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, if at first you don't succeed... There's nothing there. ...try

again as the team cross their fingers for a new batch of little penguins. Bit

poo, but no net.

Elephants won.

Ice flocks none.

The elephants absolutely love their ice flocks. As Australia swelters under

record temperatures, keep a search for new ways to beat the heat. A great treat

on a 40 degree day.

And Project Platypus.

We just have been anticipating this for so long. Taronga attempts to create

history by successfully exporting a platypus to America.

Getting a platypus isn't just like getting a new tiger from another zoo or

shipping a bongo. A platypus is a totally unique creature.

Running a zoo of Taronga's size and animal diversity takes hundreds of

working around the clock.

Some animals are active during the day, others are awake at night, and it's a

never -ending job keeping all of them fed.

And for the marine team, that means starting every day at 6am.

We're arriving at our office to get all of our gear ready to start our day.

grab all our boots, radios and gear, get ready to check the diary to see if

there's any updates for us and head over towards our fish kitchen where we're

going to prepare all the food for today for our marine mammal.

For every animal at Taronga, the food is always of the highest quality.

We separate all of our fish and seafood in species.

We basically have sorted out overnight, but this just allows it to get a little

bit more defrosted for us to work with. Most of this fish is used for the seals,

but also some for our pelicans and penguins.

But there's more to keeping animals healthy than just giving them the right

food.

Now what I'm doing is actually preparing to put the vitamins for all the animals

into their fish. So these ones are for our marine birds. So penguins and

pelicans get these small ones.

And these larger ones are made for our seals. And they're just a multivitamin.

And then all we do is we just slide the vitamin in underneath the gill of the

fish so that the fish doesn't look like anything's different. And then we just

put it to the side so that we know that that's for those animals.

Let's do it.

All right, we'll be back.

Yeah, so this is just half of the buckets that we're delivering today.

These are all going up to our field theatre and we have other buckets to

around the section later on.

Prepping the food is just the first part of a busy day.

Good morning, buddy.

With more than 20 keepers in the Marine Department, making sure everyone knows

their role each day is crucial.

Got no Jo to see our volley today. She's still off with that feral cat fight.

Feral cat fight? Yeah.

Jo and Mel's doors time.

I wrote down 11 .30.

Dubbo keepers are coming for a behind the scenes between 11 and 12.

Crystal's little penguin burrow checks this morning.

You guys want to talk about it? That's it? Okay.

All good?

Okay,

so let's head on up and...

Check the burrows.

Today, Keeper Crystal is learning how to check the little penguin burrow for

eggs.

Hi, guys.

So we have minimal disturbance.

We'll get Pani and Liv to feed the majority of the group while we do the

checks. That means there should be at least one parent out of the boxes so

there's less disturbance. I don't know what we're doing. Oh, they're eating.

Taronga breeds little penguins to share them with other facilities, ensuring

captive penguin population are genetically diverse.

Hey, let's head on in.

We have to be really careful when we're doing the burrow checks.

They're very flighty little birds.

If they feel threatened at all, they're just going to leave their burrows, and

we obviously don't want them to abandon their eggs, so we want to give minimal

disturbance.

So far, the penguin breeding season hasn't produced many eggs.

Okay, so we'll check burrow two.

Lindsay is hoping Crystal brings a bit of luck to this nest check. Okay, so

we've got a parent there.

Have a little look underneath.

Away from the gorillas, sea lions, giraffes and other high -profile

Keeper Paul has spent 30 years working on one of Taronga's more peculiar

collections. This is one of the areas where we keep all of our off -display

invertebrates, what most people probably think of as bugs.

But the real sort of, I guess, definition of it is an animal that

backbone. We've got far more species of invertebrate than there are anything

else on the planet. And in here we've got all sorts of different animals.

got some redback spiders, we've got plenty of handsome spiders.

They're great. Love having huntsman spiders around the house. They're

Then around here, we've got our baby phasmids, what people think of as stick

insects. So what we do is we hatch them out here, grow them up so they're a bit

bigger, and then we can put them on display.

Very, very cool indeed.

But a lot of growing left to do on this little one.

But where some people see squashable, creepy crawlies... This is what I really

love. So wait for this.

Check this out.

Paul only sees beautiful creatures.

Have a look at this little beauty.

This is a giant barren cockroach. This one's a male.

And I can tell he's a male because he's got this little tiny sort of scoop there

on top of his carapace there.

These cockroaches give birth to live young.

They only give birth once a year.

And the female will actually look after the young part to about a year.

So it's a cockroach that actually has a motherly instinct.

But the prized invertebrate in his collection is the world's most venomous

spider. The Sydney funnel web.

Funnels are definitely an animal that sort of get me in because a lot of

invertebrates have this real sort of negative association for a lot of

But I'd never pick one up in my hand because the world would be perfect.

just stupid. I'm aware of the danger there.

But rather than a fear for me, I'd say it's probably more a healthy respect for

them. That's probably a better way to put it.

And like all animals at Taronga, invertebrates are also entitled to

And Paul has noticed that one of his new arrivals isn't looking so good.

She's going to be uncooperative.

The question is, how do you treat a thick funnel -web spider?

Australia has some of the most distinct wildlife on Earth.

You can see he's really starting on the leaves now nicely, really tackling the

big ones.

Without doubt, one of the most unique is the platypus.

Platypus are native to the East Coast rivers of Australia.

And while they're common in Australian zoos, not one platypus exists outside of

Australia. But that may soon change.

Taronga is planning to send a male and female platypus overseas.

If the pair successfully breed, they'd be creating history.

They have historically been very, very tricky animals to work with and

transport. There's an interesting story where during the Second World War,

actually, Winston Churchill requested a platypus be sent to the UK.

It died before it actually got there. So there is a bit of anxiety.

For us to be involved with this is very significant.

And the lucky recipients of two of Taronga's platypus will be the world

-renowned... San Diego Zoo.

We've been working on this project for quite a long time and we just have been

anticipating this for so long.

Keepers Laurie and Savannah have just arrived from San Diego to learn all they

can about this Aussie icon.

We're very excited to be here and can't wait to actually be able to transport

him to his new home.

They won't have to wait too long because the platypus are scheduled to leave for

the United States in just two weeks.

Well, at the moment over here, we've got two on display and two off display.

OK. And there's a lot of learning to be done in that time.

OK, so in here we have our female.

Come on up.

We've, you know, done everything we can on the other side of the world as far as

reading and researching, but there's nothing that comes close to being here

person and being able to work with the keepers that know so much about them.

would never handle any other platypus like this.

A, she's a girl, so she doesn't have the spur, but she is somewhat special. She

was hand -raised.

She came in after a really rough start to life.

She was attacked by a dog when she was a baby and came into the zoo as an orphan

and was the first platypus ever hand -raised, to my knowledge. So we had no

what we were doing, but you are fed up with being held at the moment, aren't

you? So we'll put you back down here.

And we'll open this door so you can go to work.

Off you go, little one.

Come on up. Okay.

The male platypus that San Diego Zoo is receiving is young Birra. So we've got

Birra in here, and he's a really feisty little platypus.

You can see the way he's wriggling around in here.

He's an excitable little brat.

But males have venomous spurs on their heels.

and one mistake could mean a world of pain for the handler.

Like anything that you're working with, it has the potential to do you harm.

There are good ways of learning and bad ways, and make sure you don't get

spurred.

Okay, one platypus.

So I'll show you quickly before we bag him. You can see the spurs on the inside

of the back legs there. They're folded up against the femur.

That's the bit you're really watching out for.

Let it slide a little bit more. That's it. A nice deep pocket and straight into

the bag.

Beautiful. We now have one safely contained platypus.

You've been here for quite a while.

25 years tomorrow. Oh, my goodness. Happy anniversary.

Yeah. I wish I could absorb all of your knowledge and experience working with

the platypus.

Rob's decades of experience make it look easy.

There he is.

But Laurie and Savannah have just two weeks to master his secret.

It's breeding season at Taronga for the little penguins, and Keeper Crystal is

joining Lindsay to learn how to check their burrows for newborns. Okay, so

checking for chicks in this one.

After a slow start to the season, they're hoping that today they finally

some eggs. Okay, so we'll check burrow two.

I don't think there was any activity in this.

OK, there's a nest in there, but, yeah, no penguins.

It's not the start that they were hoping for, but with 14 other nesting boxes,

there's still plenty of chances for success.

No, bit of poo, but no nest.

So what was happening in this last week?

So just really good nest. We know that there is a pair in there, Chomp and

Drill. Chomp and Drill. So no eggs have been sighted as of yet. Okay, so there's

potential for eggs in this one. Yeah. Because we've got a pairing.

So we'll duck in our book.

Well, no. So no one in there. That's a great nest.

But, yep, no parents, no eggs.

For the keepers... Somebody's obviously living there, but it might just be a

single female.

..today has been one disappointment after another.

OK, we've got two parents here. OK. So we just need to have a little look.

But finally... Got two eggs. Did you see those?

..some good news.

OK, number 10.

Fingers crossed.

After a slow start...

Okay, so we've got a parent there.

Let's have a little look underneath.

The rest of the nesting boxes produce some great results.

Still got an egg.

Two eggs.

But it's the next burrow that gives keepers an unexpected surprise.

It'll be a tricky one to get to.

Okay, so we have a very, very protective parent and two little chicks.

Aww.

We have 15 burrows, we have a population of 43 birds, and to have the majority

of those burrows filled with partners and eggs, not to mention the chicks that

are already hatching, that's a really successful start to our breeding season.

While there's now plenty of eggs and some new chicks, there's one net box

keepers concerned.

Two platypus are being sent to an overseas zoo.

It's an ambitious undertaking.

Platypus don't jump, but they certainly are good climbers. One that requires a

huge transfer of information between Taronga and the receiving zoo.

Before we open up the nest box, one thing that we want to do is just slowly

it to ensure that the plat isn't up high.

For the past two weeks, two keepers from the San Diego Zoo have been at Taronga

Zoo to learn as much as they can in the remaining days that they're in Sydney.

And then we just locate.

locate where the animal is within these chambers. So it looks like she's down

here. Retraining a male platypus has some inherent risk, so it's pretty

important that we absorb everything that we can so that we can adequately train

our staff once we return to the state.

We want to try and grab hold of it quite quickly. You don't want to second

-guess yourself.

While Laurie and Savannah are put through their paces... There we go. ..up

the wildlife hospital... I'm going to let you do most of this today, Meredith,

because you've got to...

Got to know how to do it when we, yeah.

Vets or Diego is starting her intensive training on Eve, one of the platypus

she'll be looking after back in the day.

Here's the head.

Sleepy enough? Oh, she's looking pretty good. Pop that little bill in the, in

the, that's the way.

But unlike the keepers, Meredith only has one week to learn everything she can

about this most unusual animal.

Getting a platypus isn't just like getting a new tiger from another zoo or

shipping a bongo. A platypus is a totally unique creature.

About 140 heart rate.

A platypus lays eggs but is a mammal.

It has this bird -like bill, which it uses to actually see underwater.

And this is where a lot of the little pores are for their sensing, right? And

along the edge as well. That's a very sensitive area.

I mean, you know, they're really just a cross between a beaver and a duck.

With some lizards thrown in for good show, yeah. You don't learn about

veterinary in one university.

It's something that we can only really learn from those who have learned before

us.

So you see how she's got food in her pharynx there? Yes, and that's... So

that's, you know, quite normal that they'll store some food in their cheek

pouches. There's plenty of pressure on Meredith to take it all in.

OK, we've got good saliva.

Once back in the US, she'll be the only Taronga -trained platypus vet in the

Northern Hemisphere.

It's quite a big milestone to send platypus outside Australia, which is a

event in its own right.

And actually, Meredith did a lot of homework before she even got here, which

fantastic in terms of her preparation for this. And of course, she's absorbing

as much as she can while she's here with us.

Yeah, so the eyes are very quite small, really, considering... Yeah, tiny eyes,

very tiny eyes. So they don't use vision at all to navigate or detect their food

underwater. That's all done through the electro and mechanoreceptors.

in the bill. It's a solid start to her education.

It's interesting to see her nails. They're the best platypus nails I've

week. Quite a lot of excitement and quite a lot of work and a bit of stress

make sure that these animals are going to thrive and do great under our care.

And not surprisingly, the enormity of this project is sinking in. Alright,

you go.

Keeper Paul has a problem.

A new addition to his invertebrate collection, a female Sydney funnel web,

unwell. She's got these little tiny cream sort of kind of spots on her.

are little mites that we quite often see with the wild funnel webs that get

brought in.

So it's up to vet Kimberly to give this very venomous spider a once over.

Hey Paul.

Thank you. We work with all of the animals in the zoo, from the big

all the way down to the invertebrates. So that includes the spiders.

That is a big funnel web. It's not a bad size.

And any time we get a new funnel web spider or any spider into the zoo, we

examine it before we add it to our collection.

Extra care is needed when examining the spider.

She has a bite that can kill a human within 30 minutes if left untreated.

I'm not afraid of spiders. I completely respect them.

But he's really good at handling these venomous spiders, so they're not going

to... As you can see, she's got these mites in her, which we find fairly

with the wild hunt. Yeah, she's got a lot of mites on her, more than we

typically see. Yeah, a few more than we normally see, for sure.

She's got all of her legs. Can you have a look? Yeah, try and get it. There we

go. She's definitely got her fangs, doesn't she?

She's actually been quite relaxed, all things considered.

Well, you're so good at handling them.

I'm glad you're here.

I don't put my hands in there.

No, why would you?

So from a veterinary perspective, I'm looking.

If the spider looks robust, in good condition, if it's got all of its legs.

But what's going on with her abdomen? She looks like a bit of a blister there.

She does. It's a bit white on the left side.

We don't know what causes that in these guys.

We have a theory, just over time, it seems to be stress -related.

Oh, yeah.

So you think you're seeing these blisters come up from spiders that are

too often? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Would it be good to aspirate her?

We can look for viruses, look for bacteria.

But for now, I'm going to leave her in your hands to take care of the mites.

And let's keep her in a quarantine situation until we're happy with her.

problem. Can do. All right.

Paul has this little task of brushing off the mites and making sure that

all off of the spider.

So we can't really use any kind of insect control because we don't want to

the spiders as well. Well, I'll leave you to it.

Thanks, Kimberly. Thanks, Paul. No, I'd be happy to do that, but yeah.

That's Paul's job.

I'm going to go off and look at some other animals in the zoo.

Coming up. Okay, so these ones are overdue hatching. The moment of truth

some hopeful penguin parents to be.

And yeah, that's what I expected.

And a mighty problem.

There have to be at least 100.

For the world's deadliest spider.

Having all these things crawling around on you, it's got to be annoying.

Keepers Lindsay and Crystal have reached a nesting box that they know from

previous checks contains eggs, but they may not be fertile.

Okay, so these ones are overdue hatching, so if they haven't hatched

take them.

Penguins who sit on unfertile eggs won't breed again, so Lindsay needs to

intervene. Beautiful nest.

Sorry guys.

Yeah, so I'm going to take the eggs.

Oh gosh, they're normally more protective than that.

I guess maybe they know that it's not quite right. Yeah, I'd say it's not

fertile, but we'll check it downstairs.

These eggs, they are way overdue hatching, same with these ones. We give

little bit longer to see if they might hatch, but then we take them because

they're just going to keep sitting and nothing will happen.

To be absolutely sure, Lindsay conducts a light test on the egg.

Yes, I'll have a look at this one.

And, yeah, it's as I expected.

There's a yolk and a bit of egg there, but there's no development.

You're looking for membranes and sort of red vessels and things like that, but

there's nothing there. So, yeah, infertile, unfortunately.

Look at the others.

Yeah, so same there again.

Hopefully, by removing those eggs, they'll mate again and then produce.

The more eggs, it's still early enough in the season for them to have another

clutch, so we'll give them another go.

It's not unusual.

They are new pairings as well, so sometimes it can take them a season to

work things out with each other.

So even if they're not successful this breeding season, it's likely they'll

again next season, and hopefully we'll get chicks then.

A new arrival at the zoo, a Sydney funnel web, the most venomous spider on

earth, has a mite problem.

And it's Keeper Paul who has to remove the tiny mites by hand.

Okay, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to get the spider out here onto

bench so I can start getting some of these mites off.

Being a spider, of course, they're not necessarily always all that cooperative.

So what I'll do is once I get her out, she should just sit there like that.

And if she decides to move, what I can do is just annoy her like this, and when

she feels threatened, she's going to sit up, and she should just stay like that.

But no matter how comfortable Paul may be with funnel webs, he still leaves

nothing to chance.

The reason I'm doing this on a nice, clean bench like this, I've got a nice,

big, white bench, which means I can see what's going on.

I've got nowhere to run and hop.

The bench is nice and slippery, which makes it a little bit harder for her to

get any subtraction, to get any real speed up. So that's a lot safer for her

me. And we are talking about the world's most venomous spider, so I'd rather

make it as safe as I possibly can.

So what I'm doing here, I just get a little bit of water on my paintbrush and

brush her.

And what happens is these little mites get caught in the water droplet there,

and I can literally just wash them off like that.

She's been quite relaxed, which is a little bit of a surprise considering

going on here.

These mites, I've been led to believe, are not necessarily parasitic, but one

way or another, it's going to be a little bit uncomfortable for her to have

these things climbing around on her.

It's really hard to see exactly how many are there in there, but at a rough

guess, I'd say there have to be at least 100 having all these things crawling

around on you. It's got to be annoying.

But now I've pretty much got all the mites for the moment anyway, so what I'm

going to do is I'm preparing...

a home for her with some fresh peat moss here.

So I'm just going to get this bit of paper towel in here and make it nice and

damp for her so they need to stay cool and damp in order to survive.

So it just means that if I haven't got a paper towel in there, she'll make a bit

of a home under it.

So when I do need to check her out or anything like that, I can do it with as

minimal disturbance to her as possible.

And there you go. She's all ready to go back and join our collection.

Unfortunately, she still has some on her, so it's going to take at least

go to try and get the rest of them off.

But if nothing else, she's going to be a lot more comfortable.

She's definitely going to be a lot happier now that they're gone.

In less than a week, Taronga is going to make history by sending the first

breeding pair of platypus overseas.

Keepers Laurie and Savannah have been at Taronga for the past two weeks.

learning how to handle this cute, thunderous animal.

Great experience.

Yeah, so this is our last training session with the platypus.

So do you want to just check that he's in the box first, and then we can grab

our equipment to do a weigh?

And he is inside.

We are now getting ready to head off to the United States. We're heading home,

and then eventually they will be joining us.

So I'm picking him up, and I'm switching positions.

I'm removing this towel.

I'm keeping the spurs away from my mate's face.

And I am bagging.

Perfect. All right. And we're twisting the top of the bag, securing it with a

rubber band.

And holding him away from my body. So that is a platypus in a bag, ready to be

weighed or transported.

And we're aware of where his head is from the movement.

So when I replace this platypus into the nest box, I'm going to make sure that

he has an easy exit so that he's comfortable.

Yep, so the face will be pointing away and towards the opening.

And I am removing the pillowcase gently.

Perfect. Nothing else left to teach you.

Yes, yes. We passed platypus boot camp.

I think our platypus are in very capable hands.

We're very grateful for the collaboration and the camaraderie that

while we've been here at Taronga.

Yeah, we just can't wait to see them in San Diego and to see them in their new

exhibit, their new facility. We hope that they're going to love it. And now

we know them as individuals, we feel pretty confident that they're going to

happy over there with us in the States.

Yeah.

Still to come... He wants to get the best of all the food.

Tempers and temperatures get brutal in Dubbo.

Lift up. And... What we're going to do is put the animals in a forward hole.

Up in the sky.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it's a platypus.

Eastern Australia is experiencing one of the longest droughts on record, with

temperatures regularly breaking 40 degrees Celsius.

And at Taronga's Western Plains Zoo, keeping the animals comfortable in such

brutal heat is a huge challenge.

While the three female Asian elephants and their calf cool down with a swim,

Zookeepers Christina and Stephanie have another heat -beating surprise for the

two young bulls.

We have two Asian elephant bulls. Luk Chai is 10 years of age and he was

actually the first Asian elephant born in Australia.

And we have Paddy Han who followed a year later.

So they're pretty much like brothers.

They've grown up together and they spend four times a week in this front

paddock.

At the moment I'm putting out some spices as a part of our enrichment

elephants are natural foragers and their sense of smell is about eight times

stronger than a dog.

So they'll forage with their sense of smell.

The boys will pretty much find their spice in no time. But we try to hide it

little spots, make it a bit challenging for them as well.

But a three -ton elephant needs more than a bag of nutmeg to keep it going

day. So in the wild, elephants have to eat up to 100 kilograms of food a day.

But because we give them higher nutrition, such as hay, they only need

about 60 kilos a day here. So we just put up their hay net so it's above their

level.

And then they can eat it like they would eat high trees in the wild.

But the biggest treat of all...

especially on such a scorching day, needs to be put out last.

So we're just putting out some ice block enrichment today.

Okay, so we'll just place them on these three rocks and we'll try to put maybe

two on top of each other as well.

Every single week on a Friday we go collect from a juice store in town. It's

just pulp and leftover fruits and vegetables that we add water to and then

freeze it.

This one has watermelon in it and also banana peel, and it's definitely a

favourite.

A great treat on a 40 -degree day.

The first thing that they do is pretty much check out their whole enclosure and

find all the yummy treats that we may have hid for them.

Our Asian elephant, Paddy Hunt, is going about and exploring.

He's foraging.

While the two bulls get on well, there's still a social hierarchy.

And it happens in a herd as well, in the females.

There's a dominant female who's the matriarch and she gets first dibs of all

food. But on such a hot day, it's the ice blocks that get the most attention.

The elephants absolutely love their ice blocks.

The elephants here, they weigh about three tonnes on average.

Sometimes they can't break it and they use their whole weight to try and break

it with their foot.

If they get frustrated, then they just slam it on the ground.

While Dubbo are dealing with the heat in their own way, back in Sydney... Hey,

mate, how are you? Good, mate.

..platypus keeper Nick has a temperature problem of his own.

So this is our second box.

Yeah, platypus box. Platypus box for Eve, hey? Yeah.

That's brilliant, mate. It looks so good.

He's had to come up with a way to safely transport two platypus halfway around

the world.

One of our biggest concerns for the platypus for this trip was just making

that we keep our temperatures below that 20 degree mark. It's huge mate we've

never we've never sent flats in my time before overseas.

Yeah so this isn't just your typical transport box it actually has three

of reflective foam within it to try and keep the ambient temps from outside

without getting in.

We obviously did have to try and address the airflow with that because we've got

such an insulated box. We had to make sure that we had enough airflow

the crate to ensure that the platypus would arrive 24 hours later doing well.

Now they have to get the platypus used to their temporary home.

Yeah, push forward.

Yeah.

That's great.

That's good there.

Yeah. So now we've just finished installing the transport box for the

for ease.

So Eve has just come back from her 72 -hour pre -shipment exam and our vets

deemed her as suitable for travel. Her condition is great. The tail volume is

really good. She's got a great body weight. So now the next step is to just

her into the transport crate for transitioning.

So she'll sense it up, she'll make it her own.

It means that on the day when we actually come along, close off this

basically it's no different to just being locked in her nest box for a

while. So it is ultimately going to be a very comfortable space for her. So I'm

very confident that we've done everything that we can. I don't think

put as much thought into a transport crate before.

So certainly on the day, you know, we'll give one final check just to make sure

that she's tracking okay, give her a once -over, close the box off, and we

see her again till the other side.

The platypus wasn't born to fly, but that's all about to change.

This week's penguin nest checks are nearly done.

Oh, cute.

Hi, darling.

That looks like just one chick.

One chick?

Yeah. And the breeding season is going from strength to strength.

Oh, hello, bubby.

So two really good sized chicks there. Same sort of size as well. Sometimes

one's a lot smaller and not doing, you know, not getting as much food. They

usually patch up, but they're doing really well. So we'll leave them alone.

So we have two new chicks.

An extra egg. An extra egg.

An egg left to hatch.

Another burrow left to hatch. So, yeah, we're doing really well.

Good season. Good season. Yeah, really good season. Excellent.

The first chicks to hatch this season are already starting to explore their

home. So we're in our penguin crate, and this is an area that we use when we've

got little chicks that we need to teach to feed from us.

We want them to come out and be comfortable with us.

We hand feed them every day because it's a good way to help check them by

getting them to come to land and feed from us. And you can see it's still got

its fluffy little feathers around its face there.

And once it loses those, there we go, it will be ready to go out into the

exhibit and swim in the pool for its first time.

So you can see that fluff around its neck, and that's its juvenile baby

feathers, basically. And you can see that beautiful adult plumage that has

through there, those beautiful blue feathers on the back. So the fluff is

waterproof. So once that's all gone, you'll be ready to swim.

So the average adult penguin weighs a kilo, right?

This guy, when he came out of the burrow, he was 1 .3 kilos.

In all my 23 years, I don't think I've ever seen a penguin chick that big.

Yeah. Amazing.

That's huge.

1 .3.

Once they've accomplished feeding really well from us and they've lost all that

down, then they'll go out into the exhibit and become adult penguins.

So it's a really fast growth rate. These guys, they're eight weeks of age when

they go out there, and so they're close to that at the moment.

With feeding school almost done.

Oh, that's excellent, Liz.

Great. Well done.

Want to stay out? Yes. Oh, that's fantastic.

Okay, I'm back in.

Swim school is just around the corner, but they may need some convincing.

Come on, little one.

It's the day of the big move.

How is the time?

Ten to, yeah.

We've got to move.

Two platypus are being transferred from Taronga Zoo to San Diego Zoo in

California. Because of the size of the crate, we actually have to come out

through the back way here. We have to come out through the back door,

unfortunately.

Hopefully they're both in their nest boxes already that they've had a bit of

time to get used to.

All right, so that's great. So we've hidden it.

For keeper Tony, today is especially important as he'll travel with the

on their history -making journey.

I'm feeling pretty good, actually. You know, obviously tense.

There's always going to be tension, but I'm feeling quite confident.

I'm actually more calm than I expected to be, to be honest.

Yeah, perfect. She's just sitting under the tower there.

I won't overly disturb her, but it's fantastic. I think, you know, she's just

spent the night in the pool.

She's eaten at least three yabbies in there and I'm sure a whole heap of

mealworms. So I think it's the best start possible for this trip.

Good.

But packing the platypus is the easy part.

All right, mate, let's get to the airport.

Now all the platypus have to do is survive the flight.

Lift up, lift up.

What we're going to do is put the animals in the forward hole. Yeah.

Got access to them. The animals will go in last, so they'll be first off. First

off, yeah. That's perfect.

It's absolutely fair to assume that a platypus should be in water, but in

fact, they'll spend...

13 hours easily asleep in a burrow as part of their normal day. So the fact

we're extending that episode slyly, we're not concerned about. You know,

set those transport crates up for Eve and Vera exactly the same as their nest

boxes are that they've been living in for the last few years. All right.

Yeah. Good.

I'm happy with it.

While Nick says his goodbye.

On the other side globe, Lori and Savannah are waiting patiently to say

day. Oh, we can't wait. Yeah, we're getting very excited for sure. Things

starting to come together, and our facility is looking good, and we're

ready to receive them.

We've been designing a habitat for over two years now, and we're very excited

about having them introduced to that habitat and make sure that they're

comfortable and enjoying it, and we can't wait to see them swimming in the

that we have for them.

We have food ready, temperatures are set, the lighting's all ready for them.

yes, we just need the animals.

Here she comes, big wide world.

It's been eight weeks since the first little penguins hatched.

So Tasty and Halloumi are our new chicks, and they're doing very, very

Don't go back in.

They're so used to being in the crate, it's their safe place, but it's time to

grow up.

Come on.

They've lost their baby coat and are now fully waterproof.

So the next milestone in their development is to go for their first

They're both new chicks, first time out, so you can see they're looking around.

I'll just encourage them into the water, they'll feel safe in there.

Come on little ones.

So we'll really have to keep a close eye on them today, just make sure that

they're able to get in and out of the pool, that they don't get picked on by

of the other penguins, because they can do that sometimes.

And when a penguin hits eight weeks old, they're instinctively drawn to water.

There's so much for them to take in. I mean, this is the first time they've

the whole world. It's a big, wide -open sky, so they're doing really well,

though.

While Halloumi is straight in, Tasty isn't quite as sure of himself.

So Halumi is speeding around, having a great time.

Tasty is a little bit more nervous.

But with a gentle bit of encouragement... I'm a little one.

..Tasty finally joins his sister in the water.

First swim ever.

It's amazing, isn't it, how they just know what to do?

Just instinct.

Fantastic.

So you can tell they're a little bit more uncoordinated because it's their

time. So they're just finding their flippers, getting used to the water,

used to diving deeply.

Yeah, look at Loomi go. Amazing.

I think she's loving it. And Tasty's getting really into it. Look at that.

I love it when they go for their first swim.

Out on land, you know, there's so many things going on and birds of prey and

things. So that water is their safety net. And, of course, in the wild, that's

what they do. So they come out of their burrows straight to the ocean.

And they spend days out there. Yeah.

So it's been another really successful breeding season here at Taronga. We've

had eight chicks so far, got another probably eight on the way. So huge fun

season for us. Our parents have done an amazing, amazing job.

It's a great start for these little penguins.

Some will continue to call Taronga home and some will be sent to other zoos to

boost their breeding program.

San Diego Zoo is a home away from home for many Australian animals.

Now, after years of preparation, the only two platypus outside of Australia

coming to join them.

The fact that platypus are here and outside Australia for the first time in

years is a pretty significant experience for all of us to be a part of.

It's taken a lot of collaboration between our facilities and it's been a

work to make it happen.

But we're so thankful that it has and that they're here now and enjoying this

facility. Vera and Eve have been in their travel pack for nearly 20 hours,

Vet Meredith is impressed with how well they've handled the journey.

And they quickly settled into their new surround.

This is a species unlike any other that we've ever been able to exhibit for

folks in America.

And this facility has a lot of features designed to kind of optimize their

welfare and our ability to care for them.

So we have a pretty state -of -the -art life support system to maintain water

quality. We have a pretty elaborate lighting system, so we're able to

cycle them.

so that we create a twilight nighttime event for them during our daytime, so

that it enhances the opportunity for people to be able to see them during

active hours.

Vera really seems to love being in here in this middle pool.

Yeah, it's been a long, long effort, and it's great to be on the other side of

it now, to have them here, to have them.

healthy and safe and happy in their environments. And now the energy is

definitely rising. You know, the anticipation is building that we're soon

to be open to the public and able to share them with the world.

But they didn't come all this way just to be looked at.

I've seen both of them get up several times on the logs. You're right, the

-outs are working perfectly.

The entire platypus project is part of a much bigger picture.

It's an extraordinary honor and, of course, responsibility for us to be able

share their conservation message and the conservation message of Australia and

how comparable that is to the conservation message that we have here

California, how we're facing similar threats even on opposite sides of the

world. I think having the platypus here, they're going to be great ambassadors.

for that message and to gain awareness and to draw people in to learn about the

threats that all these animals are facing.

A monster -sized news TV.

These guys are vapid. Take over Taronga.

Next Saturday on 9.