Original subtitles

World -famous Sydney Harbour is home to some of Australia's most well -known and

cherished landmarks and one of the world's most iconic zoos,

Taronga.

But never before in its 104 -year history has it ever faced a year with as

monumental challenges.

She doesn't have a heartbeat anymore.

First, it created a $60 million African savannah right here on the harbor's

edge. Nearly home, mate.

Now, it must move these majestic... That's a boy.

...but temperamental tenants into their new home.

Oh, it's so good! Everyone stand as far apart as possible.

And it must do all this.

Hamstrung by the restrictions of the COVID -19 pandemic.

It's really hard to see because I'm fucking up.

But the teams across both of Taronga zoos meet every challenge head on.

Two feet up now.

After all, they have 5 ,000 animals to care for.

Birthdays to celebrate.

and babies to welcome.

And our cameras are there every step of the way.

On this episode... Reproductively, she's in her prime at the moment. Naomi

struggled to become a mum. She seems to really want to be a mother.

She's tried and failed before. She has had two births, but unfortunately they

were both stillborn.

Is this the moment all of Taronga have been waiting for? I'm wondering what's

Larry saying.

After six months of fasting... Might have just come up to grab something for

Rach. Rachel makes an absolute pig of herself.

She's absolutely going to smash that.

And get ready for takeoff. Learning up the platform.

As baby Marley learned to fly.

Good boy.

Well, glide actually.

So he's able to catch the wind and glide between different trees.

People come to zoos to marvel at the weird and wonderful animals that make up

our natural world.

But when you visit Taronga Zoo in Sydney, one of the first exhibits you

is full of animals that are a lot closer to humans than you think.

Chimpanzees share 99 % of our DNA.

making them our closest living relative.

We've got a nice big group of chimps here at Taronga. We've got 21 chimps in

community all up.

They're actually one of the largest and most successful groups of chimpanzees in

zoos anywhere in the world.

Over the years we've had a lot of babies grow up in the community and they've

been sent to zoos all over the world.

But it's a two -way journey, with Taronga Zoo receiving chimps as well.

And Naomi is one of them.

She's just come into our community two years ago. We brought her over here from

a zoo in Denmark.

She's 17 years old, so she's still quite young.

Females in zoos can live into their 60s. So I guess reproductively, she's in her

prime. Naomi came to Taronga with her sister, Therese, who has since given

to new baby, the belly.

Sadly... Naomi hasn't been as lucky.

Unfortunately, Naomi has had some struggles.

She has had two births, but they were both stillborn.

She's showed a lot of maternal instinct with those stillborns, so she seems to

really want to be a mother. So we're trying to do as much as we can to help

along with the process.

Liz, can you hold that?

Last year, the zoo brought in some specialist help to see if they could

exactly what was going on with Naomi.

I'm an obstetrician and I deal with humans.

It's a little bit different, but it should be interesting. A new experience,

basically. The team conducted a range of tests that they would normally do on

humans.

Initially, everything seemed normal.

Oh, beautiful.

That is gorgeous. Look at that.

Oh yeah, that's beautiful, yeah.

But a few weeks later, the pathology results came back.

Naomi's record up here.

Naomi's placenta had an abnormality.

There was one antibody that they checked which was positive, something that is

related to risk of blood clotting.

At last, the team have an answer as to why Naomi has never had a successful

pregnancy. And so that the calcium improves that and the aspirin improves

So armed with that knowledge, they set back on the path of helping Naomi to

become a mum.

Ultrasound obviously would be a valuable tool in monitoring her, so...

Can that be done? Do you think we could achieve that?

I would say that the scanning that we're going to be doing would be through

training. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

We can have her trained to sort of stand and stretch her belly up.

Yeah.

Only problem is, the plan they're hatching has never been attempted before

Taronga.

There are two sides to the world at each of Taronga zoos.

One world faces the public and is a wonderful way for visitors to get up

and personal with thousands of animals.

The other world is hidden behind the walkways and exhibits.

Here, hundreds of people work side by side, making sure every animal at

gets the best care possible.

There's the team doing the dirty work to ensure animal environments are in

pristine condition.

So we're just going to get the paddock nice and neat and tidy for them and then

they're going to come through and chop back all this long grass for us.

Teams of keepers making sure the marine animals have only the freshest water to

swim in.

Just confirming we're all good to fill the penguin exhibit whenever you're

ready.

People think it's all just playing with animals and stuff like that, but no,

unfortunately, it's a messy job as well.

And there are departments devoted entirely to preserving species facing

extinction in the wild.

The loss of the devil from the Tasmanian ecosystem would have a devastating

impact.

You're right, buddy, you're nearly home.

But despite the massive amount of work that goes into keeping Taronga

I think normal training routine, people go down the stairs and everyone else

stay out of view.

When it comes to one of the most important jobs at the zoo, it all falls

shoulders of just one dedicated woman.

I'm Michelle. I'm the zoo and wildlife nutritionist here at Taronga, so I take

care of all of the menus for the 5 ,000 different animals that are across

Taronga Zoo and Taronga Western Plain Zoo.

I check off the root basket while I'm at it.

And with more than 350 species represented at Taronga, Michelle is one

lady.

Here at the zoo we feed so many different varieties of things.

Some of the things that we get you might find at your local grocery store. You

know, some of the supplements that we use, some of the different products that

we get from even your livestock supply stores.

We have haze and fruits and vegetables. We feed insects. Some of those are grown

on site.

This trolley is full of beetle, are they?

Most of these are going to our birds. As well as different plants. We have a

huge horticulture department that helps to collect plants every day for some of

our animals.

And we bring in different varieties. Some of them are native to Australia and

some of them are exotic. So they're from plants from all over the world.

Michelle is the only zoo nutritionist in Australia.

So not only does she have to be across what food comes into the zoo, but also

what animal needs to eat it.

Every animal at the zoo has different needs. These, for example, are baskets

that are going to our bird department. Our bird department has over 120

and they all have different needs. Some of them are herbivores, some of them are

carnivores.

animals with different digestive systems, some animals that might need to

multiple times a day, like a herbivore who needs to keep its belly full in

to have good digestive function.

But then we have animals like reptiles that might not eat for six months of a

year, perhaps.

And we still have to watch their weight, because six months may be too soon. So

we might have to look at them and check their body condition, and maybe we wait

another month before we feed that big snake.

And we have to cater to each and every...

Whether it be the biggest elephant that's five tons to the smallest

insect that we might be feeding as well.

And today, Chef Michelle has added crickets to the menu that reptile keeper

Delvina will be serving up to these funky little frogs.

Hi.

We're going to feed you again.

Do you want to eat?

So these are a couple of our white -lipped tree frogs as very voracious

Sometimes they try and eat each other. There we go.

They're excited for feeding time.

They don't actually swallow properly like we do. They use their eyeballs to

push down the food.

See the way it's linking down?

While these crickets look appetizing, Sometimes the frogs can get carried

No, don't do it.

You guys are horrible.

So anything that moves in front of them, they're going to try and eat.

This happens a lot, and if it's not on my face, it's usually my fingers.

It doesn't hurt at all. It just kind of feels... I can't describe the feeling,

actually. They're very soft inside, though. But you can see that he's trying

really, really hard.

Let's get you off gently.

Let go.

Let go.

They're tough little buggers. Thank you.

No.

Thank you.

A little bit slimy as well.

We feed our reptiles and amphibians every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And

that's because they're not like us.

like mammals or birds, they don't need to eat as much as we do because their

metabolism is so much more different to ours. So for us, we exert a lot of

energy. That means we need to take a lot of energy inside as well. So it's all

about input -output. For these guys, they're a little bit slower, especially

reptiles. They don't need to move as much, which means that they don't need

eat as much either.

Very good. While these greedy guts must wait another two days before they eat

again... Hey, thank you, frog.

Our next diner has already been waiting a week.

So today's a good day for Gracie Lou.

And she is famished. In that cricket, she gets all the nutrition she needs for

whole week. So obviously it's a very exciting day for her.

Bon appétit, Gracie Lou.

After discovering why chimpanzee Naomi has only ever given birth to stillborn

babies... Let me just get Naomi's record up here. Taronga's team has quickly

addressed the problem with a new medication routine.

The calcium improves that and the aspirin improves that.

She's showed us that she really wants to be a mum and not only that, genetically

she's so important to our group. We haven't had new genetics in this

for 25 years.

Do you mind if we just go dark for a moment just so I get my bearings?

Ultrasounds are essential to monitor a baby's health during any pregnancy.

Yeah, you'd think the uterus would just jump out.

With chimpanzees, this usually involves anaesthetising the expectant mum.

Oh, beautiful.

That is gorgeous. Look at that.

But because of Naomi's damaged placenta, the team want to avoid this and try a

different approach for her. A first for Turonga.

By using this rod and training her to participate in the ultrasound, we'll be

able to ultrasound her while she's still conscious.

That means we won't have to give her a general anaesthetic, take her out of the

group, take her all the way down to the vet hospital, so it's a lot less

stressful on anyone.

So it's a three -point plan.

Put Naomi on the pill, train her to allow an ultrasound while awake, then

take her off the pill, and have a baby.

If we can do this, it will be so much better for Naomi, for us, for the vets,

for everyone.

The training is really challenging.

We don't take Naomi out of the group for the training at all. So I've got 20

chimps wandering around that might want to get involved.

I really have to read the behaviour of the group before I start a session as

well.

And because Katie knows the chimp so well... Are you a bit excited?

..she starts simply, getting Naomi Youth to the new sensation.

That's good.

No, hand up, please.

I train Naomi to put her hands up so they're completely away from the probe

she can't grab it easily.

Hand up, please.

This is an old ultrasound probe. It doesn't work anymore.

Vet team have lent it to me because it doesn't matter if Naomi grabs this off

me.

Are you ready?

Good girl.

I've been getting her used to... Put your hand up, please. ...me putting this

her tummy and applying pressure.

Now your hand.

Good girl. And then getting her to let me hold it there for a while.

I need to be able to get her to hold her tummy up for, you know, about 20

minutes. So that's a really big ask for a tip.

As each month passes, Katie introduces new steps during the session.

The other thing I have to get her used to is this gel.

That so far has been the hardest. She really doesn't like having that gel put

her tummy.

You're doing good. It's okay.

To get her to tolerate the gel, I needed to use something that was super yummy.

Naomi has a really healthy diet normally, but this is a pretty big ask,

this put on her. So I had to pay her accordingly.

So we gave her a biscuit.

Straight away, she saw the biscuit and went, OK, you can do whatever you want.

Good.

Before we started, I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but she just

learning. She loves those training sessions, and she picks things up really

quickly. She's a really intelligent chimp.

Once I started working with her a little bit, I was pretty excited.

I thought, yeah, we can do it.

With Naomi's training going so well, keepers are thinking about moving to the

last phase, taking her off the pill.

But maybe nature is one step ahead of them.

She's very popular with the boys.

And just recently I've been noticing her tummy's growing a little bit. Now, we

really want to know what's going on. We want to know if it's just her putting on

weight from eating too much food or if there is a baby in there.

At Taronga, every animal needs to be fed.

Every elephant, every seal, every bird,

even a spider, they all need to be fed.

Think about it, even the tiny, tiny animals, we need to find food and make

we're giving them the right diet.

Feed day today for Gracie Lou, she only gets fed once a week.

In the wild, huntsmen are eating or preying upon insects and invertebrates.

So Grace is getting a cricket today that's right in that sweet spot. She's

absolutely going to love that. It's a big bundle of protein and carbohydrates

and energy.

Really good little meal for a huntsman spider.

And what I expect to happen is that it might take a second, but she should

pretty much pounce, almost pounce on the cricket. Huntsmen are really active

predators.

She took that from my hand.

That was so fast.

So Gracie Lou has got that cricket and she's holding it with pedipalps, which

are almost like little arms, but then she's actually chewing it with what's

called chelicerae. It's just a fancy term for spider teeth, but spiders don't

chew up and down like we do. They actually chew side to side. So she's

pedipalps to manipulate that cricket into place while those chelicerae open

closed from side to side.

And while spiders have a bad reputation in Australia, the huntsmen actually

perform a very important role, one we often take for granted.

They eat invertebrates. So for us, they control things like flies and mosquitoes

and cockroaches. You know, the things that in our house we tend to call pests,

something like a huntsman, they control those population numbers, so they're

really important for their ecosystem.

In fact...

Huntsmen are like the perfect roommate.

Not only do they help out around the house, but they also clean up after

themselves as well.

She's going to eat it quite slowly and quite deliberately.

And then afterwards, she'll use those hands to groom herself and make sure

she's perfectly clean. So really clean animals, huntsman spiders, really,

clean.

This is all she eats in a week, so she's going to eat this, and then that's

enough nutrition, enough energy for her to go the week. She'll probably be a

little bit slower, a little bit calmer than usual for the next day or so while

she's digesting that meal, and then she's good to go for another six days.

Bon appétit, Gracie Lou.

Well, Gracie Lou now has another week before her next feed.

Our next diner has been waiting considerably longer.

Morning, guys.

Hey, Stu, how you going, mate? How are you? Yeah, good, thanks. Mate, I've just

come up to grab something for Rach.

Perfect timing. Yeah, let's go.

Look, it's warming up now, so I'm going to want to grab something pretty big for

her. Yeah.

We should have something in here.

Yeah, great. Let's have a look.

Rachel hasn't eaten in six months, so Keeper Stu has made a trip to the cold

room to get something extra special for her next meal.

and it need to be perfect.

These here, right? Yeah, we've got a few options.

What have we got here?

No, they're too small.

That's for a crocodile, alligator, something like that.

Here we go.

That's all you want, jackpot, mate. Yep, I reckon that's 10, 12 kilos.

Let's go. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot, folks. See you.

So we're going to take this into the warmest building we've got in the

house.

So that'll defrost nicely, get that up to about room temperature, and she's

absolutely going to smash that.

Every year, Taronga Zoo rehabilitates hundreds of wild animals.

If you remember, the head wound was quite open.

It was a big, gashing open head wound, and that healed really nicely.

They care for them. That's impressive, isn't it? That's probably where the neck

was caught.

And treat them for as long as it takes. We've taken feces, we've taken blood,

and everything is A -OK.

Until they're fit enough to be returned to the wild once more.

Oh!

Straight under the boat!

Are you ready?

But not all animals that come to Taronga will be able to leave.

This is Marley. He's a sugar glider, which is a small marsupial native to

Australia. They love sugar, so anything sweet that they can get their hands on.

Think of nectar and pollen from flowers and things like grevilleas.

Marley came to the zoo with his injured mother.

Mum unfortunately did not survive and so Marley was brought up to us.

I was very lucky to be able to take him home and I had him at home for about

three months and then he came to live here at the zoo.

He can't go back into the wild and that's because of that rough start that

had at the beginning. He doesn't have the same sort of survival skills that he

would have developed learning from his family group and so he's much safer here

than he would be out in the wild.

Hang on, buddy.

But Marley has to learn those skills somewhere.

Come down here.

And that's where Taronga's keepers, like Susie, come in.

Today with Marley, we're working on a new behaviour and we're actually

him to glide on cue.

Lining up the platform.

It's all about... Good boy.

It's all about trust for him.

So he's a very good boy and it's all about building that rapport.

We'll try for another one, buddy.

He has a membrane between his front and back legs. When he stretches his arms

out, it's like a square between all four limbs. So he's able to use that surface

area to catch the wind and glide between different trees.

Sometimes he just needs to reset his position, get a bit of a run -up.

You know, if they're trying to evade a predator, maybe an owl or another bird

prey, they're able to take a big leap and evade that predator.

I forget.

Good boy.

But small animals have equally small attention spans.

What are you looking at?

I'm done, buddy.

You want to go back to bed?

Well, that's enough training for this lesson.

I think that's all your gliding for today.

Susie will be back with Marley to give it another go tomorrow.

Marley is doing incredible. I'm so happy. He's such an awesome animal to

with. He's very motivated.

Every little step that we take, he's just hitting those targets.

He's doing really, really well, so I'm so happy with him.

Nice and warm in your pouch.

It's been a year now since chimp Naomi began her ultrasound training.

She's learned so well, the team were about to stop her contraception, but now

looks like there's no need.

Just recently I've been noticing her tummy's growing a little bit.

Which is concerning, given Naomi's history.

She's gotten pregnant, and then when she's been close to delivering, the baby

has died.

One of them died a number of weeks before she was two.

Both of them were stillborn and they were small as well.

For an important breeding female, it's not good news.

Naomi really wants a baby. She's shown a lot of maternal instincts.

She's got a little niece in here, little Sibeli, and she loves looking after

her. So for her to have her own baby would be amazing. We actually brought

here to be part of our breeding program. So it's really important, not only for

her as an individual, but also for the bigger picture as well.

With Naomi looking more and more pregnant every day, it's time to put all

training to the test.

It's a big ask of Naomi, but I think she's ready.

Today, Larry is preparing the ultrasound equipment to perform the procedure for

real.

She's been really well trained. We can only use this quite small one because

it's got to fit between the mesh. And let's hope that she doesn't grab it and

destroy it because there's about $5 ,000 worth of equipment just here in my

hand.

It'd be great news if she is pregnant, and obviously just diagnosing the

pregnancy doesn't mean necessarily we're going to have a successful birth, but

we've managed her a little bit differently this time, and hopefully,

it will be successful.

Okay.

Hey, sweetie.

Look at all this.

There you are.

You know what's going on.

After a year of training... All right.

Hello, beautiful.

It's finally time.

This is an incredible milestone for us at the zoo because never have we

previously been able to ultrasound an awake chimp.

OK, are we ready now? Yeah.

OK.

Can you put your hand up?

Where is this?

Hand up.

Naomi.

Hand up.

Good.

Naomi, touch.

Good girl.

This time I had to be super focused because I've got the real ultrasound

now.

We've got 20 other chimps to keep our eyes on as well.

It's not just Naomi's hands that can come down and grab that probe. There can

hands coming from all different directions.

Naomi was a little bit more annoyed than normal.

Being so tolerant.

Naomi's so clever. As soon as I turn my head away, her hands, you know, come

down so she can get really close to that probe. So I need to stay 100 % focused.

But I'm always wondering, hang on, what's Larry saying? What's going on

It's so tempting to turn around and have a look.

Once the probe is on, the results are clear.

Wow. I could see that there was something in there.

Okay, just move around a little bit, Katie.

I can see a little heart beating there. Oh, wow.

That's incredible.

It took a while to register what that actually meant.

We very quickly discovered that there's quite a well -developed fetus inside

there. So that's a surprise.

Yeah. Yeah.

What a great success for the pill in these guys.

Naomi doesn't like to follow the rule book, does she? No, no rules.

And there's the evidence. Head of the fetus, got the placenta there.

It's been a nice surprise for the team.

To be honest, much more advanced than certainly I was expecting.

But there's a bigger one to come.

Naomi just crouched down over there and before our very eyes, she had a baby.

Feeding time at the zoo is exciting for the animals.

And today, for the first time in six months, it's Rachel's turn.

While her meal soars, reptile keeper Stu checks in on one of his favourite

snakes. Okay.

So in here we have Rachel, our reticulated python.

The reticulated python is the world's largest snake.

And Rachel has been here for over 13 years.

She's a class of the class one dangerous animal. And that's why we have this

shield here.

Personal protective equipment.

The old trusty shield.

Come on, sweetheart.

All right.

So just give her a bit of a pat.

She is alert because we can see her tongue going.

This time of the day it's nice and warm in this enclosure. It's really humid.

So the name reticulated actually refers to the pattern that is all along the

snake. So the fact that it's reticulated means that it's a reoccurring pattern.

It's a similar pattern which goes over itself again and again and again.

There are species which is found in Southeast Asia.

They love the rainforest, the high humidity.

They love water. One of the main reasons they like water is because they're such

a large, heavy -bodied animal.

Spending time in water, it sort of supports them, gives them that buoyancy

the water.

So everyone hears about venomous snakes and how dangerous venomous snakes are

and they sort of think, oh, pythons are non -venomous so they can't hurt you.

OK, this snake doesn't make you sick, but it may want to eat you. They can

to a size where they can eat 100 % of their own body weight. So if we consider

that this snake is now 60 kilos, she'll eat 60 kilos if she wanted to.

Now, I'm only about 80 kilos, so I reckon I've got about three or four

before she would start to look at me as a potential food source.

And while Rachel may look big now, she actually still has a long way to go

before she's full five.

She's approximately 60 kilos and she's five and a half metres.

So she's still got a fair bit of growing to do. I mean, at this size, she is

regarded as a very dangerous animal. She has the highest ranking of dangerous

animals in the zoo.

Now, the main reasons are they're a constricting snake. They don't use

They use their extremely muscular, powerful body. This snake is a backbone,

hundreds of ribs, and then just muscles.

So she has probably close to 100 teeth.

Each tooth would be 10 millimetres long, maybe even longer. So it gets a good

grip on an animal. You get a good grip on the muscle and the tissue of the

animal. And then she wraps around and asphyxiates.

So where these guys are found out in the wild, they would be taking on large

animals like pigs, even large deer with large horns or large antelopes.

They don't want to waste any energy on eating small items.

They want to eat that one big item.

several times a year, and that's it. And that's similar to what we do here at

the zoo. We will only feed her potentially four or five food items in

but each food item is a minimum of 30 kilos.

No surprise then that when he works with an animal as dangerous as Rachel, Jew

must be constantly alert for the slightest sign that her patient is

thin. It can be a pupil dilating.

It could be how often the tongue is flicking. It might be the tail is

just doesn't like your presence in its home. So we're always looking for those

little cues that the animal will give us to let us know, hey, we should probably

leave this area now or finish whatever job we're doing and get out of their

territory. And considering she hasn't eaten in almost half a year, get out of

territory is exactly what she's thinking.

So she, I'm not exactly sure what happened there. She had a closed mouth.

So there's a couple of things. She may have picked up on a smell. She may have

seen a reflection off the glass, and just that movement is what invoked her

go.

But now that that's happened once, I think that we should leave because she,

yeah, she's a potentially, if she bites one of us, it's not going to be a good

time. The last thing I would want to do is annoy her or stress her.

That's going to be not great for her, and it could be potentially dangerous

me.

The final step is to make sure the door is locked before he leaves the python

exhibit.

Until he opens it tomorrow, when Rachel will finally eat again.

So as low as you can go.

Naomi's ultrasound confirmed her pregnancy.

I can see a little heart beating there.

But the zoo were blindsided by the fact that she's already been pregnant for

eight months.

It is really, really exciting, quite emotional and quite nerve -wracking as

well. Still worrying about what if something goes wrong, you know, because

seen what's happened in the past.

But Naomi is about to add to that worry and blindside everyone for a second

time. by giving birth on exhibit.

I was actually in the middle of another procedure and as soon as I heard I just

ran up here to have a look. The baby was still attached to the placenta.

The umbilical cord was going from the baby to the placenta which Naomi was

carrying. And with no visible movement, keepers and vets are fearful.

that she may have given birth to another stillborn.

We've been very anxious about this birth. She actually nursed those two

babies for several days and we can see already she's just protecting that

baby like there's nothing more important in the world.

So we're still cautious about making a prediction that the baby's going to be

absolutely fine. The next few days are really going to be telling.

Today is a very special day for reticulated python, Rachel.

Okay, yep, nice and defrosted.

It's come up to room temperature, so it's going to be perfect to feed out to

Rach now.

Rachel has smelt that pig all morning.

Now that she's in her food mode, she's not really calm and collected.

She's, I want to eat, I'm going to grab a hold of the first thing that I see and

move in my enclosure.

And hopefully that's the pig, not me.

So what I was hoping is that she'd come down into the pond, which I don't think

will take much.

Tickle, tickle.

Just watch she doesn't go to the door. If she goes to the door, you can close

it. I will. Don't worry about you.

This is a dangerous animal and we take many precautions. I've got a second

zookeeper here with me to be as my backup, as my safety, in case anything

wrong.

And just as well because this is one hungry snake.

She thinks that she has to now kill this animal. She doesn't know that that pig

was dead.

So grab it on the face or on the head, wrap around the chest and the upper

and what you'll see, these tight constrictions. And she's squeezing

tighter, and that is putting extreme pressure on the animal's chest and upper

body. The last thing she wants is to grab an animal, start swallowing it. It

scratch her. It can bite her. It can injure her in some way.

It's not putting up any sort of a fight. So now she just repositions where her

mouth is.

to get exactly around the snout, and that's where she's going to start to

consume it.

They always want to eat it head first, and that's so shoulders are normally the

broadest part of an animal, going down.

So now that she's grabbed a hold of that head, you can see the first part of her

neck, that's only about six or seven inches in circumference. That is now

to extend.

to over 50 inches to get around the chest of that pig.

What you'll actually notice here, you might see a little bit of pink tissue

sticking out of the bottom of her jaw.

That's actually her windpipe.

So she will throw her windpipe external of her throat so she can continue to

breathe while that pig is going down. And you'll see every now and then, she's

just taking a bit of a breath, a bit of a breath.

A big python like this can open the top and bottom jaw 180 degrees.

Pretty much she could bite this glass pane flat. The bottom jaw, they do have

rigid bone, but it's just connected by the skin.

Two bones on either side, that opens up, and they just walk the food down into

their belly.

It's taken Rachel hours to get to this point, where all that's left is one

little mothball.

that she doesn't even want.

The only part of that pig that won't get digested are the nail or the hooves and

the hair. I'll just find clumps of that in her excrement over the next couple of

weeks. So thank you, Rachel.

So this was a great feed. This was a very successful feed. Nothing went

not that it ever does, but it's always a great feed when she grabs it straight

away, she doesn't muck around, and she just starts swallowing it immediately.

So the whole thing was done in sort of two and a half hours.

Very, very efficient feed.

The next one.

Chimp Naomi has unexpectedly given birth on exhibit in the middle of the day.

The first thing we could see was Naomi being very secretive, holding on to the

baby and, you know, a bit of blood and the placenta and the umbilical cord, you

know, the whole work.

In her last two pregnancies, giving birth wasn't the problem for Naomi.

It was the fact they were stillborn.

She actually nursed those two dead babies for several days.

So the team are looking for any glimpse that this one's alive.

And there it is. It was just so wonderful to see those little fingers

little toes moving, and confirm that it was indeed alive.

It's gripping onto Naomi's fur and is looking great.

Confirming that that baby was alive was just a fantastic first step.

Another baby. Naomi just crouched down over there and before our very eyes,

she had a baby. That's just unbelievable, unbelievable.

And it takes no time for the news of the birth to spread across the zoo.

We were in a meeting, actually, and we got a radio call from the keepers saying

she's given birth.

Of course she's given birth in the middle of school holidays with billions

people around in the middle of the day. It's a real treat for our guests today

to see one of our children giving birth. It's certainly not an everyday

occurrence.

And it's not only visitors and keepers that are keen to catch a glimpse of the

new arrival.

So whenever a baby's born into the group, there's always a lot of interest.

They will follow her around. They just want to see. They want to see what's

happening. They want to have a sniff.

Some of them will have a little poke or a little lick even.

And despite it being her day off, Keeper Katie, who embarked on this journey

with Naomi a year ago, can't resist coming in to see the newborn.

So excited.

Can't wait to see it.

Nervous as well.

Naomi's a really special chimp for me. We're not supposed to have our

favourites, but we do. Just like with people, you get along really well with

some and not as well with others.

Despite the recent birth, the team have still decided to go ahead with their

normal training session. What's going on? In the hope that keepers can get

first close -up look at her baby.

Well done, beautiful girl.

Naomi came over for the session. She's always happy to come over and get food,

but she didn't want to put her tummy up to the mesh today because she's being

super protective of that baby.

She hides it well, doesn't she? From my angle, I could see the back of its head.

Can you see your bubba? And its little ears.

So, so cute. She's cleaned it up perfectly.

Can you put your hand up? Good girl.

Good girl.

Baby's clinging nice and tight to mum, so it's nice and strong.

And baby's mouth is nice and pink and hands and feet are a nice dark pink

colour, which is exactly what we want.

It's like it's a good sign.

Very emotional for me, yeah.

Yeah.

It means...

So much for her.

She's wanted a baby for a long time and we can see already she's being an

amazing mother.

A week after the birth and the newborn is doing well and keepers have even had

the opportunity to find out if it's a boy or girl.

The baby's a little girl, which is exactly what we wanted. So that really

us to continue those genetics into our group, but even better.

The baby is doing really well. She's thriving.

She's feeding really well. We've seen lots of suckling. She's looking really

strong and she's becoming quite alert.

Nan is incredibly proud and she's just starting to let some other members of

community meet the baby for the first time.

We've seen a few of our boys spending a lot of time with Naomi grooming her, so

that's a social bonding thing. And we've got a few juvenile boys in the group,

so if they're too rough around Naomi, the big boys will step in and discipline

them and put them in their place.

For her too, this will help her position in the group.

It always helps to raise their status in the community.

This will make her feel quite important, which is really good as well. To

finally have a healthy baby for her to look after is just massive.

And in a fitting end to this historic journey, Dr Paul Fowler has been given

honour of choosing a name for the baby.

The little Niambi, which is Swahili for Melody, is now the latest addition to

Taronga's ever -growing and extremely important chimpanzee family.

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