Original subtitles

Sydney Harbour is home to one of the world's most iconic zoos, Taronga.

Everyone stand as far apart as possible.

But never before... Make sure you've got your mask on. ...has it faced a year

with its many monumental challenges.

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

Atta boy, Jim. Nearly home, mate.

But the teams across both of Taronga's zoos... Open. ...meet every challenge

head on. And our cameras are there.

Every step of the way.

On this episode, where there's a shell, there's a way.

This is the biggest animal that I have had to weigh here at the zoo.

Will this tricky tortoise... Good boy!

Let's get up here.

...finally step up? It's just one foot.

We are so close. Just one foot.

Stay on.

Making a splash.

So this handsome boy is Bondi. Did Zoo favourite Bondi... He does have a little

girlfriend, Cheeky.

...feel the deal?

We actually did see a viable mating, so fingers crossed.

And all hail Kartika, the tiger queen.

In the wild, it would be natural for the mum to look at ousting the cubs.

To keep this tiger family together, Taronga staff undertake a dangerous

procedure.

Taronga Zoo is home to seven Sumatran tigers.

Native to the dense Indonesian jungle, Sumatran tigers are excellent swimmers

and, as ambush predators, they can run up to 40 miles per hour.

Carnivore team keeper Danielle has been part of the tiger team for years.

Here at Taronga, we've built this special series of habitats to breed the

tigers, and it means that we can house up to 10 tigers.

So we've got Kartika and her three cubs.

We've got the father of the cub, Clarence, and then we have grandma and

the cub, Jamila and Kimbali.

With less than 400 Sumatran tigers in the wild, they're really in trouble.

OK, so I've got Kartika and Pem here.

So Taronga's breeding program is part of a worldwide effort to help preserve the

species.

Kartika is very important to the breeding program.

She has successfully bred three cubs.

So she's got Tenga, female, Mawa, female, and Pemina, the male.

But now's the time where she's thinking, I might like to breed again.

And in the wild, it would be natural around this time for the mum to probably

look at ousting the cubs, saying it's time for you guys to move on.

But the zoo faces a problem.

While the tiger breeding program is crucial for species survival, it has to

managed carefully.

At the zoo, we have limited space, so we can't always breed everything

all the time.

It gives the moms time to raise their offspring.

Kartika had her first litter a year ago, so the team have decided to give her a

hormone implant to stop her from getting pregnant for the next 12 months or so.

It's a procedure that involves a general anaesthetic.

Anesthetising a dangerous animal has a lot of safety concerns for us and there

is risk.

It's not something that we take lightly. It's really serious.

Doing the anaesthesia is

difficult in a sense.

that you have to be able to monitor when the tiger is asleep enough to allow

people to go in there.

And that responsibility falls on vet nurse Liz.

All in there, so if you actually need anything extra, she can just call out to

me. Who's come up with an ingenious way to make sure the gas goes into the

tiger. This is her mask that's going to go on her face for an anaesthetic.

One of our welders actually made this, so he had to make a fitting and then he

had to make it sealed on there. Special design, and yeah, that's what we use now

for lions and tigers.

To avoid moving these dangerous animals around the zoo, these procedures are

conducted in specially designed surgical dens.

What we need to do is pack up the whole hospital and take it to her.

So it's a lot of planning. It's not just a matter of taking an anesthetic

machine. We've got to take all the equipment.

Getting full in there.

It's like going on a holiday.

I'm going to go in the van.

See you.

With hospital staff en route and keepers on standby, only by working

together will this dangerous procedure go off without a hitch.

I'm thinking about it all the time.

Many sleepless nights leading up to an anaesthetic because you want to make

that you're safe, your team's safe, the tiger's safe, and a great outcome at the

end.

Taronga is the perfect place to exhibit some of the marine species that call

Australia's coastline home.

And the seals are a consistent favourite for guests.

We have a mixture of different species. We've got the Californian sea lion, the

Australian sea lion, and then we also have the New Zealand fur seal.

As a conservation zoo, Taronga aims to educate the public.

So cute.

They also manage breeding programs.

Oh, she's getting sleepy.

And are committed to the rescue and rehabilitation of injured wildlife.

Taronga have a really long history of taking in rescued animals and rescued

seals. At the moment, almost half of our seals are rescued animals.

We probably get in a rescued...

seal at least every year. It may be on a popular beach.

It's got extensive injuries and once they come onto our site our vets assess

them and see how bad their injuries are.

The main goal for our rescued seals is to rehabilitate them as quick as we can

and get them back out to the wild and when release isn't an option they do

the opportunity to have a really long and healthy life here with us at

So our rescued seals that stay with us become ambassadors for their species.

and they tell the story of the importance of seals in the wild, what

the environment, and what things are impacting on their survival.

All three of Taronga's long -nosed fur seals have been given a second chance at

life. Bondi, Kiki, and recent addition, Abel.

We think Abel's about four years old or turning four this year. He's a pretty

chilled animal. He learns really quickly. He's very engaged in his

sessions.

Lay down.

Over. And he's actually really confident for such a young animal.

Well done.

Be motivated.

On his left shoulder, he's got a pretty nasty scar.

That's lovely, mate.

Right here.

And that scar is likely from a cookie cutter shark. And these species of

prey on sickly marine mammals. So we find cookie cutter shark bites on...

stranded seals, dolphins and whales.

In you go, mate.

Abel's doing really well now, so he was really lucky to be found early and

therefore to survive that traumatic injury.

Good job.

Hey, where are you going?

The seals are a playful beastie.

You're leading the conga line, are you?

And keepers get attached to them.

They all have different personalities and you get to know who they are.

And they are also different. They're really funny and sometimes they're

and sometimes they're a little bit crazy.

I love them.

This handsome boy is Bondi and he is a rescued long -nosed fur seal or New

Zealand fur seal.

Bondi is probably the funniest seal we have. He really marches to the beat of

his own drum.

He was found at Bondi Beach about six and a half years ago.

He had a really nasty gash on the left side of his body. You can actually see

there now.

We're unsure about what caused that injury. It could be...

a variety of things from a shark attack to a larger seal, or even something like

a boat propeller. So he was in a really bad way. And they didn't think that

Bondi was going to survive because of the extent of those injuries.

However, he did. He's a miracle child.

Good boy.

In the water.

Nice work, Bond.

Due to Taronga's effort, these seals not only have a second chance at life, but

also a chance to do something really important for their species.

Good job!

He does have a little girlfriend, Kiki, who is another one of our rescued long

-nosed fur seals.

So hopefully there'll be a little Bondi. That'd be cool.

Little mini you.

Every day across Taronga's two zoos, keepers work to ensure all their animals

are in peak physical condition.

All right, finish.

Good boy.

At Taronga Western Plain Zoo in Dubbo, keeper Taryn is focusing on the well

-being of a very important breeding male, Dora, the greater one -horned

We're about to do a training session with him. So this is a part of their

husbandry routine.

What we're going to be doing is getting his feet up. We need to check his feet

daily just to make sure he's got no cracks in his nails, no absences

that kind of thing.

We're also going to get him to lean in nice and close. This is just a way that

we can be quite tactile with him. And the reason we would do that, if he ever

had any injuries, we'd be able to treat them.

Boy.

Lean in.

So it's just a general check over of his skin. So we're just checking his eyes

at the moment. So especially in winter, they tend to get little cracks around

their eyes because they're looking pretty good right now.

Joel, do you want to walk him down this way and look at those feet up?

Good.

Good boy.

So just checking different cracks and things.

His feet look pretty good. So we just do these daily checks. So we do look

underneath just to check that everything is looking nice and clean under there.

While a visual inspection is important... Joel, can you just make

scales are on for me? You're already there.

All right, are you happy for me to send him?

Yeah, you're all right.

Another way to check an animal's health is to routinely measure their weight.

At 1964, Joel. Happy?

Happy, yep, you can send him.

I'm going to send him there?

Yeah.

We'd like to see him around the 1950 to 1960.

When he gets to two tonne, we kind of start thinking he's getting a little bit

too heavy, but 1960 is a great way to see him. Good boy.

Nice work, mate.

And while weighing such a large animal was a relatively quick and easy process,

back in Sydney, Keepers are coming to terms with the fact that smaller

doesn't always equal easier.

What's the maximum weight capacity on this?

We're about to find out.

These are designed for cattle.

As today, they're hoping to get an updated weight on their two giant

tortoises.

We've got Lance here on the side with a super orange bumpy shell, and we've got

Esmeralda, who's the oldest animal that we have here at the zoo.

Yes.

Are you going to get on?

Are you going to get on yourself?

That's a little bit strange, isn't it?

Good boy.

Let's get up here.

Here.

Come over this side.

This is very, very tricky.

This is the biggest animal that I have had to weigh here at the zoo. Pretty

exciting.

Come on, let's get up. You got this.

What's this?

And it's a bit funny to be enticing him with food when we're just about to weigh

him. But this is a yummy treat.

You got this.

He's on there.

Nope.

Is there another foot?

We're all here. Nope.

Yeah, we have a slight problem.

We have a slight problem? We forgot to turn the scales on.

So now we have to get him off.

And weigh him again, so... Taronga is home to

three rescued long -nosed fur seals, Abel, Bondi and Kiki.

Kiki is an 11 -year -old New Zealand fur seal.

She came to us as a young seal when we found her. She was in the harbour.

She was showing some erratic behaviour.

We think she may have been hit by a boat, and so she came in with suspected

brain injury.

While Kiki couldn't be released back to the wild, Taronga had given her a second

chance, not only to live, but to breed.

Last year, Kiki met Bondi, our resident male New Zealand fur seal.

And we actually did see a viable mating. We haven't had a New Zealand fur seal

pup in recent history, so lots of excitement, the fact that we potentially

got a pup. Yeah, fingers crossed.

Although they mated six months ago... All right, let's... ..today is the first

time that senior vet Larry is able to get close enough to Kiki to conduct an

ultrasound and hopefully confirm her pregnancy.

Kiki generally is quite a nervous animal so she's going to be very aware of her

surroundings. We've done a lot of training to get her to this point that

at today. We've tried getting different people in, doing different scenarios and

hopefully it'll be smooth sailing.

She's good today? Yeah, so she's been working very well lately, so we've been

aiming to get to this point.

We've done a lot of extra training, so hopefully she's... She's solid today?

She's solid today.

Good, good. Famous last words, obviously.

All right, well, fingers crossed. Let's get going.

Safe?

Come on.

Good girl.

Hey.

Hey, girl.

So just because she's a little bit nervous, Jose is going to hold the

probe against her. Good girl.

So just really, like, ruffle the fur as much as you can, mate.

Nothing there.

The problem is we're not getting an image because of that layer of air

trapped under the fur.

And she hasn't taken her eyes off me.

Good girl.

Good girl.

Do you want to just get her in the water again so she's wet? Yeah. And then you

want me to try? Yep.

To survive the freezing southern ocean, fur seals are equipped with an inbuilt

wetsuit. Fur seals have a double layer of fur, and the layer closest to the

traps a layer of air against the skin.

Can I just touch her? Stay there.

Stay there.

Ready, we'll try again. Touching.

And unfortunately, ultrasound waves don't go through air very well.

So we have to make sure she's very wet and we have to ruffle her fur a lot to

try and dislodge that layer of air against her skin so we can see an image.

Good girl.

Excellent. Stay there.

Nothing. The ultrasound waves are just not penetrating, so we're actually not

getting an image at all.

I'm just going to just feel.

Without a clear image, Larry resorts to some old -fashioned diagnostics.

To be honest, just looking at her and just feeling like this, I can't imagine

that there's a pup in there at all. She's just at this stage of her

she should have quite a large pup, and it just seems empty.

You can see that she's got a very nice little waistline there.

Yeah, she certainly hasn't put on weight.

She's maintained weight.

All right, well, try again this year. Yes. End of this year. That's right,

exactly. Good girl. All right.

Excellent. I think we're done.

Bye, Larry.

See you, sweetie.

While there's no seal pup arriving for Kiki in the near future, Okay.

Taronga is about to receive another fur seal under more urgent circumstances.

It is only a little guy.

Down at Tiger Trek,

I might prepare the dart.

the zoo is getting ready to conduct one of their most dangerous procedures.

Today we have an anesthesia on our smartphone tiger named Kartika.

Kartika is nearly nine years old, and she had her first litter about a little

over a year ago.

And today she's getting a reproductive implant.

We're going to stop her coming into heat, and then she can stay calm, stay

her cubs, raise them.

One, two, three.

And with so much at stake, both hospital and keeper staff have left nothing to

chance.

It is quite challenging because he's a dangerous animal. We have to be very

careful.

We'll be putting some shackles on her hind feet. We have to be totally ready

anything that could happen. So she could go very smooth, but also, you know,

something could happen. She might, you know, stop breathing.

So we have to be prepared and have all our emergency equipment available.

Okay, so we're just going to take five before we start the GA.

When we're in there, everyone has to wear masks because COVID for the tigers

there's not enough room to social distance for us. So make sure you've got

mask on. It's a dangerous animal. So, you know, be cautious and just remember

that sometimes with this drug, animals can spontaneously arouse. So we just

to make sure the anesthesia is really solid before we go in. Yeah.

And giving the anesthetic is Keeper Tamara, who is doing her first ever

injection. We've got about 1 .4 mils there.

Good luck, girlfriend.

Thank you.

She doesn't know you.

She's not suspicious that you're going to be doing that.

It's loaded.

Good luck.

We don't need luck.

We've got this.

This is the only part of the procedure where I do get a little nervous.

Hopefully she'll get the whole dose.

And then this drug combination can take about up to 20 minutes to have full

effect. So we may not know if she's going to go to sleep fully until the 20

minutes.

For me, this is the worst part.

Peepers Delvina and Adam are attempting to weigh the zoo's two giant Aldabran

tortoises.

We weigh all our animals here at the zoo to ensure that they're healthy, they're

maintaining weight, not losing weight. It also indicates whether they have any

internal parasites or anything wrong with them.

By weighing him, we can look back in our records and compare to make sure that

he's on track or, you know, Esmeralda's on track just for their general health.

Just like you and I weigh ourselves just to make sure we haven't, you know, gone

a bit crazy over the chilly season.

What's this?

After a false start with Lan... He's on there.

No. We have a slight problem.

We have a slight problem? We forgot to turn the scales on.

They're keen to reset.

and try again.

What I'm doing right now is bringing Lance over to the scales because he

come willingly. No one wants to know their own weight, including him.

At the moment, it's been quite difficult to get Lance onto the scales. He did it

once, and now he's like, nah, don't want to do it again. But we do have

Esmeralda coming in very, very fast.

It's like a speed of light for her.

And if anything, if she goes on first, that might make it a little bit easy.

She is the oldest resident here at the zoo and obviously the wisest.

She knows what's up.

So I have no clue how heavy she is. I can't remember our last weight on her.

It's probably not right. Is she up?

Yeah, she's completely on. Are you on? Good girl.

Now you have to stay here for a little bit.

126 .5.

That is a very good weight.

You can see actually how concave the plastron is underneath. Have you seen

underneath them before? Have a look.

To get underneath and have a look is really important as well. So we have to

take full advantage of the weigh -in.

Carrot for you.

She's a delicate eater, but watch how she bites.

This is a carrot. They're pretty hard. Imagine if that was your finger.

With Esmeralda weighed... Come on.

..they've decided to take one last crack at getting Lance back on the scale.

All right.

Let's try and get you on.

Definitely slow and steady. Always slow and steady. Never in a rush with these

animals. They actually do move quicker than you're led to believe. It's just

that it's a little bit cooler. It's a bit later in the afternoon, so they

losing their body heat.

It's not like we can just pick him up and sit him on like he was a small

tortoise, you know.

He's halfway on the scales, and he's sort of sitting up around, I don't know,

looking like 150 kilos, and he's halfway on.

So hopefully he decides he's going to do it.

Otherwise we're going to be here for a while.

Well, we're nearly there. He's like three quarters on. Come on.

You've got your foot up. You've got this. Come on. Good boy.

Good boy, Lance. Good boy.

Come on, Fluffy.

Come on.

Good boy. Good boy. Good boy.

Three out of four feet. Not too bad. Not too bad.

No, no, no. No, no, no.

Stay on.

It's just one foot.

We are so close. Just one foot. So now he's decided that he wants to get off.

Step your toes. Come on.

That's it.

This way.

Come on.

No.

We're going to have to try another day.

You'll get more of this if you turn around.

This has been by far the hardest thing that I've done here.

We might be here for a little bit longer.

You've got one minute to do this. You are the fastest tortoise in the world.

Yes, you are.

Before Kartika can receive a hormone implant, this cautious tiger needs to be

given a pole injection to put her to sleep.

Is that yet?

Yeah.

She doesn't like that. I'm nervous about it. It looks like she got it all in.

You did get it all in. Wow.

That's very positive.

It went in at 8 .56.

And since all the anaesthetic went into Kartika, Kimberly doesn't have to wait

long for the good news.

Hello to Kimberly.

Go ahead.

Just to let you know, it's taking effect.

She's laying down.

Oh, my gosh. All right, it's quick.

Awesome.

Okay, is it okay for me to head in then?

That was fast. She still has her eyes open, but probably if you come in

This is fine. She's right there at the door.

She's having an occasional blink, so we can see that her anesthesia is working

really well.

But to be completely sure, Kimberly applied the low -tech but very effective

of checking if it's safe to enter the tiger den.

I'm just going to see if she reacts.

Good, I think she's quite anesthetized.

Any reaction there?

No.

I'm happy.

You can, yep, stretch her in an anesthetic machine.

Satisfied that Katika is out, the team immediately get to work.

Okay, I'm okay. Cargo net?

I'm going to come behind you.

We need gas.

We'll move the table.

Okay, Annabelle, this is in two and a half and two liters.

With any dangerous animal procedure, we put the shackles on their legs. If by

any chance she was to arouse, there's just another level of restraint, so we

have more time to get out.

Happy? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, that pulse is correct.

Are you happy with the anesthesia?

Good job.

Now she's on the gas, and we have a tracheal tube down her airway, so we're

giving her supplemental gas anesthesia.

Her jaw is really loose, so that's a good indication that she's deeply

anesthetized. Happy to take that off? Yeah.

Yep. Thanks.

Great.

She's gorgeous, isn't she?

She's in really good shape, too. Like, she's not fat at all.

It's not often that a big cat goes on the table, so Kimberly takes the

opportunity to do a complete exam to make sure there's no other underlying

problem. Let's check all her paws.

Sometimes these guys can get ingrown nails, so... You guys happy with her

weight? Yes, very happy with her weight.

I'd love to check the nails also.

find it a lot of fun because they hold the nails in there and then you can push

them out and that's how they stick them out when they want to use them to

capture things.

So I'm just going to do a dental exam and see if any of these teeth have

problems. A little bit worn of the incisors, but not too bad.

How old is she? She's nearly nine, right? She's a little over almost nine.

A bit of a grace out there.

He's got a fracture here. Do you see that tooth that's loose there?

Oh, it's wibbly wobbly.

Yeah, it's very wobbly.

Yeah, an infection in there.

Yeah,

it is only a little guy.

Meanwhile,

up at the wildlife hospital, Larry has just taken delivery of a badly injured

fur seal.

So he's very, very lethargic, but still potential for suddenly rousing and

biting us.

So we'll just give him a little bit of a gas anaesthetic so that we can examine

him thoroughly.

He's going to hold that end there.

You can see.

The seal is so ill, Larry gets him on fluids straight away.

So this little fur seal was brought in by New South Wales National Parks and

Wildlife Service officers. It was hauled out at Cornell, which is just on the

south side of Sydney.

but it's extremely lethargic. Very sick little seal, so we're going to examine

it, try and work out what might be going on.

So it's a boy.

His willy's just there.

Let's have a look in the mouth.

I'd say just looking at this animal's teeth, it's probably at least two and a

half years old.

So it's certainly older than you'd think, especially it's a relatively

seal. The seal is small for its age.

Can you hold that eye open there?

An indication that it hasn't been able to find food for quite some time.

Yeah.

And his eyes are concerning Larry.

Sadly, I've already got a bit of an idea of what's going on here.

Let me just look at the other eye.

So this poor little guy has had major trauma to his eye.

See there?

Terrible. So damage to ripped cornea. And unfortunately this eye is also in a

bad way.

And so there's a terrible cataract in that eye.

So this animal is blind essentially.

It's a real shame because it really looks like...

There may be nothing else wrong with this animal.

Hard to know what happened there, but it must have been a traumatic injury, I'd

say, of some sort. That happened some time ago.

And he's probably been just sort of hanging out there slowly, getting

and thinner, and got to the point now where he's just very, very skinny, skin

and bone.

So sadly, not a good outcome for this little guy because he would not be

releasable. These eyes are permanently damaged and also wouldn't even be an

option for keeping him in permanent care here at the zoo because of not being

able to see.

So, another sad one.

The decision to euthanise an animal is never taken lightly.

But sadly, for this fur seal...

His wounds are just too severe.

These wildlife animals that end up going to post -mortem provide a great

opportunity for disease surveillance.

So sad to lose this animal's life, but we will get some valuable information

from it, that's for sure.

All right, another day another way.

That was good. That was amazing.

Now let's go weigh a tortoise.

Well, hopefully we'll get him today.

Two weeks after their first attempt at weighing Lance, the giant Aldabran

tortoise... You all right? Yep.

Keepers Delvina and Adam are back for another try.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Let's see, because I'm about the same weight as him.

Whoa.

That's my COVID weight.

Yeah, looks like...

I'll be eating salad for a while.

Luckily for these famously stubborn animals, salad is what motivates them.

We have our secret weapon here today. We've got bananas, which is their

favourite fruit. We've also got some capsicum and also some carrot as well.

they're quite driven by colour, so they will opt for the more orange and red and

yellow more than they will the green.

I think that's why they like me, because of my hair.

They seem to be working. That's good. Let's go.

Step into my den.

Hello.

What's that?

It's a carrot.

But maybe if you come outside, you will get your carrot. Come on.

Let's go.

Almost there, Lance. Good boy.

While the carrot got Lance moving.

Good boy.

Let's go.

To get him to the scales, Delvina needs to pull out the big gun.

What's that? Look at that.

Make it like a banana peel and let's split.

Come on, Lance. Come on.

It's a banana. It's your favourite.

It's so yummy.

And you get the rest of it once you're on the scales.

Let's go.

So close.

Almost there.

You've got this.

He's actually coming a lot faster than I anticipated.

What about this?

What about this?

Come on, Lance. You've got this.

Two feet up now.

Just two more to go and a whole lot of shell.

Good boy. Come on. Come on. So close. Good boy.

Oh, my goodness. Are you all right?

Is he all right?

Check. Quick.

Are you all right? Let me check.

That's all feet?

Yep.

He's all on.

All on? So now we can get him weight.

Oh, my goodness.

197 .5.

Just under 200 kilos.

That was well worth the weight.

Hey, Adam, it's time to shell a break.

Lance, you've done such a good job.

Yeah, best job ever. He even looks pretty happy about it too.

Are you happy?

A lot of banana breath.

Good boy.

We need gas.

Kartika, an important breeding female at Taronga Zoo, is undergoing a general

anesthetic in the hope of slowing down her breeding cycle.

Are you happy with the anesthesia?

But while conducting a general exam...

Kimberly has found Kartika has another problem.

She's got a fractured right carnasial tooth.

I'm going to have to probably remove this piece of tooth.

Yeah, an infection in there.

And for one of the world's largest carnivores, a broken tooth is something

needs to be fixed right away.

So I'm taking out that small front fractured piece of the tooth that we saw

earlier.

Nice slab fracture of what we call the carnasial tooth, the big

sawing, chewing tooth that they have on the upper side.

I'm just putting some pressure on that so it stops bleeding.

She's a chewer somehow because she's got wear at the back of her canine.

I think it's the gums that have just grown up over the hole in the tooth.

Well, that's good news. Yeah.

After all that, I don't think I need to fill it.

Now that the tooth is removed, it's time for the hormonal implant.

So we're just preparing the site where we're going to inject the birth control

implant. So it needs to go under the skin, and we're putting it below the

ear.

This releases over time, and in some of the tigers in the past,

We've had this last for up to 18 months.

Okay.

I'm just going to implant it slowly and draw out the needles I'm implanting it.

With the tooth removed and the hormone implant in place, it's

been a successful morning for Kimberly.

And the hospital died.

It went really well. Her anesthesia was fabulous.

She's in great condition. We gave her the reproductive implant.

But we found a broken tooth. So she's got a bit of an infection in her tooth.

And we took that out. We're going to send the x -rays to our dentist that

us. This is her reversal.

I'm going to give her something to reverse her. This should take about 20

minutes for her to wake up.

Okay, let's get everything out.

Here's the reversal bell.

Yep.

I think we can leave her to finish recovering as long as she stays

well. Let's go on out.

While Kartika will recover from this procedure in a few hours, the keepers

need to wait a full three weeks to see if she can begin to coexist with her

once more.

She's not quite ready to stand up.

I think we can leave her now and let Danielle finish watching her recovery.

And she'll watch her throughout the day and make sure she's okay.

And when she's back to normal, she'll be able to feed her and give her some

water.

So this animal is blind, essentially.

The team at Taronga's Wildlife Hospital do everything they can for sick animals

that come in from the wild.

But sadly, not a good outcome for this little guy because he would not be

releasable. But some, like this young fur seal, just don't make it.

Not all of the seals that are rescued and come into our care survive.

Unfortunately, some of the injuries that they have are really extensive and our

vets have to make the difficult decision to euthanise when they can't be

rehabilitated.

With so many seals living on Sydney's doorstep, the chances of another injured

one being found are high.

Hey Bondi, how are you mate?

And like always, Taronga will be there.

to give them every chance of survival.

It's really an amazing journey to see these animals first come into our

hospital.

They're dehydrated and sickly. They're usually a bag of bones.

And to see them...

thrive after their injuries have healed to see them integrate back in with all

the other seals that we have and to see them start learning and behaving like

seals again it's just really nice to be able to give them that opportunity to

have a second chance at life

Kartika, the female Sumatran tiger, was given an implant to help

reduce her need to mate.

Before the implant, Kartika had these surges in her hormones that she

wanted to mate with the male, and the cubs were in her territory, and she was

asking them to leave by growling at them and showing them a little bit of

aggression.

If we didn't give her that implant, the aggression may have escalated and she

might have caused a slight injury to her cubs in the process of asking them to

leave.

But in the weeks after the implant, Danielle has noticed an improvement in

behaviour from Kartika.

Since the implant, Kartika and her three cubs, Tenga, Mawa and Pemina, are

living... completely harmoniously with each other, very comfortable in each

other's presence.

It means we can keep Kartika with her cubs for at least the next year or so,

that's great for the cubs. It will enable them to be more social, and then

they enter the breeding program, they'll have a greater chance of success.

And for Danielle...

Breeding success is one of the most rewarding parts of working with the

magnificent but endangered Sumatran tiger.

I have those moments where you think, hey, I'm the only person in

Australia pretty much today that's worked with seven tigers and three of

are cubs and it just blows my mind. I'm just so incredibly lucky to have...

such an amazing career and enjoy every moment. I just look forward to going to

work every single day.