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, there's something about Mary.

Our female sun bear Mary, she's ready to mate with our male Mr Hob. But will the

elderly Mr Hob feel the love?

Fingers crossed this time that we get a little sun bear cub.

What not to do at a barbecue.

He was found with a metal skewer sticking out of his abdomen.

Emergency surgery for a greedy goanna.

This is a lot of fluid in the abdomen and we're not sure why.

And after a confident wink, a baby koala's first ride with mum still needs

little work.

You're facing the wrong way, buddy.

Just having a good listen to his heart and his mind.

It sounds really good.

Taronga Zoo Hospital is responsible for the health and welfare of nearly 5 ,000

animals. 10 .8 kilos.

So he's lost a bit of weight.

From over 350 species.

All koalas have copped a bit, unfortunately.

The hospital also plays a vital role in the treatment and rehabilitation of over

1 ,400 injured wildlife brought in by the public each year. Very obviously a

nasty wound there, which is already a few days old by the look of it.

And never has this been more obvious than in the aftermath of the savage

bushfires that swept through Australia this year, killing and injuring more

a billion animals.

Understandably, all this makes the emergency room a very busy place.

So rather than bring every animal to the hospital, sometimes...

They need to take the hospital to the animal.

This morning I'm on outside rounds, so I'm the veterinarian that's designated

go out in the zoo and look at any of the animals that need veterinary

assistance. We'll take this bag of goodies with all kinds of different

in it, so some antibiotics, stethoscope, needles and syringes. So if we need

something while we're out there, we can treat some of the animals on site.

So I have a list with all of our different departments.

The reptiles are probably the most important, so I'm going to start with

The first patient on today's round is a freshwater crocodile with a respiratory

problem. Let's look at this freshwater croc that we wrestled last week.

Found all over northern Australia, the freshwater crocodile, unlike its much

larger saltwater cousin, isn't prone to attack humans.

But it still packs one hell of a punch.

So that's her there. She's just cruising around now.

Oh, the female freshwater crocodile.

She's been having some nasal discharge and some ocular discharge and opening

mouth quite a bit and having trouble seemingly breathing.

We're treating her for a respiratory infection.

Hopefully it's not a fungal respiratory disease, but we do have to keep in the

back of our mind it could be.

We've got to keep her on antibiotics.

Emma, I thought you could just inject her. Yeah, we should be able to. If I

a bowl of syringe for you. I will do that.

The keepers actually are able to do the injection for us.

So it's probably a little bit better because I'm not used to working with

They're used to working with Crocs, and they'll be a lot more safe than me going

in there.

So we need to give her an injection. So we're going to fill this up with

antibiotics.

He'll put a needle on the end, and then he'll go in, and he can just jab her in

the muscle with the antibiotic.

So we need to do that about every three days for her. Yep, sure. So that's the

antibiotic. Yep. And there's the sterile water. You can keep all of that.

Since the crocodile isn't due to be fed for a few more days, the injection will

have to wait.

So Kimberly's off to her next stop to unravel the mystery of the lame meerkat.

All across Taronga Zoo, there are countless examples of animals that are

the same family.

Kangaroos and patty melons,

gorillas and chimpanzees, turtles and tortoises.

But there is actually only one species of bear at Taronga, the

Malayan sun bear.

We're in our Malayan sun bear exhibit.

We have two bears here. So we have Mr Hobbs, who's 24 years of age, and Mary,

who's 8 years of age.

One of the amazing things about sun bears is that they do have a beautiful

on their chest, which makes it look like the sun is rising. Each sun bear has a

unique marking.

Mary has what looks like a necklace, so it's a full crest.

And Mr Hobbs actually has a crest that has a little break in it that makes it

look like it's a bow tie.

Sun bears are the smallest of all bear species, but their looks and size can be

deceiving. We definitely should not be fooled by the sun bear's cute and cuddly

looks. They have incredibly large canine teeth as well as other teeth and they

also have those incredibly long claws as well, so built for getting and ripping

into rocks and to logs.

The claws make them excellent climbers, which these keepers take a novel

approach to stopping them from scaling the wall.

So this wall is meant to be non -climbable.

One of the reasons you'll notice we've got Vaseline along here is to prevent...

her from physically climbing it.

And although Mary is, at the moment, about 90 kilos, she can still lift her

entire body weight just on those claws.

But despite how powerful they may be, that doesn't mean they're not doing it

tough in the wild.

They are an endangered species.

They do live in the same area as larger predators than themselves, things like

tigers.

One of their cool adaptations is they have a lot of excess skin on the back of

their neck.

They'll use that if a bigger bear than them or another predator like a tiger

comes up behind them. If they latch onto their back, they can basically almost

turn around in their own skin to either roar at them or to scare that species

off. And then they have such incredible climbing ability, they're up their tree

in two seconds and that bear or that tiger can't catch up with them, which is

pretty incredible.

Although sun bear numbers are low and Taronga would love a cub, for most of

year, The sun bears do not mix.

Keeping the bears separate here at Taronga is kind of a safety aspect.

Mary being bigger than Hobsy and Hobsy being quite a bit older than her, those

things are great and bad in some ways. So her being a bit boisterous, a bit

younger, means that she can overpower him for food, so we just want him to be

able to get his nutritional value from all of his foods as best as we possibly

can, and having them separate is one of those ways.

But as Keeper Ellen is about to find out, Mary is ready to mingle.

Anne. is making no secret of the fact that she's keen to end her and Mr Hobbs'

segregation.

Ah, OK.

Wow.

Another sign that she's coming to Easter.

So she hasn't really dug anything this big since April.

So we've got to fill that in. I might go and grab a shovel, actually.

Today's a very exciting time at Taronga. Our female sun bear, Mary, is coming to

Easter, which basically means she's ready to mate with our male Mr Hobbs.

So one of the signs he's coming to Easter is he actually thinks that this

of the walls that is to Mr Hobbs. It's not quite. So we'll dig here or she'll

often even head up to the doors.

She has actually tried to climb them before because she can sense that he is

near. So this digging is basically a sign of that from overnight that she's

wanted to get to him.

There's another sign up here as well.

Shows how powerful she is.

Has pulled that away from the door.

Which is quite a feat, just weighing just how strong they are.

Mary and Mr Hobbs have been separate since her last Easter cycle back in

Because they are a dangerous animal, bringing the two bears together for that

first introduction as she's coming into Easter is always a little bit of a wary

time for us. And Mary being a good 15 kilos heavier than Mr Hobbs means she

that overpowering ability.

So, despite zookeeper concerns about what may happen, Preparations have

to get them together.

Back at the wildlife hospital.

Alright, so I'm giving him what I gave him yesterday pretty much.

Vet Gabby is preparing for emergency surgery on a lace monitor, commonly

as a tree goanna.

It was brought to the zoo with a gruesome injury and vets have decided

way to save it is surgery.

He was found with a skewer, a metal skewer sticking out of his abdomen.

And he was taken to a local vet where they took radiographs and sent him out.

The x -rays are pretty spectacular.

So you can see a metal barbecue skewer, that's what it looks like, with a round

ring on the end so we can't just pull it out.

because it's stuck in his body.

And I can't see where it's stuck in his body. I can't see if it's within his

gastrointestinal tract or whether it's moved out of his gastrointestinal tract

and just sitting free.

So he needs surgery to remove it. So I'm going to draw up the adipamazole.

While they don't know the skewer's precise location, they do know they have

move fast.

But first, they have the not -so -easy task of sedating him.

He was quite feisty.

yesterday when Belle picked him up. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. And he's probably feeling a bit better after his fluids. So I need

Yes.

So lace monitors are quite gnarly. They can be defensive.

So obviously he's scared.

And so he's going to try and get me with his mouth, his both front and rear

claws, and his tail. They whip you with their tails.

So I'm just putting some...

protection on because I've been bitten by these guys before.

Where is he?

He's right up to the left corner, up the wall. Probably going to go in each arm.

Okay, front arm.

Can someone get me that shovel as well?

That's on the wall, the red one, orange one.

Okay, we're going to start scrubbing.

They're not the biggest, but they're just, yeah, they're clever.

It's the first chance for Gabby to look at the injury and she doesn't like what

she sees.

The animal is quite compromised, he's quite thin, so getting him through the

surgery is a challenge definitely and removing it will be a challenge as well.

I'll be very pleased if he survives the surgery.

Kimberly is doing rounds of the zoo and is about to check out an injured meerkat

called Zolani, who is receiving treatment for a mysterious limp.

Can you point her out? Yeah, yeah. She's the one with the green?

She's one of the ones with the blue food dye on her.

So Zulani's in the middle at the moment.

Yep, the one with the food coloring.

Yeah, so she's got the blue food dye on her, being very nervous of everyone

coming around her. So we have one of our female meerkats that's quite high

ranking in the group.

She's lame on her left front foot, and she's had this lameness for a few days

now. It doesn't seem to be responding to treatment very well.

I have some video for you.

You can see she's completely... Oh, she's not putting it down at all. No.

Sometimes she is, but mostly not at least.

Oh, okay. And that's not really improved since she started?

Well, she is noticeably still quite lame.

And because of Zalani's injury, another problem has arisen.

We're just noticing this morning that there's a little bit of conflict in the

group just because they're noticing that she is obviously lame and then they're

taking the opportunity to try and increase their status in the group. And

quite high ranking.

So they're picking on her because she's got a problem. Yes.

Meerkats are a very social animal and tarongas spend a lot of time making sure

they have a happy family group.

We have quite a large dynamic group of meerkats with 18 individuals and just

like brothers and sisters don't get along all the time, meerkats are the

and they have a really structured hierarchy on both the male side and the

side. So they're looking at any chance they can to try and increase their

in the group. So we're sort of seeing a little bit of a shift going on within

the group which we didn't really want because we've done a lot of work to get

them quite cohesive at the moment.

Okay, so let's increase her to 0 .4 mils, a higher dose of anti

See if that helps her. Hopefully that'll help her stay in the group. If she's

still lame on Friday morning, we'll recheck her, but let's plan to grab her

take an x -ray up at the hospital if she's not better. Yep, absolutely.

I'm just worried that there may be a broken foot or something a little more

serious going on. Let's double check that she hasn't been bitten and there's

abscess or something else that we need to give her additional treatment for.

Yep. To keep the status quo, keepers know it's crucial to get Zulany back to

full health as soon as possible. See you later!

Mary and Mr Hobbs, the Malayan sun bears, are

about to be brought together in an attempt to breed.

And Mary is keen to get to Mr Hobbs as soon as possible.

One of the signs for coming into Easter is that she actually likes to try and

get to Hobbs a little more easily.

But Mr Hobbs is an older bear and understandably needs a bit more time to

prepare. Hey, what's going on?

Hey Hobsy, you good?

You been resting somewhere?

You can tell you've been resting.

Mr Hobbs will scratch his back pretty much every morning. I think it's a bit

a ritual getting ready to go out. Good stretch, good scratch, all that type of

stuff, similar to us, I suppose, getting ready for the morning. And then he'll

do his little yoga poses at the door right before he goes out. You know, he

might be there for five minutes, ten minutes.

Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes.

It's up to him.

Mr Hobbs' story is an extraordinary one.

Mr Hobbs had a really rough start to life. He was a rescue bear, so his mum

than likely would have been shot and killed in the wild by poachers. And then

they take the cubs and breed them, and then when they're old enough, they sell

them off to restaurants and those sorts of things for bear poor soup.

And sadly, his time with the poachers has left them ongoing problems.

He was raised by the poachers and probably raised on food items that are

cheap and readily available, so a lot of fruits that are soft and, you know,

sugary. So he probably didn't get the best diet and the best start to life and

maybe hasn't experienced other food items which would naturally be nature's

toothbrush.

Open.

I still think it's amazing that we brush our sun bear's teeth with an electric

toothbrush. We've never lost one yet.

Good.

And, yeah, sometimes I think it's easier than brushing my own kid's teeth at

home.

Hopefully he understands that we are actually doing him a favour and

him the opportunity to get rid of that calculus on his teeth so he has a better

long -term outcome.

What a good boy.

With teeth now clean, it's time for Mr. Hobbs to get reacquainted with his old

flame, Mary.

A member of the public has brought in a lace monitor with

a terrible injury, and vet Gabby has decided that this poor lizard needs

immediate intervention.

He's obviously ingested the skewer probably with meat on it and it's gone

his stomach and his intestine and then the pointy end has migrated out,

bacteria with it.

And because of the very threat of that bacteria, the team are taking no risk,

wearing surgical gowns and masks for what they expect to be a long and

operation.

So the surgery involves making a longitudinal incision on his belly and

him up and just having a look for where the skewer is.

I'm just raising the skin up so that when I cut, I don't cut into an organ.

Got lots of fluid in here.

Oh really?

So they'll have some fluid.

You can suction some of that.

Do you want to swab it?

There's just a lot of fluid in the abdomen and in the cavity, and we're not

why. Just don't know why. Bucking lots of fluid out, and we're just going to

what it means when we get in there.

It's just orchids.

With such a tricky surgery underway, senior vet Larry has popped in to see if

can offer Gabby any help.

We see sort of unusual, bizarre things.

Quite often here in the hospital, animals that have swallowed various

To me, it's just interesting to see, you know, how we can deal with it. And

Gab's obviously doing a great job getting down to it.

So I can't see it. I can only feel it. The challenge is that because we've been

there for a long time, it's well embedded and surrounded by tissue.

Probably the tissue has grown all around the top of that skewer in probably an

attempt for the body to get rid of it.

I can feel something.

After some exploratory surgery, Gabby has finally found the end of the metal

skewer. That's the head of it in your stomach.

Stomach's twisted around and then it's got, I can feel it, but it's all encased

in tissue.

Can't feel any metal.

You got some big metal cutters?

No, but we'll need some.

Do you mind working preparing?

Like getting the big bolt cutters and putting, soaking the end in some?

Unfortunately for the lizard, it looks like this skewer is not going anywhere.

Sun Bear Mary is an estrus.

Meaning she is ready to mate with the male sun bear, Mr Hob.

And this has got the carnivore team excited.

Yeah, fingers crossed this time that we get a little sun bear cub.

Since the bears are kept separate all year, this will be the first time in

months that they'll be together.

Meaning keepers are unsure of how they'll react.

I haven't seen the pairings yet. Do they normally go well together when they are

in together?

Yeah, they're generally pretty nice to each other. Mary's really nice to Mr

Hobbs when she's an mistress, not so much any other time.

Because you know Mr Hobbs is pretty old as well, so it really brings him out of

his shell a little bit and he becomes a bit more active and more boisterous and

it really gets the two interested in each other. So yeah, it's really nice to

watch.

Before bringing them together, they always conduct a controlled introduction

behind closed doors.

to make sure there'll be no signs of aggression.

Mary basically gives all the signs to Mr

Hobbs that she's an Easterth. So if she is an Easterth, we see a lot of

behaviours like clucking between the two.

Hobsy will clap to us occasionally, but he'll only clap to her when she is in

that Easter cycle.

And happily, the keepers have no cause for concern, as there is an instant

chemistry between Mary and Mr Hobbs.

This is good.

Yes. This is very good.

This is similar to what it looked like when I was seeing her parents, mate.

They were showing all the right signs at the slide and everything.

I think it all went really well.

We don't think today was the day. We think maybe our next couple of days

be the target Easter period, so you kind of have a couple of days to play with.

There's always tomorrow, so we'll try again, come back in and do it all again

tomorrow.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for Mary to warm up to Mr Hob.

When it comes to breeding with sun bears, we know that there's a lot of

anticipation on it. We always know in our jobs sometimes it's just not going

happen and you can't get too disheartened by it, but that makes it

when it does happen because that's always fantastic.

So for the next week, they'll spend day and night together, which will hopefully

end with an incredibly rare sun bear pregnancy.

At Taronga's wildlife hospital, vet Gabby has found the end of the metal

that the lace monitor had swallowed and is in the tricky process of trying to

remove it.

It's just too tough.

But after being inside the lizard for the past month, the body has grown

all around the metal loop, making it tough to get a hold of without causing

more damage.

Once you get it out, a lot of the healing is going to be up to the animal,

it? Because you're not going to be able to repair all the... I suppose they're

pretty tough animals.

But not as tough as the metal.

So Gabby has called for the big gun to help try and extract the skewer from the

lizard.

Where do you want to cut down?

That's interesting.

That's just all broken off.

Take it away.

Take it away.

Okay.

This is part of a skewer, a barbecue skewer, and this is part of the round

of the skewer that's been cut off.

With the round end now gone, Gabby is hoping the rest of the skewer can be

removed without any resistance.

Okay, it's slipping out really easily.

Gab's exposed, I suppose, the head of the skewer, the ring part at the end of

it, and we cut that off and just pulled the rest of it out through where it was

coming through the skin. There you go. There's the whole thing.

Amazingly clean, really, when you consider it's been in there for probably

some time in that animal.

I'm really happy that the skewer is out because I thought it was going to get

stuck coming out of the body cavity because it was wrapped in tissue.

Reptiles are really tough. The fact that he's had this going through his body is

amazing. The biggest risk for him now, aside from infection, will be food

getting caught in his intestine, like a blockage, just because it's been pulled

in different directions.

The skewer may be out, but this lizard's survival is far from guaranteed. His

chance of survival is probably, say, 50 -50 at this point.

It's hard to say.

Three days have passed and meerkat Zulani's injured leg is not healing.

All right, all good?

The head of carnivores, Louise, is taking her to the wildlife hospital for

scan. Hello, my little one.

I know you're all starving.

Hey, we haven't been able to feed you yet, have we? Because our princess has

have a little anesthetic.

So this morning we've got Zulani, our meerkat, who's going up for an

anaesthetic. We just want to have a look at that foot and see, is there anything

going on? You know, maybe she's got a little fractured bone or something. We

want to know why the lameness keeps coming back.

And because of the meerkat's complex social structure, this is time

We cannot afford to take her out of the group for very long, so any anaesthetic

that we do...

Any treatment we do, it has to be fairly quick so that she's not kept away from

her family for long. Because when you're living in that strict social hierarchy,

if you're missing for too long, you could lose your place, and that's going

be disastrous.

All right, my baby girl.

All right, little miss, let's get you in to see the vet.

For vet Kimberly, the fact that Delaney's leg isn't getting better has

concerns.

that something more serious is going on. Well, it's weird that she keeps

becoming lame when she goes off for treatment, so I just want to make sure

there's not an abscess or a fracture there.

All right, we'll be interested to hear what you find.

Okay. Thank you so much, Kimberly.

Thank you. Bye, you and we're done.

Thanks.

She's not very happy.

Well, she's sitting there holding her left paw up.

Her left front paw is the paw that's lame.

Okay, me again.

Okay, oxygen.

Do you want it higher?

Yeah, five. Thanks. You can go to five.

I can have a good feel of the left.

Yeah. Oh, cool.

I'm not happy with that.

So the two things I'm worried about is whether she's sprained herself or has a

fracture.

And then the other thing is whether she has an abscess, which would be an

infection under the skin.

Sometimes these guys bite each other when they're trying to move up and gain

hierarchy in the group.

So it could be she has an infection under her skin. We just want to make

that's not going on.

We'll take some x -rays and see what we see.

All I'm seeing is the soft tissue swelling, so I don't think we're dealing

a broken bone, which is good.

Just maybe move it down so I have just the arms in the center of the plate.

Okay. And put them in the, just the 90 degree. Okay. Yep.

Hold.

All right. That's okay. Good. Great. Thanks, Lou.

I'm just looking for symmetry in the two sides and everything looks equally

balanced.

I don't see any obvious orthopedic problems, so I don't think anything's

I'm happy with the x -rays.

We'll wake her up, get her back in the group.

She's already on her way back home, but there's still no medical answer to

explain Salani's problem.

I guess the verdict is there's definitely still a lameness in the left

leg. It seems to be isolated more to the elbow.

Don't know if it's a sprain or if there might be some underlying infection in

the tissues around the elbow. So we're going to leave her on the anti

-inflammatory and put her on some antibiotics, which we gave the first

today, and see how things progress.

While the procedure has taken less than an hour, it could be weeks until this

little meerkat is strong enough to hold her position in the group.

But keepers are hopeful she'll be all right.

Yeah, take her back to be with the group.

One of the most iconic and instantly recognizable animals in Australia is the

koala.

Taronga have a population of 24 koalas, but that number is constantly changing.

So we're really lucky here at Taronga. We have a really successful koala

breeding program.

Right now is a fantastic time to see our joey. So mum here, Wattle, she's a four

-year -old female and she's got little Mateo sitting on her back at the moment.

When Mateo is ready to leave his mum, he'll go into a crate with the other

joeys to learn how to be a koala.

He still piggybacks around on mum when she's walking around and when she sits

still, he'll get on her belly and they'll have a nice little rest

You can see Mateo there awkwardly trying to get onto her back, getting into the

backpack. You're facing the wrong way, buddy.

You never know what they're going to do, but that's certainly not the usual way

to travel.

He looks a little uncomfortable about the whole thing too.

That's it, buddy. Good job.

The one thing you can be sure a koala will do is sleep.

They do sleep 20 hours a day, so that's what you get most of the time when you

see them. And when they're not sleeping, they're eating.

And boy, do they eat.

We're going to go feed Waddle and Mally there, so if you want to grab that.

Follow me.

You're hungry. Do you want some of this?

Every day, koala keeper Laura and her helper Jennifer Swap out the eucalyptus

branches, ensuring the koalas have access to plenty of fresh leaves.

If you look here, this is yesterday's, well, two -day -old food. They've eaten

all the bits they like from it. And so we're going to give them fresh stuff to

make sure they're happy. So we'll take this out here.

Koalas eat around 10 % of their body weight in leaf every day. Now, a leaf

doesn't weigh much, so that's a large volume of leaves you've got to look for.

So the tips of eucalyptus are the soft, sweet, juicy ones. So they're full of

water. They don't need to drink anything. They're getting all their

the leaf. Also, it's much easier to digest this soft little leaf than it is

big hard leaf.

And they're already doing a lot of work on eucalyptus. What she's eating right

now, it's going to process over about the course of a week when she'll finally

poop it out the other end. So whilst it looks like she's really lazy when she's

sleeping, she's doing tons of work. It's just inside and we can't see it.

While the adult koalas eat eucalyptus all day, it's something the joeys have

work themselves up to.

Eucalyptus is toxic to most species, including us.

Koalas, they're really specialised, so they have a completely different

digestive system.

But for Mateo to start eating leaves, he does something a bit gross first.

He actually eats his mum's poo.

It's not just regular poo, though. It's called pap, and it's a really special

mixture that comes from her cecum, and it's full of bacteria.

And that bacteria is important for these guys to be able to digest their leaf.

It's actually part of the process.

But koalas are very picky eaters when it comes to their leaves.

So if you watch her there, she's generally smelling the leaf before

it in her mouth. So their sense of smell is the most important of their senses.

It's how she chooses her food and how she interprets a lot of her environment.

So their eyesight's not thought to be very good.

So you can see there, right up to the nose, yep, that's what I want.

And if it's not what she wants, she'll let it go and discard it.

Despite their quirks, Laura loves working with koalas.

They're interesting.

They're super unique.

They're not like any other animal. Their food source is a challenge. It's always

something to learn.

There are so many varieties of eucalyptus and how the koalas use them.

of an endless fascination to me. And look, we've had babies since the day I

started and you just never get sick of it.

Come on, guys. You know the routine.

Go, go, go, go, go, go. Go, go, go, go, go, go.

Coming over?

It's been a couple of days since Delaney's X -ray, and Keeper Deb has

closely watching the injured meerkat's progress.

So this is Zulani here. We saw Zulani was really lame on her front foot. She

holding it up and wasn't what we call weight -bearing, so wasn't putting it

on the ground to walk as she would normally walk. She was put on a slightly

higher dose than what she was on of pain relief to give her a little chance to

heal, and that has done exactly what we had hoped it would do.

So she's back to her normal self. So today we can see her moving around fine.

She's using it fine. She's digging in the exhibit here.

So, yeah, we're really happy with how it's gone and it means that we don't

to go any further.

The keepers are also happy that a healthy Zulani has been able to hold her

position in the group.

So Zulani will be fine.

Within the group, Zulani is...

Still quite a strong member.

There's still one individual that she did have a falling out with that we do

have to do some introductions back with her. So we're just waiting for the right

moments to start that process. But we're hopeful that with Zulani completely

healed that she'll have that strength and also obviously have the assistance

from her other family members to assert her dominance over the other individual.

We're keeping a very close eye on them. We're doing lots of observations to make

sure everyone's really cohesive.

So that's what we've got to do in the next few weeks.

It's been almost two weeks since the LACE monitor underwent life -saving

surgery. I'm relieved that he's still with us. At the time, I thought it was a

50 -50.

It was a long surgery and his insides were pretty abnormal.

So he's eating everything that's in there. So we just got him on plain meat

the moment with calcium because I don't want him to have any bones.

Yep. Yep. And is he pooing? Yeah, he's pooing really well. Good. Yep, weighing

and pooing. Excellent.

Initial signs are good, but reptiles take longer to heal than mammals.

It's going to take up to six weeks to fully heal.

And as long as he eats and poos and doesn't throw up, then he's just waiting

his wound to heal and then he can go back.

So Gabby's called in reptile keeper Stu to handle this grumpy little goanna.

I'll just go in, I'll grab him by the tail, then restrain him by the head.

like that. Just like that. Without a hitch.

They're very strong, very powerful, a lot of power generated from their tail

their forelimbs.

They're great climbers, so very muscular.

Wow. He's just got one claw on my belt there, so I can't lift him up much

higher. No, no, no. Is that okay? Yeah, look at it.

It looks fantastic.

It's really, it's nothing.

I'm just going to pop some antibiotic ointment. Are you happy for me to do

Yep.

She's quite relaxed.

She's not struggling.

But the wound looks really good. It's not pulled apart. It's not inflamed.

I can't believe it, Gabby. Look at that. Beautiful stitching. Thank you.

What a job. Thank you.

You're a hero. He's an expert healer.

Okay. I'm happy.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Excellent.

Two weeks out, he couldn't be doing better, really. So as long as he just

continues on this trajectory, he'll be going back to raise some more barbecues

in about a month.

I'm just going to put him on this bench.

It's been quite an ordeal for the lace monitor.

There you go, mate.

He's pretty relaxed. That's really good.

And remarkably, despite initially fearing the worst... All signs point to

recovery. Aw, that's great. Look at him, he hasn't moved. He's just soaking up

that warmth.

However, Taronga staff aren't too sure this is the last time they'll meet this

lucky lizard.

He'll go back to West Ted, where he comes from, north of Sydney.

It's a national park there.

Unfortunately, lots of barbecues and people having lots of food there,

viewers. So I don't know whether he's learned his lesson. Probably not.

But anyway, we'll see how he goes.

Sun bears Mary and Mr Hobbs spend a week together in an attempt to produce a

cub.

Pregnancies aren't necessarily an easy thing. There have only been two sun bear

births in Australia, Mary being one of those. So being able to contribute to

that breeding population in Australia would be fantastic, especially with Mr

Hobbs coming from Cambodia and kind of bringing his story full circle would be

incredible.

Today, after three months of waiting, Senior vet Larry has come down to

an ultrasound on Mary.

At this stage of the gestation, the fetus should be large enough for us to

So the guys have trained her incredibly well to be able to facilitate this

examination. It'll be amazing. You'll see how she presents her little belly,

little shaved belly to us.

So she'll be right here. And if she's pregnant, there should be a small fetus

visible.

Gel.

You would think that ultrasounding a sun bear would be an incredibly difficult

thing, but the training that these guys have put into her is phenomenal, and

she's actually really, really compliant with this ultrasound examination.

There she is, beautiful girl.

Don't give her a bit of honey water.

Big girl.

All right.

Give it a few seconds.

All right, Mary.

Yeah.

So we've got Mary here presenting very nicely, presenting the little pre

-prepared shaved area.

And I've just got to get that touching her belly. While everyone is cautiously

optimistic, they're also aware that Mary and Mr Hobbs have been in this position

quite a few times before.

Every time they're together and they mate, we're hopeful that there might be

pregnancy as a result of that, but so far that hasn't actually happened.

We've got a great view of her bladder there.

Nice and full.

She does have a nice full bladder.

You're a good girl.

Yeah, just behind the bladder I can see the horns of the uterus there.

which, sadly,

are empty.

There's no foetus in there at all.

It was not the result keepers and vets were hoping for.

But despite the disappointment, no -one at Taronga is giving up any time soon.

I mean, you know, this is part of the deal. We do our best with our animals to

breed them, but there's often things that are beyond our control.

No baby.

No. For the next time, Heather.

You did really good.

Yeah, she's amazing.

Good job.

We don't have a little baby in there, so it's sad.

It's my first time here with Mary going through this process, so I was

definitely fingers crossed, fingers crossed, toes crossed, hoping to pop the

bottle of champagne, but that's all right. We'll keep going. We'll keep her

happy and try again next time.

That was good fun. Yeah.

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