Original subtitles

Famous the world over, Sydney Harbour is home to some of Australia's most iconic

landmarks and one of the world's most celebrated zoos.

Throughout its 101 -year history, there's never been a more exciting time

granted access to both of Taronga Zoo's locations.

From caring for a single animal... Just hang on to him and keep calm.

...to saving an entire species.

She's a gorgeous little frog and one of our most critically endangered.

We'll take you inside Taronga.

On this episode, the last of their kind.

In the wild, there's no breeding.

This is it. The race to bring a species back from the dead.

I'm so proud of the work that we do. You know, this is Taronga to me.

Saving the smile of an old crocodile.

Knocked a tooth off after eating some food.

Just not crying back. Just not crying back. And who knew it would be so hard.

voted for Pio. Pio.

Tahi. To name a penguin.

Her name will be.

A

large

part of Taronga's activities are focused on educating the public.

but they're also dedicated to giving injured wildlife a second chance.

We have such a great message about education and conservation.

Monday!

Hi, kiddo! I think it's really important that we give back to the community and

we give back to the animals that we're looking after, so making sure we put

effort into their wild cousins is really important.

Hey, kiddo!

Good!

This is Bondi and he is a six -year -old New Zealand fur seal.

Bondi is pretty special because he was found on South Bondi Beach, pretty much

split open by a shark. So he ended up in our wildlife hospital and after that,

after a few months of rehab, he came down to Seals for the Wild to help be an

ambassador animal for his species and help talk about education and

for the species.

When an animal can't be released back into the wild, Taronga will help them

adapt to zoo life.

When we first start working with an individual, we spend many, many weeks

months gaining rapport with them. They really need to be able to trust us in

order to do what we do with them.

When we get our seals...

Like Bondo from the wild, he started learning his husbandry behaviours first.

can pat him all over his body when he's in this position. I can also open his

mouth and check his teeth. Good boy.

And most of the behaviours we teach them are derivatives of natural behaviours

that they would be doing anyway.

Fields are just one of the many

animals the marine team take in each year.

We are heading into the penguin exhibit and we are going to be weighing our

four Fiordland crested penguins.

Native to the New Zealand South Island, the elusive Fiordland crested penguin is

a bit of a mystery.

They're actually one of the rarest species in the world and not many people

ever even heard of them. So we get to showcase them to our visitors and

get them a bit of a profile.

So we weigh the Fiordland penguins every fortnight, and that's just to keep a

track of how their weights are going. It's a really good indicator of animal

health generally.

We train them to do it, so they train to jump on these scales. It means that

it's stress -free.

They're very charismatic.

In fact, it's hard to keep them off the scales.

Hello, mister.

Oh, he loves the scales.

Of the four Fiordland crested penguins here, there are three female and one

male. And like Bondi the seal, they all share one thing in common.

They're all rescues. They all came to Australia sort of out of their range.

And Dusky was actually found in Perth. So she went all the way back around. I

was waiting.

Here we go. And she was taken into care because she had quite a few injuries on

her underside.

She'd obviously been attacked by something and couldn't be released back

wild.

And Taronga Zoo is about to receive its fifth Fiordland penguin.

A female with a broken flipper is being transferred from Melbourne Zoo.

We're going to be picking up a new penguin.

She has come from the wild, injured in the wild, which of course is not the

thing to happen, but it's going to be so awesome to have another one to join

that beautiful family at the zoo.

Woohoo! Let's grant.

She's arrived.

She has.

All right. Hello.

Hello. How are you? Penguin off the flight from Melbourne. Thank you very

I can just see you through there.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Are you talking?

Yes, you are.

She looks really good.

She looks like she's had a great flight.

Hello, beautiful.

Are you going to say something?

All right, I think we should get her into the van. Yes, you do.

All right.

She's a very special bird.

So I'm glad that everybody is really taking excellent care of her because

going to get five -star hotel treatment at Taronga Zoo, I can assure you.

All good, mate?

All good.

Being away from the water for too long isn't ideal, so Joe wants to get back to

the zoo before the penguin overheats.

We'll get this bird on the road soon. We've got to air -condition the van up,

it's been on the road a bit.

All good? All right, mate.

OK.

In 2015, a mysterious virus swept through the Bellinger River on the New

Wales north coast.

As it spread upstream, it infected almost the entire Bellinger River

turtle population.

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.

Every animal that was infected went on to die.

Probably about 95 % of the population was lost.

But the species was about to be offered a lifeline.

The last group of adult animals from the last pond upstream were taken into a

captive breeding program before the virus went through.

And today, those adult turtles are housed at Taronga's purpose -built

pond. These are the hardest ones to catch. In the wild, there's no breeding,

we have the last 16 remaining breedable adults in this facility.

This is the future of this species.

To date, the breeding program has been a huge success.

I knew it.

And currently, all six of the female turtles of breeding age are carrying

So you can see the perfect structure of the egg there.

Her eggs look fantastic.

As they wait for these latest eggs to hatch in a few months, the previous

breeding season's juveniles are about to begin an epic journey of their own.

Today's their second health check, so if they pass this health check, it means

that we can release them, which is exciting.

They look quite good.

After two years of care, the plan is to release ten juvenile turtles back into

the Bellinger River.

They're just so striking when they're little.

Really pretty.

It's an ambitious repopulation plan that the zoo has been working on since the

turtles first arrived five years ago.

When we release these around two years of age, you know, they've still got

another maybe six to eight years of growing before they're ever going to be

sexually mature.

So, you know, we're starting them off young. Hopefully they'll navigate the

river and learn it quite well and contribute back to the population, which

be... It's so amazing to know in the future that you're finding turtles that

from these guys. That would be remarkable.

Hello.

Are we on time or not? You're on time.

Before they release the turtle, they all need to be given the all -clear by

Larry.

Just a quick exam, check them over, make sure eyes and mouth are OK.

Nothing abnormal.

Skin's good. Looks great, actually.

So anything, you know, abnormal, you know, whether it's a physical

or skin lesions, skin infections, things like that, would be a problem and we'd

probably have to reject the animal from the release cohort.

We always know they're healthy because they've got a permanent smile, these

guys.

Beautiful little face.

122. That's the biggest one.

The most important hurdle to clear before release.

is to ensure that each turtle is free of the virus that pushed the species to

the brink.

So this swab we're taking now is from the eye and the cloaca.

Or their bottom.

We'll just gently rub this over the eye.

A positive result will mean that the turtle will need to be removed from the

population for fear of contamination.

All the turtles that we were looking at have good weight.

There's always a little bit of worry what results might come back from the

test. There's always that doubt that something could go wrong.

Coming up.

I'm concerned that she's very hot. The trip to Sydney takes a toll.

I think we can just wet her down here.

And... And there's little sort of black stuff in the socket.

So, yeah, that's abnormal.

What's causing Rin Tin Tin to lose his teeth?

Taronga has just received an injured Fiordland crested penguin from Melbourne

Zoo. Alright little birdie, here we go.

Alright. Hot and stressed from her flight to Sydney.

Vet Francis is waiting at the Wildlife Hospital to conduct a quick check on the

penguin's injured flipper before she's moved into a much cooler quarantine

All right, here we are.

How are you going, little girl?

Hey?

Yep, I know.

Ready to come out.

Are you ready? I think she's going to come bolting, so we might have to... I

have her right here. Oh, baby, straight down there.

I'm concerned that she's very hot, and we need to, like, spray her down and

let her... Do we want to spray her now? We can just, like, wet her down here.

Good girl. That's better.

Good girl.

Yes, good girl.

The trip has taken a toll on the penguin.

So, to reduce stress, Frances wants to put her straight into a quarantine pool.

So, Jo, shall we pop her? Yeah, I think we can.

We'll take her down. That would be really good.

Make sure she's settled in. It won't be long. Promise.

Promise, promise.

All right.

Oh, look at this. It's brilliant.

They need to get her into the water as soon as possible. Let's take over.

I'm going to let her out because she really is hot.

And we'll see how she goes.

There we go, little girl.

Coming out?

Good girl, come on.

There's a girl.

Yay, look where you are.

Come and try it.

Come and try this.

Go in the pool.

The pool is good.

So it may take her some time to feel comfortable.

Jo, I feel much happier with her now. I think she was pretty keen to get out of

that pet pack. But she looked quite settled.

So she will be up here in quarantine for roughly two weeks.

And during that time, we'll be just keeping an eye on her. We'll be feeding

With her temperature back to normal, And now we need to give her some rest.

All attention turns to her injured flipper.

It's not only seals, sea lions and penguins that need the water at Taronga

There's also the pygmy hippos, the otters and the very obscure and lesser

fishing cat.

Fishing cats are quite an elusive species. Not much is known about them.

They are found throughout Southeast Asia, from Cambodia all the way through

to Pakistan even.

Being a carnivore, they primarily do eat meat, and it ranges from fish to small

birds or small mammals that they can catch, even reptiles as well.

They're probably one of the best swimmers in terms of when it comes to

species, and they're very much built for the water.

At Toronto Zoo Sydney, we have two fishing cats. We have our male, Jalore,

our female, Mao.

Mao is a bit smaller than Jalur. The male fishing cat's a lot larger in size

compared to the female.

So Jalur and Mao have been selected for our breeding program here at Taronga

Zoo.

And Mao, hopefully in the future, will have kittens of her own.

But unfortunately for Mao, the carnivore team keepers have noticed a worrying

problem. Fishing cats have this amazing coat. So the coat is really quite dense

and packed. That kind of creates that barrier between the skin and the air.

One morning, one of our keepers did notice some fur thinning out in her

and so we did keep a close eye on Mao, and then we have reported to the vets,

and the vets have decided to have a general anaesthetic to find out what

is going on with that fur loss.

I'm not planning on intubating her down there. Yeah.

That shall be fine. Yeah.

This morning we're just getting ready to go down and anaesthetise our female

fishing cat. Skin conditions can be due to an awful lot of things and in order

for us to know why the skin is like that we need to do some testing.

So let's head out.

We're taking this fairly seriously and we want to make sure that we can keep

in the best possible health.

Taronga Zoo is giving the critically endangered Bellinger River turtle a

chance at life. This one's never going to scratch.

All juvenile turtles have come back clear of the virus that drove them to

brink of extinction.

Chelsea, if you want to bring me over the last one.

But there's one more important step to complete before they can begin their

journey back home.

It's just a little bit wet.

So what I'm doing today is we've just attached some trackers to the turtles.

You know, we've bred these turtles in captivity, we've raised them for nearly

two years, and we want to get them back into the wild. So we want to make sure

that we can see what happens to them.

Trackers are weighted to their bodies, so they're only a small portion of their

body, so it doesn't affect their swimming.

When we first put them in the water, the turtles sort of...

You know, they feel, oh, okay, what's that? Their body sort of moves slightly.

But then within five, ten minutes, it's not even like they have anything on

them.

So they're all painted.

They're ready to go back. So we're going to go now and take them and chuck them

back in the pond.

If you have a look in the box, Chelsea, it's like we've got our remote

-controlled car race ready to get going.

Now watch this little guy.

Stick your head over there.

You can see how it sort of...

just holding to that sign yeah so that's why we will do the trackers you know a

few days before releasing just to let them get used to the weight before they

into the wild because there's so much new stuff going to go on yeah absolutely

brain so by putting a tracker on and sticking them back in their pond for a

period of time just let them learn to navigate with it on

They're all just going to hang down there now. They're all really

They don't look stressed at all. They're moving quite calmly in the water.

They're not swimming erratic.

They're not freaking out.

And that's what we want.

They're the little things that I mark as a win, you know, in our program. It's

like, you know, up here every day I'm feeding them or I'm cleaning their tub.

And then, you know.

Now we're getting them ready to release them. That's pretty awesome.

Next stop, Bellingen River.

Amazing.

The fishing cat is one of the more obscure animals at Taronga Zoo.

Unlike the majority of cats... This vulnerable species has adapted to a life

living and hunting in streams and rivers.

But keepers have noticed that the female fishing cat Mao has a problem with her

very important fur.

She does have a bit of fur loss in some certain areas on the back, so we are

wanting to make sure that's nothing too serious. Hopefully we'll find out what's

going on with Mao.

Bring the intubation tray. Yeah, yep, yep.

The vets have arrived on site, but fishing cats, like domestic cats, are

suspicious of changes to their daily routine.

So they have to hang back until keeper Maz has her in position.

I'll go ahead and draw up my drugs, and you just give us a yell when you want us

up there.

So Maz has gone up to the holding area where the cat is and he's going to get

her into a much smaller cage so that I can administer the injection.

So luckily it's only a very small volume to inject, which is good because that

will make it easier to inject and better for the cat.

Once we get the call from Maz, Liz and I will head up to the holding area. I'll

go in and do the injection and then we'll wait for her to go to sleep.

Are you all right walking backwards?

And with Mao anaesthetised, Frances and her team can start trying to solve this

mystery.

The

Fiordland penguin

has been in quarantine for a week since being moved from Melbourne.

Hello?

Yes, I know, that's your sore wing, isn't it?

While the penguin continues to get the very best care Taronga staff can

Goodbye, gorgeous.

Goodbye, beautiful.

..the one thing they haven't given her yet is the name.

We're going to head to the office now, have our coffee at morning tea, and all

will be revealed.

Ready for the big penguin reveal?

Oh, thanks, mate. Yeah, you excited?

All right.

So... Our Fjord and Crested Penguin has been with us for one week.

There has been a voting going around, right?

And today's a big day, right? Not everybody's here, but let's go around

table and see who voted for what. And that might give us a bit of an idea

you let us know, right?

Michelle? I voted for Pio.

Bad choice.

Pio as well.

Crystal? Tahi?

Yeah. Potato?

Potato. Mel? I can't remember what I voted for, but I've been calling her

Denise.

I'm PO too, there must be a lot of PO people here.

Sounds like there's a lot of PO people here. What did you vote for?

I voted for Zahi.

Did you?

Have you told them what the full name is?

I can't even pronounce it, Lindsay.

Can you pronounce it? Okay, so... Yeah, go on. The Pio Pio Tahi is the Maori

for Milford Sound, which is one of the places that they're from.

We can't call her Pio Pio Tahi for the rest of her life because it's either Pio

or Tahi.

Over the last week, the entire marine team have had their say on the new

penguin's name and now the results are in. Come on.

What shall we call her?

Her name will be Tahi.

One,

two, three.

Any time an animal goes under general anaesthetic, the vets take the

to do a complete health check.

So what we're doing right now is at the moment she's only had injectable

anesthetics, which will wear off fairly quickly.

But we want to make sure she stays nice and stable and we have control of her

anesthetic during the procedure.

So I'm going to put a tube into her airway and then we're going to manage

with anesthetic gas.

Is that a good fit? No.

Do you want us to move her up that end a little bit? Will that be easier or are

you going to knock her in there?

No, I'm fine.

We're going to take some screening x -rays. We're not expecting to find

abnormal with her, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be things that we don't

know about. So it's a good opportunity for us to get some normal x -rays of

We hope they're going to be normal. And that way we've got a comparison for, you

know, if she ever were to have something in the future.

OK.

Let's make sure we get full.

Thorax, that should work.

Okay, right.

Last one, we hope.

So we've got a nice x -ray here of her abdomen, the bottom half of her body,

which basically shows her liver and her digestive tract, kidneys and so on. And

this would have been her last meal.

Already gone, they've got a very quick transit time through the

tract, so she's waiting to politely poo that out for us.

Get a whoosh of that smell.

Fishing cat smell.

How's she going?

All right, so far everything looks good. Now I'm going to look at the reason why

we anaesthetise her and have a close look at her skin.

Okay, so we can see here that she's got a bit of fur missing.

There's still some fur there, but she's missing mostly these outer guard hairs.

Some of them are a bit broken off.

Mao here has probably one of the most beautiful patterns you find on a fishing

cat, and she is an absolutely amazing cat herself.

She's a favourite with a lot of our keepers, so just to see her be poised up

pretty cool, and quite a privilege as well to working with fishing cats. Not

many institutions around Australasian region have fishing cats, so we're very

lucky. The skin itself doesn't look terribly irritated, but she's certainly

sort of thinned hair.

over that area. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pluck some of the hairs

out of her back and we'll look at those in the lab.

I'll take a little bit of a skin scraping and then just from this worst

area here I'm going to take a small skin biopsy and we'll get our pathologist to

have a look at that and see if we can work out why she's losing this hair.

Taronga is home to over 5 ,000 animals.

And while the zoo regularly welcomes newborns, it

also has its fair share of elderly residents who all

require very special care, like Rin Tin Tin.

Larry, we initially noticed that his teeth weren't coming through. After he'd

knocked a tooth off after eating some food, you'd normally see a little tip of

new tooth coming through. We didn't notice that.

And that's why we decided to give you a call.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like little sort of black stuff in the pocket.

So, yeah, that's abnormal because they should be coming through.

Saltwater crocodiles regularly lose teeth and can go through 3 ,000 in their

lifetime.

But they always have a second tooth sitting underneath.

Mysteriously not Rin Tin Tin.

Yeah, so it's difficult to know what's causing it. I mean, he's an older

It could be a nutrient problem. We don't know.

He's otherwise fine. He's eating well and everything. It's not actually

affecting him.

But one option is to give him some vitamins.

Hopefully that'll boost his immune system, just help him along a bit, maybe

promote the growth of the teeth.

So obviously he's a very large, very dangerous animal, so getting the drug

him is a bit of a challenge. So what I'm going to do is use this pulse syringe

so we can inject him from a bit of a distance, basically giving him a short

course of vitamins to just try and boost his immunity and hopefully will help

him grow back some normal teeth.

So it's a very concentrated vitamin made for large domestic animals actually,

livestock, so the volume is actually fortunately quite small, quite a large

needle though.

but they need to create a diversion to administer the injection.

So the positioning in here of the food is really important to be able to get

injection.

So I reckon, yeah, just about here.

Just about here, yep. Because I'll be standing at the door here with the

closed, and so I just need to get... OK.

..as he sort of grabs them and presents his neck, I'll jab.

And I'll just place a few around as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are we ready to go? Let's go.

So if you can do the gate, and I'll stand here so I can communicate with

Yeah, because he'll come over pretty quickly, and we don't want to miss that

opportunity. One second. What I'm going to do is just take this lock off.

Is he already at the door? He's at the door.

He'll have swallowed that food in seconds, basically. He does it very

and then he'll start moving away. So I've got to pick that moment that he's

focusing on swallowing the food and jab him in the neck.

Are you ready, Larry?

Yep. Yep. Okay, Michael, open the door.

Opening the gate, Larry? Yeah.

Gate's open.

Okay, so he's coming in now.

And it's all over in a flash.

There you go. Got him.

The needle's bent a little bit. I mean, the skin's very thick.

Obviously, a lot of muscles in that area, and he was moving around, so, you

know, it's reasonable that the needle would bend.

This is his third injection, so he's had a course of injections.

We're not going to give him any more.

So let's have a look there now, just quickly.

He's right at the door, literally right there.

Things happen very slowly in reptiles and probably another couple of months

before Rin Tin Tin grows his teeth back, if it is going to work.

has fully recovered from her exam.

It was awesome that Mal was nice and calm. The whole procedure went very

smoothly and her recovery went really, really well as well. So after an hour or

so, Mal's appetite came back up and it was like nothing had happened.

But it's still an absolute mystery to everyone what's been causing her hair

loss.

So I'm just putting some hairs from the fishing cat into some KOH just to digest

the hair.

So we can have a look under the microscope.

So Mal, the fishing cat, we found that she had some hair loss on her back

So Nat and I have just been looking at the hairs under the microscope.

Nat's been examining that to see if there's any evidence of, in particular,

kinds of infection.

So I've got a hair here. I'm just focusing up and down through the hair

see if I can see any fungal elements.

So there are a whole bunch of things that could cause hair loss in a fishing

like Mal, and they range from infectious things like little mites and critters

that are climbing around on their fur, sometimes fungus, ringworm that even

people can get.

I can't see any mites. I can't see any fungal elements.

I can't see anything through here.

Yeah, no, I agree.

They look nice and clean, and those edges there of the hair, don't they? I

see any fungal elements either. No. Certainly not any mites.

which is great. We don't want there to be an infectious thing there.

The great news is today, absolutely no evidence of any bugs or critters or

fungus. So we can tell Mal and Mal's Dr. Francis that there's nothing to kind of

be really worried about in that regard at the moment.

So great news about Mal. The pathologists and the vets have come back

results. That's kind of relieving, but also still there's a bit of a mystery as

to why that fur was thinned out.

She's still under observations and close watches to see exactly what's

happening, but it's kind of a relief that there's nothing kind of sinister or

there's no complications of her health. So, yeah, it was great news.

I saw.

Tahi, the Fiordland crested penguin, has come to Taronga Zoo after she was found

injured on a beach.

She has now finished her quarantine period.

But vets won't clear her for release unless her injured flipper is strong

to handle any aggression she may face.

when she joins her new flock.

I might actually let her out rather than having her contained because when we

picked her up from the airport, she was really super stressed in here.

There you go, darling.

Right? And just let her wander around because she was panting.

Most animals aren't too fond of going to the vet, but Tahi is taking it all in

her stride. Come on!

Come on!

Good girl!

Good girl!

Good girl.

Good girl. Yes, good girl.

Good birdie. Come on.

Good girl. Good girl.

Yay.

Come on, Missy.

So we're going to wrap her up and mask her down. Sure.

So she may object.

All right. Well, she's coming over to you, Liz.

So we're inducing anesthesia in her, and the way we do it is by mask.

And no bird likes to be restrained.

So turning her up to three, Liz.

Tahi is looking very relaxed and these guys are going to check her out to have

look at that injured wing, which is what was the reason that she came into

captivity in the first place.

Okay, so she's got these kind of funny elbows that kind of lock in

extension. That's amazing. I didn't know that. Feel that. That's incredible.

So is that normal?

Yeah, that's normal.

Turn it down to one and a half.

Do you need to x -ray her?

Yeah, I do.

The lesions on the right wing around her elbow is what we're looking at

because... She had an infection there and that looks like black holes in the

bones. Yeah, right.

So what we're looking for is the black holes shrinking inside and filling in

with bones so they won't be so black.

Wow. X -ray.

X -ray.

So far it's been quite an ordeal for Tahi.

Now her future at Taronga comes down to the results of this X -ray.

Okay.

Ooh, what are you seeing?

Five years after a virus virtually wiped out the Bellinger River turtle species,

the big day has arrived.

Oh, hello, kitties.

Emma and I are catching up 10 turtles to take to Bellingen for our turtle

release.

I'll hand them to you.

Today is pretty massive, actually. It's our second trial release. This is part

of our work. This is what we've been aiming to do for the last several years.

Breed these turtles and then finally get them back into the wild. You know, so

many people are working together to get them out there. And today's one of those

days where we all come together and, you know, get to see the fruits of all our

labour. Oh, look at their trackers.

They're so cute.

We've got a little remote control car. Amazing.

To be able to release animals back into the wild, it's pretty awesome.

I've got B8FF.

Bellinger River is over six hours drive north of Sydney.

We're going to the country.

And Adam is going the extra mile to make sure his precious cargo will be

comfortable during the long journey home.

We're just bagging up the turtles. We bag them up in a dry bag to ensure their

safety. If we were to transport them in water, you know, you can drown them. It

acts like a washing machine when you're moving tubs around.

So the idea is we just keep them nice and cool in a dark place.

And they just relax and stay safe.

I'm contained because it's early days yet. We've still got a six -hour trip

it's going to be a long day.

We're off.

Tahi has finished her quarantine period and all that's left now is to check

whether her injured flipper is healing so Gabby can introduce her to the rest

the flock.

Okay.

Ooh, what are you seeing?

She had an infection that affected the joint and the ends of these two bones

here. And when she came in from the wild, she had a big swelling and she

couldn't bend her...

elbow, whereas now she can bend it nicely.

The bone's filling in, and I think that she should be just fine.

She's cleared.

Woohoo! Yay!

Quarantine's good.

Thank you.

Okay. Tahi has cleared her quarantine today, and so the exciting thing for her

now is that she's going to go and meet her mate, the other Fiordland,

Christopher.

Oh, she's moving a lot in there, Party.

She's ready to go. Yeah.

When we're doing any type of introduction, we don't want to have all

put into the mix together. I need to be looking out for aggression and certain

things.

There you go.

She's been in quarantine in Melbourne too, then over here. She hasn't seen

another Fiordland for quite some time, so we don't know how that's going to go.

Going in the pool?

Not yet.

Come on Missy.

She's obviously feeling a little bit, a little bit concerned about the area.

She's checking out the whole exhibit at the moment.

Looks like she's going to go in.

It's a great start.

She's taken the plunge.

But the big question is, will she mix with the other penguins?

I've seen this exhibit before so there's so much for her to take in. Good girl!

Yay!

Is that good?

Good girl!

Good girl!

Yay!

She's come over to us and she feels comfortable with us.

Let's go and have a look if we can see the others.

She's hanging to get in here, so I might let her in and let's see what happens.

Sure. Okay, this is a big moment. So Jo is just about to open this gate.

She's going to be letting Dusky in. Here we go.

We don't know what's going to happen.

This is their very first meeting.

Can you see another fjord?

Oh, my goodness.

It seems like they're fairly comfortable with each other, but we do have to just

watch out for any signs of aggression.

One after the other, new penguins are introduced.

Off you go, Gary.

Hi, hi.

Well, here we go.

She's just spotted Tahi.

And to the joy of the keepers, it seems she's going to fit in just fine.

I'm going to bring Moe and Munro out into the mix now.

Mummas, do you want to go in?

I mean, it's been quite a fast introduction so far, but because they're

such calm signs...

Why not? Give it a go.

We will be doing more and more and for longer times.

We won't keep her out in the pool overnight. We're going to put her in

area. because we can't see how she's going overnight, and we want to make

that everybody's safe.

Yeah, Tahi's got her new family now, so we'll monitor them really closely,

especially today, and over the next few days we'll be watching really closely

just to make sure there's no signs of aggression.

She loves just in that flow, doesn't she? She's really enjoying that.

I'm really happy. It's so nice to see Tahi in the pool, getting to know her

buddies now.

Fantastic.

it'll blow your mind it's so pretty after a long drive i want them to do so

the turtle finally make it home this is what we all work towards you know all

right you can do it

It's an historic road trip that may just save a species from extinction.

And the Bellinger River Snapping Turtles are almost home.

I'm really excited. It's going to be perfect.

Are you going to love this? Hey, it'll blow your mind. It's so pretty.

Today we've travelled up to the Bellinger River.

We're going to release 10 of our Bellinger River Snapping Turtles.

They look good. I'm happy.

They sat in the car for six hours to get up here. And now we're going to set

them off and let them start the rest of their lives in this beautiful location.

Yeah, this looks absolutely perfect.

Yeah, look at that. Beautiful.

It's a bittersweet moment for Adam as the Bellinger River has become a place

mixed emotions.

This is where the virus went up and down this river system.

at speeds that we've never seen before, just wiping out turtle after turtle.

We estimated we lost close to 4 ,000 odd turtles in a matter of weeks. Just

gone. Thankfully, the deadly virus has never returned.

We know that they're disease -free. We haven't detected any disease in these

locations. History showed us that there are Bellinger River turtles in these

particular locations, and these animals can just go off and live their life as

natural as possible without human disturbance.

Five years on, and Taronga's dream to rebuild the species is one step closer.

Do you want to let it go?

No, you want to go. You're already in there. All right. Go.

I get anxiously nervous for them because I want them to do so well.

So as I let them go, you just have this connection because I spend so much time

with them. And now I'm letting them go to the wild so they can repopulate and

live a life that we didn't think of a few years ago.

He's going, no, I don't want to go.

It's all right.

You can do it.

Amazing.

It was really cool.

It's just like edging in, edging in, edging in.

Imagine what's going through its head.

It's like all this new stuff around me.

It's the biggest pond you've ever been in, mate.

Amazing. And for yourself now.

Look at him. He's so happy.

That's it. That's way better, isn't it? That's what I love to see.

Look at him. And he's just like,

you know, if you didn't know he was there, you probably wouldn't even notice

him. He'll blend in there so well.

And that's why I like this hole, because there is a lot of life.

Even just looking around, there are so many little fish and tadpoles. There's

heaps of food here for them.

Hi. It's the first time they've seen algae like this and those rocks and

fish swimming past them.

It's like tasting this water would taste so different from the water back in

Sydney. Absolutely.

You've got to taste and smell their home now.

Oh, look, now he's just disappearing.

And then you've got one over here who's like foraging.

He's like looking, having a bit of a go.

And then remarkably, right on cue, up swims a turtle from last year's release.

I'm stoked. It's unreal. This is what we all work towards, you know. We've been

working on this project for so long and we're putting them out there and, you

know, we're out into the wild. It's amazing.

It's a lot of fun.

Lucky love.

This is Taronga to me, and I'm so proud of the work that we do.

We always talk about conservation.

We're always talking about trying to, you know, do it for the wild. And we

literally are.

To me, it's like a privilege that we actually get to give back. And, you

as an animal person, you couldn't ask for anything more.

I'm fine. Look at that. He's just hanging around. He doesn't want to go

anywhere. I will miss them now we've let them go.

But now they're here, it's a worthy miss. It's like that they've gone off.

to live their life, then that's a really good reason to miss them. I prefer

missing them because they're now swimming around here in this, just how

should be.