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.

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

on. And our cameras are there.

To bring you every magic moment.

On this episode. This is our brand new line enclosure.

For the first time in five years.

Everything's set up. Everything's ready.

A right royal entrance.

You see?

Oh, it's okay.

As the kings of the jungle return to the harbour city... They're exploring

everything, so I think they're pretty happy.

..and bring some friends with them.

Think or swim... Moment of truth for this guy. We're going to see how he

..hospital staff are stretched to the limit as they try to save endangered

sea turtle.

Turtle's one of my favourites. Very special animal.

And our keepers... That's one. ..turn weight watchers.

I am weighing a beautiful pygmy marmoset.

To make sure the world's smallest monkey... Good girl, Eva.

...doesn't get too big.

157.

The Taronga Wildlife Hospital is one of the busiest places at the zoo.

Let's pull them over here. Yeah, sorry, pull them. While it services all the

zoo's residents... I'm just going to do a full exam on Rodney.

It also accepts wildlife from all over the country.

So this little fur seal was hauled out at Cornell, which is just on the south

side of Sydney.

And a lot of these are seasonal.

Some are injured by bushfires.

By the time we received the first koala, it was well into the evening.

Or by storms.

It was found in really high seas, so during a stormy time.

And lately, as the waters around Sydney warm up.

They've seen an influx of green sea turtle.

Wow. Yeah.

We done well?

When he first arrived, he was extremely weak. In fact, he looked almost dead. So

the only way we could tell he was alive was by touching his eyes and seeing that

he could breathe every now and then. He was very limp and couldn't hold his head

up at all.

Whether it got snagged in something, who knows?

The turtle is covered in algae.

which is a sign it's really struggling.

This is a very dehydrated young turtle.

Healthy turtles scratch off all their algae and biota in the barnacles. They

their claws on their flippers, and they also scratch themselves on caves and

rock crevices.

But very sick animals don't do that, and they're often floating for a very long

period of time. Very sunken in, very skinny, some barnacles there.

These turtles are doing it tough in the wild.

And Larry and Libby are deeply concerned.

Very weak, very thin, a normal healthy turtle. They'd be flapping around, so

definitely very, very weak. He's probably been sick for months and may

eaten anything for a very long time as well.

36 when you did it, yeah, 36.

There's a whole range of problems that will result in a turtle as thick as

Disease, lots of parasites that infect them.

Bacterial infections, fungal infections we see as well, particularly in the

lungs. But sadly, probably more common than that is things that are a result of

human activity.

Discarded fishing line, fish hooks, plastic, of course, and also boat

so getting hit by boats. Turtles are...

It's diagnostically pretty challenging. As you can imagine, everything is

encased in this shell.

One of the only ways to look through that thick shell is by x -ray.

Again, with a healthy turtle, this would be more of a struggle.

Okay, that looks good.

A very important thing is to look at the lungs, and you can just see this

faintly air -filled structure here. But the lungs are filled with air, but

probably not as much as they should.

So they've got nothing crazy on the x -rays.

That's great. Lungs look reasonable.

With no obvious signs of injury or infection, the team decides to monitor

turtle over the next few days, searching for a glimmer of hope that it can be

saved. Yeah, turtles are one of my favourites.

Yeah, very special animals.

They're really rewarding animals to work with.

And one of the best things, I reckon, is actually seeing them released, and it's

wonderful. So everyone that comes in, you know, we really want to help them

And because their status is endangered, each individual animal is important. So

that's why we do put a huge amount of effort into getting them right.

After 18 months of construction, the animals are finally moving into

African Savannah precinct.

The giraffe and zebra have already settled in.

They were recently joined by the meerkat and the fennec foxes.

I'm waiting till last to make its grand entrance.

the king of the jungle, the African lion.

Well, two to be precise.

So this is our brand new lion enclosure. This is going to be the home of Luwazi

and Atto. They're two young male lions and they're coming from Victoria.

It's been five long years since Taronga has had lions and head keeper Louise is

hoping they'll love their new kingdom.

It's such a big, varied space.

This has got so many different levels, rocky outcrops, fallen trees.

There's upright trees that they can climb if they really wanted to. There's

areas, there's heated areas.

I mean, there's wonderful little viewing spots all the way along. So people, no

matter what our lions are doing, everyone's going to get such a great

them. The exhibit has been carefully crafted with the big cat's needs in mind

and views to make them feel right at home.

I can actually see a giraffe there right now, so that means the lions are going

to have an incredible view, looking straight through and getting to see some

the animals that they would have seen in Africa in the savannah.

So Sydney Harbour is going to be like a natural amphitheatre for these guys, so

I think they'll hear it all the way over into the domain. We certainly hear

concerts from the domain, so now they're going to hear our beautiful lions

roaring all the way over there.

Elsewhere in the Savannah, the ever -inquisitive meerkats are busy checking

their new home.

And this morning, Teepa Danielle is doing the rounds to make sure they're

settling in well.

Morning, little Marys. Hey,

little guys.

Yeah. You want your breakfast?

Go on.

Meerkats are really unique little animals. Every single one of them has

little personality, its own little quirks, and it's just wonderful working

them. Hey, little Mary.

Like all of the Savannah Precinct, the Meerkat exhibit is purpose -built,

with plants from their native Africa and termite mounds packed

full of their favourite food.

Got some crickets, which are little insects, into our termite mound. There's

central area that I'm putting them into. And then the crickets can slowly make

their way out several little pipes.

And then, oh, there's one.

And they'll come out of the termite mound and then the meerkats can find

and egg them.

It's a busy morning for Danielle.

Okay.

Her next stop is the new Fennec Fox exhibit.

Now home to Zinda.

So there's some digging over there, some footprints. So they have been exploring

the exhibit everywhere.

We have seen Zinda, our male, come out during the day and explore the exhibit

and actually rest out here, but we haven't seen Zalika, the young female,

out at all during the day.

The fact that I've seen all this digging today, Makes me think that she's come

out at night so she's becoming a little bit more comfortable and hopefully over

time she'll become more and more comfortable and we'll see her out here

the day.

Danielle rakes the exhibit every day.

It's mundane work but it's vital so that the keepers can track the fennec fox's

movement.

It enables us to see what activity happens from this point on, where

been, what they're doing.

But it's not all business.

To keep things interesting, Danielle also places out little treats.

So I'm just hiding some peanuts in the exhibit so that when the phoenix come

and they dig around that they stumble across some peanuts and I'm spraying

perfumes.

This is all part of environmental enrichment.

So the idea is that suddenly making changes to the environment, so this is a

scent change and that's a food change, and then it changes the environment very

subtly. So when the phoenix come out, it's always different and interesting

them.

Both phoenix foxes and meerkat are carnivorous.

But the savannah's biggest meat -eaters arrive later tonight.

It's now almost a week since this ailing turtle was brought into the wildlife

hospital. He's gaining strength by eating each day and getting fluid.

And vet nurse Liz is happy with its progress so far.

He's just had some food. Look, there you go.

Almost. He's hungry.

While he's slightly more active, the turtle is still floating on the surface,

revealing an underlying problem that needs to be addressed.

As you can see him swimming, he has slightly got his left side up, which is

normal. He should be able to submerge quite deep, but he's not really got the

strength to be able to do that yet.

Floating may indicate that too much air is trapped under the shell.

To find out, Vet Francis calls for more x -rays, and the early signs are

concerning. Yep.

There's air under pressure in the animal's body cavity, can't breathe

and probably its guts can't work properly. It needs to come out to keep

animal comfortable at this stage.

And so that's going to be the procedure today, is to introduce a needle into

that space where the air is and suck the air out.

Frances hopes by removing the air, she'll give the lungs the space they

inflate properly when the turtle breathes.

So I suctioned out a bit of air from the left -hand side and I can see, although

it's better than it was before, there's still quite a lot of air in there. So I

think we need to go back in and suck out a little bit more air.

Because we want this to really help the animal. We want to make a difference

with what we're doing today.

So as the air is coming out, the animal's plaster on the bottom part of

shell is moving in towards the other side.

Injured turtles recover very slowly, and Frances knows this one is in for the

long haul.

So we'll take that other X -ray.

So on this last X -ray, I actually think we've been successful, at least

temporarily, in getting most of the air out of there. There's a tiny little bit

of air down here, but on the whole, the lungs are much more inflated.

It's still got a long way to go, but I think today's exercise has really helped

the animal, make it easier for it to breathe.

It's a promising start, but that's all it is.

He's still quite weak, still in his, I suppose, intensive care. We've been

giving him with his fluid therapy and antibiotics and things.

There's a lot of ground to travel before he's at a point where we can be

confident that this turtle's going to be one that can be rehabilitated.

Yeah. So let's get him back into his pool.

Yep. And we'll get the keeping staff to feed it. Yep, we will do.

Tonight is a special one for Taronga. The lions will finally take their place.

in the savannah not surprisingly moving a lion is a complicated business and

head keeper louise is overseeing the operation and so all the dens have all

hosed out this has been such a long time coming i mean five years we've waited

for this moment to finally get to this stage where everything's set up

everything's ready the beds are in the locks are on the numbers are on the den

you know it's it's just brilliant i just i can't wait to see lions in here

that's all we need now is just to see some lions in here

14 .5. It's gone up a little bit. Feel it.

It's definitely warmer than that. Oh, really? Nice and toasty.

Keeper Deb and Leslie make their final den check.

It's looking really cosy.

It's a little bit cold in Sydney tonight.

It'll be nice for them to come into a nice dry and warm space.

There's multiple dens that they can choose from, so they can choose whether

want to sleep here or somewhere else up on the top bedboard.

The choice is completely theirs.

That one is definitely locked, secured.

The door is locked.

Can we get a nice view out of the harbour? Yeah, the harbour. Yeah, it's

isn't it? It is, it's lovely.

Tonight, I guess I'm the one where the buck stops. I'll be coordinating all the

teams of people, doing debriefings and, you know, checking. We do a stop for

safety to make sure that everyone does this in a really safe manner.

Because this is, you know, while we've done this a lot of times before, this is

the first time we've done it in this brand new building.

Hello, Louise speaking.

Hey, Bonnie, how are you going?

Really? Oh, my goodness.

45 minutes, everyone.

45 minutes away.

Excellent. All right. Well, you guys drive safe.

So we've got the cargo straps there. Can we put the top rope down? With the

lion's arrival now imminent, there's just enough time for Louise to make some

final mood adjustments.

So this is a feline facial pheromone. That's the pheromone that cats use when

they rub their cheeks on things. So they rub their cheeks on the lounge or on

your leg.

This is designed for a domestic cat. But for our lions, they're going to respond

to it probably just as well. So we're spraying it around because we want them

feel comfortable. We want them a sense of security. So it's going to last for

about five or six hours and help them settle in.

20 minutes to arrival now.

And the team gather for a final briefing.

Every animal move has unique challenges.

But with dangerous animals, there's absolutely no room for error.

The procedure is we're going to bring them in through the back doors, take the

first line all the way down to den 5, strap the box against the wall so it's

% secure, and really good, clear communication, slow and steady. This is

race or a rush.

They are dangerous animals, so we do need to take appropriate precautions.

So generally when we're dealing with any procedures on the big cats, we do have

a gun person present just in case something untoward happens.

We want to make it as calm as possible, so we need to keep the noise down and

just work swiftly, quietly, calmly.

And yeah, it all should hopefully go beautifully to plan.

It's been a few weeks since a very sick green sea turtle arrived at the Taronga

Zoo Wildlife Hospital.

It's very sad when you see them like this.

So we'll look after him and get him back out into the ocean again.

And the vet team is calling on all its experience to restore this turtle's

strength so they can eventually release him back to the wild.

Okay, let's get that x -ray.

We're X -raying him every day to monitor what the air is doing inside his body

and how much to suction out each day.

And we'll do one last set of X -rays, and then we're done.

But there's no time to rest, as mid -exam, yet another patient arrives.

A member of public found it and took it to Australian Seabird Rescue, and then

they took it to a vet.

Okay, so there's some records from the veterinary clinic.

If a turtle is lucky enough to make it back to the wild, often that's not the

end of the story.

There are plenty of repeat visitors, just like this one.

This turtle has been seen several months ago at a different veterinarian up the

north coast.

some type of injury to the top of the shell, and had air trapped within the

cavity. So the vets treated it, released it.

The turtle has been found again recently floating at the surface of the water.

We'll never know what actually caused the gash on the top of the shell, but

very suspicious that this could have been a boat strike or a cut from a

propeller. My worry about this guy is that he was normal and was released,

and now he's floating again.

So there may still be a small leak in his lungs, but that's my biggest

It's after hours on a cool night in Sydney, but at Taronga, things are

starting to heat up.

After a long trip, the truck carrying the two young lion has finally arrived.

So the cats have been in the boxes for at least 10 or 11 hours and so this is

probably the longest they've ever been separated in their lives.

So we're keen to get them out and unload as quickly as possible so they can

stretch their legs, have some dinner and settle into their brand new home.

So I'm just guiding the truck down to where we're going to unload it from the

truck. So we've got a bit of tight corners.

It's always a bit nerve -wracking because you want everything to go really

but I'm excited.

Can't wait to see them.

Because of the pandemic, Taronga's team must take even more precautions than

usual.

COVID -19 has been diagnosed in big cats in America.

tigers and lions.

So of course we have to consider that here as well.

We are still going to put them in two weeks quarantine as anyone else that

be travelling would go into two weeks isolation.

It's quite a process of course to get them out of there. We're a little bit of

distance away from where they're going to the lion den so the forklift will

to take them down there.

At the moment, we're just arranging to get one of the lions off. We want to get

Luazi off first.

We think he's going to be our bravest, boldest lion. Hopefully, he'll come

straight out of the box.

When moving dangerous animals, everything needs to be secured.

Nothing can be left to charm.

All right, so we're going to take him in that way then.

When releasing a lion from a crate, especially a restless one, everyone must

play their part and follow the plan.

Steady through the doorway so we go straight.

I'm going to get squashed.

Stop.

So we've got to go all the way in.

It's very exciting and we're all a little bit concerned and making sure

everything's going to be going okay.

Hoping that he comes out of the box well.

You can come slightly more this way if you need it.

The second last step is to secure the crate to the wall so the lion can be

released into the adjacent den.

This is quite high so there's a gap.

So six is locked and external slide is locked.

They rigged a rope and pulley system to open the slide door between the den.

Now for the last and most critical step.

I'm going to open the slide first.

Okay. Yep.

The den one is locked.

Okay.

D12.

All right. Yep.

Go.

All right, guys.

Whoa.

Taronga's Wildlife Hospital has nursed its fair share of green sea turtles

lately, and vet Kimberly is now caring for the newest arrival.

This turtle came in several months ago to a facility up north, and he had this

big gash, but it also had some gas in his body cavity.

done some really great work to repair a lung leak and get rid of that gas.

It's gone, but we still have to deal with the aftermath of the shell wound.

Before he was released the first time, he had blood collected from the site, so

there's a catheter in there and there's a small wound that needed to be sutured

up, and that's all healing really well. Nice scab on there, nice turtle scab.

That's okay. He's in good condition.

It's healed a lot since he's been in care from the initial time. What do you

guess the first initial one was? Boat strike?

We'll never know, but probably boat strike. Something's hit him from above

propeller. It looks really typical of a propeller blade to me. It does, doesn't

it?

They can't talk to us. It's hard to know.

He's in really good body condition. You know, he's of a good weight. He's got

good musculature.

He's very bright.

But the problem could be that there's scar tissue underneath his shell where

he's had that wound.

And I think that scar tissue is part of the problem because it's pushing a bit

on the spine.

Can you guys get the door? The quickest way to check is to put the turtle in a

deep tank to see if he can dive to the bottom.

which is where he'll find his food when he's back in the wild.

The moment of truth for this guy, we're going to put him in the green tub and

see how he goes.

We'll see if he floats.

Okay. Go slow.

Ready, guys?

All right.

Well... I'm not too happy with that positioning, but let's give him a little

of time and see what happens. What I'm seeing now is the fact that he can't

really get his tail end down.

It's floating straight up. And this is how he was found in the water, in the

ocean.

We can't release a turtle like that, obviously. If he's unable to get to the

bottom, we can't release him.

So his future may not be so great.

While this physical examination is useful, only a CT scan will tell the

story of what's going on beneath his shell.

Here, where we can see blue coming through, that's the actual gash.

So it's quite a big injury.

And then it's running right alongside the spine.

So we can actually see damage to the spine.

So the damage has probably occurred from the initial injury.

And then as it was trying to heal and scar tissue formed in that space, it

actually started to grow and expand and push on the nerve. I'm a little worried

that with that lesion, he's going to be a bit too impaired to go back out.

I'm quite uncertain about his future for release to the wild.

At Taronga, it's very easy to spot the star attractions.

But take a closer look, and there's a whole lot more to discover.

Good morning.

Hi, girls.

Institute keeper Grace cares for the smallest primates in the world.

Hello. Hi, darling.

Pygmy marmosets are native to the Amazon Basin, but they're very at home at

Taronga. And on Gray.

You guys hungry? Yeah.

These hyperactive little creatures are waiting for their weekly weigh -in.

Good girl, Luna.

I have here four little girls, they're all sisters.

As you can see, they are very keen to do a weigh -in for me today. One at a

time.

Because they are so small, it's very important that we get a weight on them.

as you can also see, because of all of the fur lining, it's hard to be able to

tell if they're really skinny or overweight.

Sitting on my shoulder, there's times when I can't feel that they're even on

So the fact that they even register on our scales is pretty amazing.

So by getting a regular weight, it means that I can make sure that no one's

getting left out on food, but also that we're maintaining a really nice weight.

Okay, good girl, Eva.

One, four, three. And while these girls usually only weigh up to around about

just over 100 grams, whereas our girls, being in winter and in a colder climate,

as well as having an abundance of insects that fly into this exhibit, they

definitely make the most of that.

Eva, your turn. Good girl.

Good girl, Eva.

Hang on, better off.

So our girls are very fast as you can see. I've got to be really quick with

numbers of when they are on the scales because obviously they jump off very

quickly and I want to make sure I've got a really nice accurate number every

time they get on the scale.

Up you go.

Good girl.

So this here is Luna and she is weighing in really well today. She's actually

put on a little bit of weight. She has had a couple of meals already today so

that makes a lot of sense.

These tiny pygmy marmosets have big personalities.

And like other primates, they live in a hierarchy.

Eva is our dominant girl. She is our smallest, but Eva is our boss. So she is

the oldest of all of these girls, and she does whatever she wants, and the

of the girls follow suit. They like to groom her the most. She's like the big

bossy sister.

Good girl, Eva. She's 144 today, so that's a really, really nice weight.

Little Lucia here, she's our really cheeky youngest girl, and she really

to be the little parrot on this pirate's shoulder.

Hey.

So what she's doing is seeing what we've got next for her favorite food items.

One of them is corn.

Nice little fresh kernels of corn. These girls absolutely love them, and if you

kind of think about it, if you look at their body size,

A corn kernel is like a big apple for them, isn't it?

157.

Next up, we have beautiful Pepita.

She thinks that she is the boss, but she's definitely not.

So she's our biggest and our gutsiest. She likes to steal from the younger

girls.

Pepita has quite beautiful coloured orange around the outside of her eye.

and that makes her stand out a little bit more, as well as being a bit more of

bigger boned girl in our group.

This is Lucia.

While they may be small and cute, don't be deceived by their looks.

You'll be able to have a really good look at those little claws.

They're very minute and detailed little teeth.

You'll see how sharp they are. They're like little razor blades, and they're

used for scraping out the bark on an exterior of a tree. It then fills up

sap. and the animals can then suck that all out. So those little hands and those

very sharp claws, you'll see that they're quite long.

They are excellent for gripping onto vines and branches and trees.

Finally, the weigh -in for these pocket rockets is complete, and the scales

don't lie.

The girls did steal a few too many bites of food before I actually got them on

the scales, which means that their scale weight is a little bit higher than it

should be. But there's nothing to worry about as I'm going to weigh them all

again next week, like usual.

Over the past few weeks, Kimberly has been monitoring the health of this green

sea turtle with a spinal injury.

You know who feeds you.

And after watching him in the deeper pool, she has growing concerns.

When I feed him, I want to see him actually getting down and eating the

with ease. I don't want to see him struggling to get his hind end down. See

he's floating a bit with his tail up, and he's not using the hind flippers to

help him get down and maneuver to the bottom.

But he doesn't have a whole lot of use of those hind flippers, and I think

that's... probably because of that spinal injury.

So because he's still quite tail up and he's not able to dive down and get his

food properly, I'm really reluctant to release him to the wild.

He's in really good condition. Otherwise, he's really robust.

Kimberly's main fear is that he could not survive on his own in the wild.

It's really sad, but it would suffer. He could struggle to eat.

lose a lot of weight. We don't want him to starve to death.

He could be easy prey for a shark or something like that.

So his welfare is important. We don't want to put him in a situation where

going to fail.

But for this turtle, she has another idea in mind.

We don't house them here permanently at our zoo. Some aquariums do house them,

and occasionally there's room for another turtle in the collection.

So we can see about that option.

But if we can't find a place for him, then we'd probably have to euthanize

After nearly 12 hours on the road, Taronga's two new lions have finally

arrived at the zoo. But there was a problem releasing the first lion, Luazi.

All right, guys.

Whoa.

Pull it down.

What just happened? The pulley broke because the cable tied up the pulley.

Oh, okay, that's right. So we're going to just have to... We're just going to

have to lock that and we're just going to put it through the ring instead.

Yep. So we have to quickly just re -rig the rope through the ring that we've got

set up.

Good boy.

It's me again.

Good boy, Dylan.

Oh, man.

You all right, Deb?

What do you need?

The hole on my side is so light.

All right, Alex, are you going to go out? I'm just going to give it leverage.

Okay, ready to take pressure?

Ben can give you guys a hand as well so we can get it open quicker.

Ready.

Okay, nice and easy.

Oh, it's okay.

It's okay.

Good boy. It's okay.

Hello. Good boy, darling. Good boy.

You're all right.

You're all right, buddy.

So I reckon let's move him into den three. Good boy.

So that he doesn't have to watch the...

Luazi seems like a really calm cat. He came out of the box. He was a little bit

worried when he first came out. He's in a completely foreign place, but he

settled in really quickly.

Divider, three to four is locked.

With Luazi out and stretching his leg, it's time to unload his brother, Asho.

Excellent. It's locked.

It is such a relief that this is done now, that we have the lions in, that

they're safe.

Hi.

Hi, Echo.

Bet it's a relief for them to get out of the boxes.

Hey, Echo. Hey, got all these new people staring at you.

It's been a wonderful night. The team's worked so well together, and it's, you

know, a really smooth operation.

Would you like some chicken?

What a good boy. You hungry?

Yeah, he says, oh, I'm hungry, Leslie. Good boy.

Nice. All righty. Ready for your first Taronga meal?

Are you ready, buddy?

Oh, good boy.

There's more.

Yeah, both of the cats have eaten all of the food that we've offered them.

That's a great sign that they're already relaxed.

So our cat pheromone that we added to the dens, hopefully that helped a little

bit as well.

They're just really gorgeous lions and we are so, so happy, so pleased to have

them here.

Going to give them the best life we can.

Two weeks have now passed since Luwazi and Atto arrived at Taronga and they're

finally out of quarantine.

Luasi and Atto are absolutely loving it. They're settling into their brand -new

habitat just exactly as we expected. They're exploring everything, climbing

everything, running around. There's footprints all over the ground, and

marks where they're skidding because they're chasing each other, they're

stalking each other. They're using every part of their brand -new enclosure, so

I think they're pretty happy.

It makes me really proud that we've built them something that is going to

them really well, that they're going to enjoy living in and hopefully in the

future their cubs are going to enjoy living and playing in as well.

With the Kings of the Jungle now in their rightful place, it's time to open

African Savannah Precinct to the public.

Taronga has had a few green sea turtles come through the wildlife hospital

lately.

Covered in algae.

They've done well.

Yeah. While one was very sick.

He looked almost dead, so the only way we could tell he was alive was by

touching his eyes and seeing that he could breathe every now and then. And

sadly, couldn't be saved.

Some of them come into us just so sick, they're just never going to make it back

out into the wild.

The other was very healthy.

But unfortunately couldn't be relieved back to the wild.

I don't feel comfortable releasing a turtle that can't dive properly.

But Kimberly was determined to give him a chance.

And all it took was one call.

There you go.

I called the aquarium, and we've been working with them for years with marine

turtles, and we've actually sent one over there about 14 years ago that's

living in the aquarium.

We have a really good relationship with all the different facilities around

here, and everyone's working on the same page to help marine turtles, so there's

some really good affiliations.

Just be very careful.

So today is the first day of this little guy's new life.

So this is a big day for this guy.

We're really lucky to have this little lifeline with the aquarium.

After a long and painful journey, it finally arrived at its new

home.

Show me, show me.

He's a pretty lady.

Oh, he is cute.

Sydney Aquarium's team are total experts.

and they have facilities to care for this new guest.

Oh, yeah, she's proper floating.

It's going to be here for a little while in these quarantine pools while it

acclimates to this environment.

Once the turtle moves to the main aquarium, it will take its place

public as an ambassador for its species for many years to come.

Having this turtle come to the aquarium does ensure its longevity.

The fact that it's here, it's going to be fed, it's got experts looking after

it, and hopefully it'll be really healthy and live many, many years.

Probably longer than us.

Yeah, definitely longer than us. For sure.

After five years of planning and construction, The African

savannah is finally ready, and the team are in early, adding some last -minute

touches. It's a really special day today because we are opening the Grand

Savannah, so kind of just like moving into a new house. We want it to look

really, really spectacular.

We like a housewarming, so we want to make it look spick and span.

You can see them watching in the distance at the moment.

I think they know a little bit of something's up, and it is a bit of a

day.

Just getting the exhibits ready for the big reveal today of our line.

Quite exciting. Quite nervous as well.

But yeah, it's a great day for us here at the zoo.

The media has arrived.

It's like hurting me, Cass, at the moment. So we're just waiting for the

finishing touches.

Cam, our CEO, is on his way.

Ministers here.

Almost time to go.

It's very exciting today because we have over 4 ,000 people coming into the zoo,

and we will do whatever we can to get them in as quickly as possible. Even

we're looking at 4 ,000 all arriving at the exact same time, they've all woken

up with the exact same decision to come to the zoo this morning.

We're ready to go, so just confirming the zoo is now open.

Very warm welcome to Taronga this morning, this crisp, clear morning.

We could almost be in Kenya now, couldn't we?

Having that small part of Africa in Taronga in Australia, it makes us

so proud.

So ladies and gentlemen, by the powers invested in me as the Minister for the

Environment, can I officially declare Taronga's brilliant Savannah Precinct

officially open.

With a little piece of Africa now settled at Taronga, it's mission

all around.

The boys are putting on such a great display for everyone this morning.

loving the enclosure, so yeah, I'm so happy.