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, he can't. ...to saving

an entire species.

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

We'll take you Inside Taronga.

On this episode... The ringtail lemur, Noah, is possibly in labour and has been

bitten up. A scrap and dubbo leaves a mother and baby fighting for their

Critically looking for whether or not there might be a heartbeat in the baby

still. The race to save this turtle from extinction.

Every animal that was infected went on to die.

We have the last breedable adult in this facility.

And what's in the box? Struggling to get a little peek inside.

As five VIPs touch down at Taronga. There you go.

At Taronga Zoo, the health and welfare of all animals

is paramount.

From the big exotics all the way down to the weird and wonderful.

For instance, we've got the bats for you. We've got ghost bats, which are an

Australian species of bat, very special. And two of those animals are going to

have a full health exam in preparation for them participating in a regional

breeding program at another wildlife park.

We're going to put the bats into this chamber and feed a little bit of

anaesthetic gas in here so that the bats get sleepy.

and that will make it easier for us to safely get its face into the anaesthetic

mask. All right, you can take that out.

Any bat in Australia potentially could carry a virus, and so nobody should

handle a bat unless they're adequately trained and experienced and vaccinated

against rabies and know that they have a protective teeter. So we follow special

procedures when we're dealing with bats.

Tell me when you're comfortable.

Yes.

Liz has got special protective gloves because she's going to be the one to

restrain the head of the bat while it's in the mask. So you'll notice he's got

covered sleeves and she's got special gloves there.

Come under my fingers.

Yep. And let's get out.

Robert,

I'm going to get you to bring that examination light around.

I will hold his head in while you get your gloves off.

An important part of our examination, funny as it may seem, is to make sure

the bat is reproductively healthy, fit for service.

There you go.

And so it is important that we can see the male external genitalia and that we

know that it's normal.

So, Liz, I want to look at his head and his face and teeth and so on now. So are

you happy if we take him out of here? Yeah, that's fine.

We might need to just take that monitor off.

So his little face.

He's got lots of folds and things like that. We're just conscious at the moment

that he's not breathing any anaesthetic gas.

And so if we take too long, he will wake up.

Let's just have a look here.

The teeth are amazing.

Pretty fierce teeth for such a small animal. If you look at the size of those

canines, there's so much about them to appreciate.

The largest carnivorous bat in the country, found in some really weird

from tropical rainforests out into the sort of desert areas.

But unfortunately, like so much more of our wildlife, they're in a lot of

trouble out there in the wild.

So the importance of breeding programs is just getting more and more as the

years go on.

Okay, Liz, would you like to take him over and wait him? Sure.

And then we'll wake him up.

So Liz is restraining his head all the time.

Weigh him and then we'll work him up.

All right, his body weight is 111 .9 grams.

Are you recording that, Rob? Yep. Excellent. 111 .9.

Only a mother high goes back with love. I agree.

They're really cute.

And that theory of ugly but interesting.

Okay, so this little guy is really healthy.

He's in super body condition, can't find anything wrong with him, everything in

its right place, and I'm quite happy with him.

Yeah, that man, that girl, to go off to their new home, hopefully to make more

baby ghost bats to increase the population as a whole.

Any animal that is going to be moving between wildlife parks and zoological

institutions need to be in great health, and obviously we aim to keep them in

tip -top health here.

Let's just give it air.

I'm awake.

These are just now going into their own separate space, so they're not

interacting with the others until such point that they travel off.

While the ghost bats wait to start their journey to their new facility, another

species is at the end of their journey to Taronga.

How long is the flight from Wellington?

Three or four hours?

I think it's only two and a half.

I think the zoo itself is like another hour away.

We've been in the box for four hours now. Yeah.

Today, for the first time in its history, Taronga is receiving five South

American capybara who've just landed on a flight from New Zealand.

We've just been, like, spitballing a whole bunch of, like, South American

I wouldn't even know what a South American name. Oh, like Diego and Pedro

Maradona. Yeah.

The first stop for these newcomers is with Tim from Exotic, who's been waiting

anxiously for their arrival and is excited to get his first glimpse.

Struggling to get a little peek inside, but you can see a little glimpse of

movement, which is always very exciting.

Our first little glance at their new life, so it should be really good.

Capybara are actually the largest rodent in the world. They come from Central

and South America.

Definitely a nice little smell to them already, so that'll be fun.

Normally throughout the day I actually look after our elephants, so it's going

to be a bit of a learning curve for all of us, but we've got a really great team

who's really confident we're going to be able to take some really good care of

these animals.

Australia has some of the toughest quarantine laws in the world.

These are in place to protect the unique native animal from diseases like

rabies. The container should come to about here.

Because it's an international transfer, we have to be very, very strict.

Anytime we bring an animal in from overseas, we want to make sure they're

and healthy.

And any parasites or diseases they might be bringing in, we want to be able to

check them before they enter the greater population.

One, two, three.

This one's leaking urine. That's why we have the quarantine.

status because that's why we've got to put the tarp down because he's obviously

excited to be here and the urine's coming out. So they're mopping up the

or they've cleaned up the urine now.

So these boxes will go into quarantine as well.

So they're all clean properly.

Last one. Very exciting. Nearly ready to go.

We have just found out that the Wellington keepers have put a few names

of the crate.

There's some good ones and there's some questionable names floating around up

here.

Like humans, When animals fly around the world, it can be stressful.

So the team is hoping to get the capybaras back to Taronga as quickly as

possible. Well, definitely time's critical because the animals have been

crate for probably four hours. We want to get them back into quarantine and

release so they can check on their condition and stuff and get them out of

box. No one wants to be stuck in a box for a long time.

All right, guys, I think we're ready to rock and roll. Let's do it.

So the quicker we can get them back on the road and get them back to the zoo,

the better it is that it's going to be for them and we can get them settled

a new home where they'll be nice and comfortable.

400 kilometres away at Taronga's other zoo, one of their most loved species is

the ring -tailed lemur.

So lemurs are a lower order of primates. They are a very distant relative.

While they may look small and cute...

Their personalities are actually big and boisterous.

Ring -tailed lemurs are a matriarchal species, so they are run by females.

They have a very strict hierarchy.

I sometimes think it's a little bit like Bold and the Beautiful because they can

be so dramatic.

Critically endangered, the ring -tailed lemurs are one of Taronga's biggest

breeding success stories.

We established a breeding program for them in 2013.

Just in the last few weeks, we've had two female babies born, which is really,

really exciting.

We're not sure on the sex of the third one that we have pending, but we'll find

out pretty quickly.

But the animal kingdom moves to the beat of its own drum.

I've just got to find the nurse now.

A vet Michelle is about to find out.

I've had a call from Sasha, who's one of our primate keepers. And she was

concerned that she'd observed a big fight in our ring -tailed lemur group,

the individual who seemed to come off second best in the fight was one of our

adult females, and she's actually due to give birth any day now.

The ring -tailed lemur, Noah...

is possibly in labour and has been beaten up.

She's missing a finger.

Her lips are torn completely open and there's a lot of blood from her vulva.

the question is, is the blood from the vulva due to the pregnancy or is it a

bite? She's had stillborns before, yeah. So there is a potential that it could

end up being a caesarean. OK, so just surgery kits.

It sounds like she's sustained some pretty nasty injuries, and given she's

pretty precarious stage of her pregnancy, we need to be really careful

one.

We have had incidents of fights in the past, particularly in breeding groups,

where obviously emotions and hormones can be pretty high.

Again.

I bought a net too. Did you want that or a towel?

The first thing I noticed was that she had blood around her vulva, which meant

that she could have been in labour.

So we were all a little bit worried because she is the last of our three

that was needing to give birth.

So the timing was pretty terrible.

Do you want a towel or prefer not a towel? No, not a towel is easier, I

And then obviously she grabs the door with a bash. I'll give you a hand.

Ordinarily, with a routine health exam, we get the animals familiar with being

put into a transport box so that when the day comes, it's all very non

-stressful. But in an emergency, unfortunately, we don't have the time to

that.

Covered in blood, missing a finger and heavily pregnant, the mum -to -be Noah

has the odds stacked against her.

Still to come, it's showtime for the world's largest rodent.

We're ready to roll.

And there's grave concern for the baby Lima.

My main concern was making sure that she still had the baby and she hadn't

dropped it somewhere and it didn't feel anything like it did yesterday.

I can't hear the radio.

We're getting close to the zoo. Yeah.

Just over the water.

Five capybaras have arrived in Australia from New Zealand.

Here we go, boys.

First big trip over that giant coating up.

Welcome to Australia.

And while their journey to Taronga may almost be over... Oh, this is better

looking than New Zealand. Yes.

Their longer quarantine process is about to begin.

We've just arrived at the vet hospital here at Taronga Zoo and now we're just

about to move them into the quarantine dens where they're going to spend the

next two weeks.

The plan is we're going to offload them from the truck, people listening out

here.

regular uniform.

We'll pass through the double green doors to quarantine staff in gowns.

Beautiful. We'll put them on the scales we have in quarantine, get away the

animal in the crate and then pet the crate into then unload the animal. We're

going to check microchips on each one as we go.

You got them?

Got that one.

Got my finger too.

This is the quarantine for the zoo.

So any new animals coming into the zoo get quarantined. But these animals,

because they've come from overseas, quarantine's particularly strict.

That's why we've got the quarantine officers here to oversee the whole

of unloading.

This is the last part here. We're just disinfecting everything that came in

contact with the boxes.

We had a bit of urine spill on the floor.

So we're just cleaning up, making sure everything's nice and safe and good.

Things have to be done after they're done.

A lot of work goes into bringing an animal into the zoo from overseas.

78 .9. 78 .9? Yes. Can we have a name? This is Diego?

Yep. Diego.

especially considering no one from Taronga has even laid eyes on their new

capybaras yet.

I haven't seen these animals. They're very cool. They're like giant guinea

except they're just one colour. So if you can imagine a guinea pig about that

size, these guys are that big, 30 kilos.

They're really cool, charismatic animals.

We can't wait to open up the boxes and see who we have in there. We're going to

give them some zoo, get some greens and some cubes and hay ready to go. So

that'll settle them down and see how they are.

With their capybaras now in their temporary home for the next two weeks,

it's a long wait for the rest of the zoo to catch their first look at this

playful species.

After suffering serious wounds in a fight, pregnant Lima Noah has arrived at

Western Plains Wildlife Hospital.

Before Noah can be

examined, she needs to be sedated.

Whilst we would always like to avoid anesthesia at this late stage of

in this case it's important that we determine what's going on and we'll do

best to make it as quick and smooth to her as possible.

Let's just check.

Now Noah's calm, Michelle can turn her attention to the source of the bleeding.

If we've got internal bleeding and it's uncontrolled, then obviously that can be

life -threatening.

And in this case, we're dealing with both the mum and the baby, so we've got

lives that we're concerned about here and we need to really make decisions

on what's best for Beau.

Yeah, I think it's a torn vulva.

It's not really ideal just before you're about to give birth, is it?

Thank you.

She has sustained a nasty injury to the vulva. That's certainly better news in

terms of life -threatening illnesses right at this stage. It looks like she's

very close to giving birth and we'd like her to go through that process

naturally if possible.

But first, they'll need to use ultrasound to determine if the baby has

the attack.

Oh, darling.

Bit of a pitiful sound, isn't it?

Can you switch the lights off for me, shall we?

Yeah, that's the one.

How confident were you about the abdomen size going down overnight?

Just before when I came in and I found that they'd had the fight, my main

concern was making sure that she still had the baby and she hadn't dropped it

somewhere. So I did gently palpate her stomach to try and feel for the baby and

usually the head is the most obvious thing that you can touch and know what

is. And it didn't feel anything like it did yesterday.

We need to confirm that the baby is alive and well.

So while the vets in Dubbo fight to save the life of this lemur and its unborn

baby, back in Sydney,

Teronga keeper Adam is fighting to save an entire

species, the Bellinger River turtle.

They're amazing. They are really pretty turtles. The bright yellow in them makes

them quite attractive. They're definitely one of Australia's prettier

The adults, the females get about that size in proportion.

They get up to like 1 .5 kilos, maybe a little bit bigger. The boys are

generally a bit smaller, the males, and they're around that 600 gram mark. A lot

bigger than these guys, a lot bigger.

The reason these turtles are so special.

is that Taronga Zoo hold the only Bellinger River breeding turtles in the

Named after the Bellinger River on the New South Wales north coast, these

turtles were decimated when a disease outbreak swept through their once

habitat.

February 18, 2015, a group of young men were kayaking along the river and they

came across a pond with 53 sick and dying turtles.

But this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Every animal that was infected went on to die.

And over a period of five to six weeks, the species was driven to functional

extinction.

Probably about 90 to 95 % of the population was lost.

Finding out exactly what was happening fell on the shoulders of Taronga

pathologist Carrie Rose.

You can see the damage right here. This is dead.

So within two days, we had received animals to investigate and try to find

what was going on with those four turtles.

Here we go. This is one of the animals that had incredibly swollen eyes.

The turtles were turning up blind. They were pawing at their eyes.

Some of them had the skin ulcerated all around their eyes.

So it was really a grisly finding.

It's meant to be full of lymphocytes, so really quite blue.

So much damage to the tissue, you can't even tell what it's going to look like.

We knew we were dealing with a large -scale explosive outbreak right from the

very beginning.

The decision was made that Taronga would lead an expedition to the Bellinger

River to rescue the remaining turtle.

Our biggest worry was that the species would go extinct before we had a chance

to even find out what was happening.

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

captive breeding program before the virus went through.

Really only a few more days and the species would have been extinct.

So this out -of -the -way, fenced -off section of Taronga Zoo is the last hope

for the Bellinger River turtle.

In the wild, there's no breeding, so we have the last 16 remaining breedable

adults in this facility.

This is the future of this species.

Pregnant Lima Noah has been brutally attacked just days before giving birth.

We were all a little bit worried because she is the last of our three females

that was needing to give birth. We've already had two successful young to the

other two females in that group a few weeks prior.

She was the last piece of the puzzle, so the timing was pretty terrible.

Can you switch the lights off for me, shall we?

With Noah now stabilized, Michelle turns her attention to finding her unborn

baby heartbeat.

In the past, she has had a stillbirth, and she also has had infants that

survived after the first week or two of life.

And in this case, we're critically looking for whether or not there might

heartbeat and the baby's still thriving in there.

Just really nervous.

She is a really good mum. I've seen her pine for lost infants before, and it's a

pretty heartbreaking thing to see.

Got a heart pick.

Baby's still alive.

Do you want to see it?

We might try and be super quick anyway.

A little flutter, yep.

The baby has a heartbeat. It doesn't quite look as vigorous as we would

but that may be just because she was just about to give birth and now mum's

put up through an anaesthetic. The only other thing that might be handy is for

us just to get a quick X -ray, just to see the position where it is.

So that's the head there, just heading towards the pelvis, and then there's a

spine down the middle and the limbs coming off at the side. So in perfect

position.

So fingers crossed, everyone.

Just because it has a heartbeat now doesn't necessarily mean that things

smoothly, but it's obviously a step in the right direction.

I've just given her an injection of an antibiotic and it's safe for the baby as

well.

The lip tear and the finger injury, although they look quite nasty, they're

certainly not life -threatening.

Hey Sasha, what do you reckon the chances of her keeping staples in a face

Pretty slim?

Well, it depends. Do you think she's going to do more damage taking them out?

No, I think it would just be back to how it was. No harm in trying? No harm in

trying. Because she'll be kept either on her own or just with one other

individual. Yep, okay.

Let's just clean those wounds.

Have you got a stapler handy?

It's a lot quicker to do this than try and fix it.

And we can worry about trying to remove them later.

Oh, goodness.

Just give it a little bit more gas, Missy.

And we've got one.

Good. So we've got, it is a vulva tear and a lip tear and all the rest of it.

The baby's got a heartbeat.

So I'm tempted to just wake her up.

Can you determine whether the cervix is open or opening? I think it probably is.

I can get to the length of my finger, my small finger, so yeah.

So she might deliver the baby overnight? She might, and I'm thinking if she

doesn't, then maybe we need to intervene.

Yeah. Do you agree?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I presume you're thinking that it would be better for her

do that up in the facility where she's familiar.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I'd like to see it moving a little bit more than it is.

but the head is getting close to that pelvis. It's in the right position.

All right, let's get her back in the pet pack then, and we'll

reconvene in the morning.

I think mum's going to be fine. I think it's a bit touch and go for the bub, and

Noah has had a stillborn baby in the past, so that is in her history.

So it's not outside the realms of possibility that things might not go

well, but so far everything is looking okay. She could have done without the

injuries. for sure but um but anyway they are what they are and we've given

the treatment she needs fingers crossed that she gives birth the stress that

she's just gone through because of all the fights and everything and obviously

the additional stress of having the ga can cause complications but obviously

fact that the baby's currently alive right now is hugely promising so we'll

have to see how we go you ready yeah

The vets have given Noah every chance to have a natural birth.

And it's a nervous night's wait for Sasha.

In 2015, the Bellinger River turtle was pushed to near extinction.

When a virus swept through the river system, they call home.

Now Taronga Zoo has the only adult Bellinger River turtles on the planet.

This is our quarantine facility of our Bellinger River snapping turtle. They're

classified as critically endangered and this is where we house all our 16 adults

of this species.

Year -round, these turtles are kept in an environment purpose -built to

encourage breeding.

Alison, what I need you to do is take off your boot, and I want you to step

these white boots and come forward. So don't take the boots to you. You step in

and come forward to me.

Today we're going to ultrasound six of our female Bellinger River turtles and

see if they have eggs.

I'll grab that off you now.

Senior vet Larry has come down to ultrasound the females in the hope that

previous mating season has been successful.

The most important thing is that the screen is in the shade.

Who are we doing first, Adam?

Number 11.

She's my favourite turtle here.

From day one, like when we enter the facility, she used to live in the tank

behind me. So she would greet us as I would come in. She'd sort of look up and

look at you. So she's the only one that's really shown any interest in us,

speak. So I sort of like her. There's something about her. I find her pretty

cool.

Hey.

Bulging. Yeah.

I don't think I've ever not been happy to see eggs turn up on this screen.

Because, you know, you know that you're doing things right. You know that the

animals are happy. Animals won't breathe if they're not in condition or if

they're not, if they're stressed.

It's so crucial that every one of these girls lay eggs for us because there's no

other Bellinger River turtles producing in the world, only the ones that we have

here.

So we've got a great situation here.

Straight away we can see she's got eggs.

And this is amazing. This is brilliant.

So these female Bellinger River turtles are so important for what we're doing.

All right, we're done with her.

They're from the original animals that we brought in from the wild back in 2015

during the dive event.

Shazam.

So again, a nice lot of eggs there in this one. And we've got

four girls that are pretty good.

It's always very exciting to see this, and of course now that we know these

have got eggs, Adam will start preparing for them laying their eggs. There's

quite a bit of preparation to be done, isn't there, Adam? Yeah.

For laying the eggs, and then of course beyond that, the incubation of the eggs.

And these are the hardest ones to catch.

But it's the two youngest ones that have never produced eggs before that has the

team on edge.

Okay, so this is number three.

Alright,

this will be exciting. So this is one of the younger girls.

If we get eggs out of these girls, it means that they're happy.

It feels like we're doing everything right for them.

It's so important for what we're doing. It's so important for this program to

have all our potential breeding girls producing eggs. It's really important.

I'm so excited you're not holding the animals.

I know, I'm actually like a bit shaky because I'm like really excited.

Fingers crossed.

Taronga has welcomed five capybaras to the zoo and the world's largest rodents

are halfway through their two -week quarantine stay.

Hey, Larry. How are you going, mate? Good. How are they?

Yeah, good. So I've just come up to the wildlife hospital this morning to come

and check on our capybara boys in quarantine.

Fight everyone else off to come up here and see them, so it should be great.

Well, they're your babies. They are.

Although Tim will be responsible for the capybaras once they go on exhibit, with

such strict quarantine laws in place, he's still yet to even see them.

It'll be nice to get in there and kind of check them out.

Give them a bit of a scratch.

It should be great.

All right.

Enjoy.

All the keepers have been, like, dying to get up here.

And Gabe and everyone, like... So I can open up and let them into this den so

you can get a closer look.

And now they're all going to go back to bed.

No, no.

Time to rise and shine, pretty.

Come on, boys.

Hi, everybody.

Big boys. Here's the first one coming.

How you doing, big boys?

It was great to finally get into the dens with them and kind of see how

going.

Took a little bit of reluctant few steps for them to come in and get nice and

close to us.

But they're getting nice and strong and the water was a great motivator for

them.

Hi, buddy.

Their little noises are so cute.

They're doing a lot of really cool natural behaviors in there. They're

settling in.

Having a little bit of a snack is always good. It means that they're getting

nice and comfortable.

Oh, yummy.

A little bit of kale or some bribery is always fun to get them nice and close so

we can get a good check on them.

I've got more.

Hey, you boys.

All right.

So Tim's still in there. We can't prise him away from the capybara. He loves

them so much. So we'll just have to wait a sec for him.

Putting a new species on display is a big event for the zoo.

I'm just going to do a quick run through and make sure everything is ready for

their arrival.

And soon to be capybara keeper Johnny is making sure everything is just right.

you can see here we've got everything a capybara might want in life they've got

a nice mud wall over here which will refresh uh just before they get into the

exhibit capybara love to be in water and they love to interact and kind of play

with each other in water so it's a nice social area for them to play in the

water is almost like a second home for them here we have a couple of lean -to

shelters which will provide them with a bit of shade and also a bit of

protection from the rain. And we've installed a couple of heat mats

them as well, just to give them that extra bit of warmth on the slightly

Sydney days.

So with capybara being very gregarious and social animals and very playful

animals as well, we'll hopefully see them running in and out of this log. And

being rodents, they will gnaw on this log and on this wood to keep their teeth

in really good nick and also to help keep their teeth to an appropriate

as well.

I think they're going to absolutely love this as far as...

As real estate goes, this is prime Capybara real estate.

You're just making sure that there's nothing that's blown in here from the

in the last few days.

I think once they get their bearings and once they become comfortable, they're

going to be very playful and they're going to really interact with the

environment and the habitat really well.

With everything in place and anticipation amongst the zoo staff high,

left to do now is wait.

Yeah, buddy.

Facing extinction, the Bellinger River turtle's last hope at survival is the

breeding program operating out of Taronga Zoo.

To ensure the genetic diversity required to keep the population viable, each of

the six breeding age females needs to carry eggs.

I mean, this is a critically endangered species, and every single hatchling that

we get out of these guys is contributing to the survival of the population.

So far, each of the four turtles examined have been found carrying eggs,

it's a nervous wait for the final two, who, after several years of trying, are

yet to fall pregnant.

I'm really... You're so excited you're not holding the animal still. I know.

actually, like, a bit shaky.

Fingers crossed. OK.

Yes. She's got eggs as well.

That makes me smile a lot.

With five out of six turtles pregnant, it's been a successful day.

But for Adam, the result of this final ultrasound could make it truly a day to

remember. All right, here we go.

Okay, I'm containing my excitement. Adam's always excited.

But today particularly.

You ready, Adam?

Yes.

I knew it.

I mean, this is the great thing with doing the ultrasound. You get the

results with these guys.

Her eggs look fantastic.

Look how nice they are. A bit better than mine.

Photograph that.

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

I never get to see them, though. No, it's such a buzz, isn't it, to see the

eggs?

I want that on the fridge.

Hopefully they are fertile and they'll hatch and we'll get another bunch of

hatchlings.

So this is like one part of the process.

We find that we have eggs, then we've got to lay the eggs, then we have to

incubate and hatch the eggs. So it's a long process and each process has its

risk. So this is just part of that journey now and this is where you start

getting a bit anxious and you really want them to do well.

With all six Bellinger River turtles now carrying eggs, it's a great result for

Adam and the species as a whole.

Carrying the future.

I like those little things. They're the things that keep you going when it's,

you know, it's raining and you're up here working on them or, you know, it's

really hot.

Just the time things happen is really amazing.

You've got to stop saying it's really amazing.

Really amazing. I like to say it's really amazing.

Yesterday, pregnant Lima Noah was attacked, losing a finger and raising

for her unborn baby.

But after a stressful night, keeper Sasha finally has something to smile

So I came in to check on Noah again at about 10pm last night.

Hi Noah.

I had my fingers crossed but I was a little bit nervous.

But I came in to find that she had had the baby since I had last been there to

check.

The baby was alive.

It seemed to be thriving. She seemed to be pretty happy.

It was just the best outcome possible.

I was just incredibly relieved.

Definitely a couple of small tears were shed. I was very, very proud of her. I

don't think that I realized just how stressed I was until that stress was no

longer required.

I guess everything's fine anyway.

Yeah, she looks good. The baby's in the right position for suckling, so I assume

that she is.

Gee,

she looks well, doesn't she? Yeah.

I think it looks pretty good. It is swollen, but everything looks clean. She

took her meds. Yeah, yeah, and she took her meds fine.

Have you seen a vulva?

I haven't, not yet. But I can definitely achieve that by the end of the day, I'd

say. Okay, all right. Yeah, I won't go in and disturb her at this stage.

Everything looks perfect.

Mum looks strong, she looks settled.

She's really holding it in the right position.

Yeah, great.

Baby's in the right position for suckling. Sasha tells me she got a

look, thinks the baby's a little girl. This is a great result.

And this is her dad. That's Romulo. Yeah, so he's just chilling. Yeah,

He's good.

And being a good daddy.

Hopefully in a week's time her injuries will heal even further and we'll have a

baby who's feeling stronger and thriving and reintegrated into that group.

Okay. Yeah, she doesn't seem overly stressed. She's handling it pretty well.

So, yeah, she's doing all right. And we'll put some of the others in with her

later today.

Yeah. But just not the main instigators, of course.

So the last couple of days have certainly been an emotional

I do find that if you've worked with ring tattling for long enough that

not unfamiliar with that range of emotions.

Great stuff.

I know. Very exciting. Very exciting.

Yeah, every day is a good day to be a lemur keeper, but yeah, babysitting is

always a really exciting time of year.

Good work, Noah.

Yeah. Did the job in the end. Yeah, she sure did.

It's early days, but Mum and Bub are both doing well, and the endangered ring

-tailed lemur population has another birth to celebrate.

Extinct in the wild, The Bellinger River turtle's future is contained entirely

in the breeding pools of Taronga Zoo.

I just have to be careful that I don't push anyone as I jump in.

Now, six days after the ultrasound, Adam is doing his daily check.

All right.

You know what?

I think we have some eggs.

She hasn't closed up her nest completely.

And there's quite a few in here.

I'm really happy.

So I'm just sort of digging out this nest to open up some space to get my

in it.

I don't want it to collapse on me halfway through. It just makes it a

harder to get the eggs out.

And I'm just going to start pulling them out.

This is the nerve -wracking part.

I have to be really careful doing this.

Each one of these little eggs indicates the species surviving, you know, so each

one of them is critically important.

I'm even more excited because there's still so many in here. It's like I'm

to need another container. It's great.

So this is the last one.

Wow, that's exciting. We've got 13 Bellinger River turtle eggs, which is

amazing.

So now I'm going to take these off to our incubator to give them every single

chance to hatch.

And what's remarkable is we've still got another five girls to lay eggs, so

potentially we have a chance of increasing our wild population by 50 %

from this season, which is truly amazing.

It's pretty hard to believe.

While it's still a long way to go for these tiny little eggs, Adam couldn't be

more proud of the conservation efforts of Taronga Zoo.

It just shows that zoos are worthy places to care for animals and to look

repopulating the wild. This is why we're here, is to showcase we do do this

stuff and we do do it well.

The arrival of a new species is always a huge moment at Taronga, and after

months of planning, the zoo's newest furry celebrities are about to take

stage. Very similar to their guinea pig cousins.

Biggest guinea pig in the world. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, unreal.

We're ready to roll.

Today is a big day.

The capybara are finally going to come out of quarantine and we're going to

them down to their exhibit within the zoo.

And we can start doting on them as much as we possibly can.

50 -point size.

The cappies themselves are quite large, but then the purpose -built crates that

they're going to be into are even heavier.

So at this point, we're here to provide some muscle support.

Yeah, a bit. A bit related to this trickier part of the job done.

And that's how I get them in the exhibit and get them the fresh air and sunshine

and deeper pool to swim in. Yeah, and enjoy them.

OK, Johnny.

Johnny,

we're just coming down the road towards you now.

A great Stephen here.

He wouldn't have missed it for the world, would he?

As a new species for us as keepers, it's a very exciting day. We've been looking

forward to it for some time.

We're looking forward to getting a chance to start caring for them and

bit more about them as individuals and find out a bit more about their

individual characters and personalities and really start to bond with them as

well.

So the plan is we're going to let these two out of the crate.

And then when they're far enough away, we'll move these crates out, put another

two in position and then repeat till all five have been released.

Sanchez and Carlos.

Capybara can be quite a flighty animal, so we don't want to go in there with

lots of energy and try pushing them around too much. It's all very much

be on their terms and how comfortable they are.

This is their new home now, so they don't look too agitated and they're

adorable for us.

It's kind of exactly what we want to see in them.

It's great.

Exciting. Well, when we picked them up, they were just in the box. So this is

the first time I've seen them out of the crate.

They're quite a beautiful animal. And they're just so cute. Look at them.

you don't like them.

They're very inquisitive.

Okay, everyone's in position.

Time to let the cappies on to exhibit.

Well, I'm very happy.

to officially declare Taronga Zoo's capybara habitat officially open. There

go.

Go ahead.

They were very tentative. Some of them were a little bit more wary,

but that's completely fine. We're all different.

You're a big brave boy, huh?

You're a big brave boy.

You want a little bum scratch?

Yeah.

Yeah, really looking forward to looking after them.

Cappies are great little animals.

They're very social.

They'll be displaying a lot of natural behaviors. The exhibit is suited for

that, so they can be grazing, they can be in the water. They're very aquatic,

they love the water.

That's deep.

It's the deepest water they've been in.

So it'll be good to see the five of them out there and doing what cappies do.

They must love being able to actually submerge.

They're like, yeah, play fighting in the water.

I feel great. It's been a pretty unbelievable day. Like, it's a massive

at the moment. Like, we're so proud of everyone. Like, the vet teams, our

the drivers. Grant did a fantastic job. Yeah, we're over the moon. Like, I

couldn't have pictured this day going any better.

You've never seen a wild animal this tame.

This is incredibly rare for a wombat. Next Saturday, this wombat goes from

to critical. Things here don't seem quite right.

And a taronga first.

He's the first boy that's been born. Get closer than ever before to your

favourite wild animal.

Good boy. Next Saturday on Nine.