quicker if she can stay away from Big Al.

She's got to get the apple.

Oh, yes. There she goes.

There she goes. She got it.

Hi,

Lady Bill.

Perfect. Feeling perfect.

Spectacular. Ladybill's wing has healed up nicely, so we're really excited today

to be able to introduce our male, Zero, into the habitat.

Hi, Zero. Hi, Zero, bud.

Over the past four years, Zero and Ladybill have been side by side in their

runs out in our pasture aviary. The past few weeks without Ladybill there,

Zero's been a little bit more subdued, but he definitely knows something's

on now.

All right, here we go.

We're going to go on a little trip, Zero.

So we're heading out to Move Zero to see Ladybill.

First time he'll actually be in the same physical space with her in a few years,

so it's going to be super exciting to see them together.

Here we go!

I really hope that as soon as we put Zero and Ladybill together, we're going

see them all clacking.

For shoebills, they don't really vocalize like you normally think of with

They're going to be using their beaks to open and close really fast, make kind

of a wooden knocking noise.

That's usually a sign that they're communicating with each other, that

very social, and usually that is leading to breeding behaviors.

Hi. Oh, hello, friend.

I thought you'd be here. What do you have there?

Thought I'd bring you a shoe, Bill.

It's the best present.

It's such an exciting day.

I think having Lady there was step one.

Where is she at? Is she still on the far side? Yeah, she's in the corner over

there. She's just looking at him.

Being able to see Zero and how he reacts to his new space, that's also really

exciting and something that we've been waiting for.

All right, off he goes.

You ready?

Yep, if you want to put his body down, I have his head.

There you go, big guy.

Let's open up.

It's the moment of truth.

In a relationship like theirs, moving in together is a big step. I am still

nervous on how they're going to react to...

Being together for the first time in years.

Yay, Zero.

There he goes. Good job, buddy. No hesitation. What is this?

There you go, bud. Good job.

He's such a cool bird. Gosh, gorgeous.

When Zero goes out to the habitat for the first time, he does so in his true

fashion. Streading his stuff.

He is all confidence. He is completely checking everything out, really taking

all in.

You're confident.

I know. I thought she looked good out there, but look at him. He looks

spectacular.

And he doesn't seem to be nervous about this new home in any way.

He's like, hi, girlfriend.

Inching forward.

Now we just got to wait and see what the two of them do when they see each other

and come together for the first time in years.

Oh, he's going towards her.

Seeing Ladybill and Zero together in the same space like this, it's an amazing

feeling. There's just that hope that down the road we're going to have more

chicks, and that's just going to be incredible.

It would be amazing to have another Shoebill chick.

She's a pretty good mom.

Zero would be a first -time dad.

I would love to see that.

Fingers crossed.

Yeah.