Original subtitles

Australia is home to one of the world's most iconic zoos, Taronga, stretching

from the shores of Sydney's famous harbour... Hello, everybody!

..to the vast western plain zoo in Dubbo.

Come on, girls!

But in a world that's ever -changing... Every single birth we have is vitally

important. ..one thing always stays the same.

There comes a time when you just have to let go.

The love these teams have.

Two little lion cubs.

For the thousands of animals in their care. Good boy.

On this episode, welcome to the family.

It's so exciting to have a girl lion here now.

After 20 years.

Well good.

A historic moment for Taronga. She's picking up their scent in the air.

And I'm sure the boys are extremely aware of her as well. As Maya the

delivers. Oh, there we go. There's our first baby.

And delivers.

So about 30 minutes between cub one and two.

And just keeps on delivering.

She's looking. Oh, my goodness.

Is she about to have a... Oh, my gosh.

Meanwhile, it's not so much hide and seek.

It's more hide and eat.

Under rocks, in little holes that are built into the rocks.

as the games begin for Taronga seals.

There's some fish for you!

And whoever said baby lemurs don't grow on trees clearly hasn't seen this.

We've had our most successful lemur breeding season to date, which is just

tremendous.

Taronga's recently opened state -of -the -art African Savannah is a multi

-species exhibit that evokes the plains of northern Kenya.

And it's proving to be a hit with the public.

Everywhere you look, you spot another glimpse of Africa.

But taking center stage are two young male lions.

Luasi and Atto. They're climbing, they're running up slopes, they're

best time, they're leaping off slopes that we didn't think that they were

to leap off.

Look at this big boy.

They're just such an incredible animal. They're almost dog -like members of the

cat family.

These two brothers are here for one very important reason.

And Louise is recognising the signs that they're ready.

We've noticed since they arrived, they're getting much darker in their

that's a sign that they are maturing.

That's exactly what Taronga has been waiting for.

Big picture plan for these lines is that Luazi and Addo are going to stay here

for a while, but then at some point we're going to introduce a female in.

have a female that we've hand -picked. She's from South Africa. She is an

experienced mother, so we know she's going to do really well.

Five hours away at Taronga's Western Plain Zoo is the lioness specifically

chosen to meet Lawazi and Atto.

Maya is one of six lionesses here

in Dubbo.

She's definitely a sassy cat.

She knows what she wants. She tells us when she wants her food and when she's

hungry, when she's not.

She's super intelligent, super smart. She likes engaging with us as her

Hey, my mate.

Hello.

Good morning, madam. She came to us directly from southern Africa. She was

actually rescued as a younger individual and then she came out here to Dubbo as

our new breeding lioness.

Maya has already had two successful litters here and is a much -loved member

the Western Plains family.

The lions at Dubbo are held in four different family groups.

We keep the lions in separate groups because we can't have those females

interacting or engaging with one another because it's not what would happen in

the wild.

Maya doesn't belong to a pride.

So she's in need of a new male.

Unfortunately, we lost Mace Lazarus at the end of last year, and we can't put

her with other females.

It's the males that actually rotate through the pride, it's the females that

stay within that pride, and it's related females.

But she won't be on her own for long, with her big move to Sydney now in its

final stages of planning.

Unfortunately for us, Maya will be heading down to Taronga Zoo in Sydney.

You're right, Maya.

Because Maya's genetics originally came from the wild, they are very important

to the Australasian region in terms of the genetics within our breeding

And back in Sydney, Louise is preparing for Maya's imminent arrival.

The tricky thing is going to be that when she comes, she will select one male

and that will then be the male she will live with for hopefully the rest of

their life.

Eventually we will have to split the boys, but that's going to be hard for

Which male will we get to keep?

While it's been a long time between lion births in Sydney, elsewhere at Taronga,

success has been a lot more common.

And this spring is proving to be one of their best breeding seasons yet.

Spring has sprung in the macropod yard here at Taronga Zoo.

New babies at the zoo is always exciting. They are incredibly cute.

Macropods, which means bigfoot, are an Australian marsupial, which encompasses

kangaroos, potoroos, paddymelons, and around 30 individual species

of wallaby.

You find swamp wallabies along the east coast of Australia.

We have a family of seven swamp wallabies, all girls.

They had a male friend come and visit and we have seen four joeys.

We're hopeful that there may be six and possibly even seven joeys.

Kangaroos and wallabies, they do this amazing thing called embryonic diapause.

So if a girl wallaby meets a boy wallaby and they have a joey, they actually

also have another egg, which is fertile, which sits and waits until that little

joey comes out of the pouch and then the second joey comes along. So potentially

we could have 12 or 14 joeys here.

This quirky process has just played out with another macropod at the zoo.

Tama Wallaby Gilly.

Gilly has a joey in her pouch, probably around six months old.

The biggest thing about her having a joey is that it was a complete surprise

us. Here we have two non -breeding males.

So the mating occurred at another zoo where she came from.

Once she's come here to Taronga, she's decided herself that the conditions here

are ideal for her to have that baby, which means it's a beautiful home for

to live in. She gets lots of food that she loves and she's a happy tamar

wallaby. And Julie's not the only one who's decided Taronga is the perfect

to bring up the kids.

A small species of wallaby known as a paddy melon has also given keepers more

than they were expecting.

So basically we received four adult females from another zoo just over a

ago. Three of them had joeys in their pouch when they arrived, so we knew

But what we didn't know was those same three were also pregnant.

But they paused that pregnancy until they had that first joey out of the

So what's happened is that we've had two generations of joeys born here at the

zoo. despite having no breeding male here.

While embryonic diapause has created one busy breeding season in Sydney, out in

Dubbo, they've got the same results the old -fashioned way.

This is Skynard's first time breeding.

And for a first -time breeder, Skynard's hit it out of the park.

Luasi and Atto are part of Taronga's first lion breeding program since 2003.

Maya, the lioness, will soon be arriving in Sydney to choose one of these boys

to father her pride.

Thanks,

Daryl.

Keeper Deb is adding the finishing touches to Maya's den.

Maya, our female lion, is making her way right now to our zoo from 00 Western

Plains Zoo.

Moving an adult lion is a big task, but Taronga keepers are up for the

challenge. Okay, ready. We moved our boys into the facility a few months ago.

Good boy, Adam.

And now we're at the exciting stage where we're moving a girl in. It's the

chapter in our African Savannah lion exhibit.

Okay. Yep. Okay. That's fine. All right. Cool bananas. I'll send out the

message. Thank you.

All right. Bye.

Exciting. So they're very, very close.

The arrival of Maya means the start of something really special in the fact

she will be growing our lion pride in the future.

It's now time for Maya to take her important place in Taronga's African

savannah. Once we're in the building, we'll obviously try and limit the people

as much as possible.

Sasha, are you happy to be another holder for the top rope when we open the

slide? Yeah, sure.

Thank you.

It's so exciting to have a girl line here now. You're right, Maya.

You're right, beautiful.

We're going to take her down to the Lyme facility.

We're in the thick of it, so just, you know, watching all really carefully and

making sure we're safe.

She's been a little bit vocal so far, but she's doing well.

To ensure she remains as calm as possible, the familiar face of Dubbo

keeper Sasha has accompanied Maya to Sydney.

The drive did go really smoothly, but you can imagine, you know, six or seven

hours in a truck. There's only so much we can do to mitigate that stress.

All right, Maya.

Sasha reassures Maya every step of the way.

Don't be mad at me.

She is a little bit temperamental at the moment, which is fine.

That's to be expected from a lion. And one of the things that we love most

Maya is her excellent balance between sass and friendliness.

She's pretty great.

Yep. Yep.

One, two, three.

All the way.

Oh, good girl, Mimi.

We're all good.

Okay. I know, it's a big crowd.

Maya is a stunning animal. We're really tough.

She's got a bit of an edge to her, but she's also really lovely and has

quite a lot as she's had offspring.

Hi, Maymay. How are you? How are you going?

How's it going?

She's an experienced mom. She's an experienced female.

So I think that'll be really great for the boys as well who are quite

inexperienced. And Taronga's keepers are about to find out which of those boys

Maya will choose as her partner.

Coming up, a rare treat for the zoo's seals and sea lions.

I think they're going to have a lot more fun with their food than actually

eating it.

And judgment day for male lions Atto and Luwazi.

It's quite scary for us because this is life and death.

Below Taronga Zoo, in the heart of Sydney Harbour, there's some critical

infrastructure that's key to keeping the zoo's marine life healthy.

This one.

So we'll have to try and open this at some stage to make sure it's running all

right. Yeah, is it sitting for a long time? Yeah, yeah.

Every morning, half a million litres of fresh sea water are pumped straight from

the harbour up to the zoo.

This happens every day, even Christmas Day, every day. Absolutely.

This salty water supplies the Great Southern Ocean Precinct pool for

penguins, endangered Australian sea lions, and

rescued fur seal.

Ollie here is one of five of our long -nosed fur seals, or New Zealand fur

as they're also known.

Ollie came to us from a zoo that closed down a few years ago in New Zealand.

So they got that name, they were first discovered in New Zealand, but they are

very much a native to our Australian shores.

She's kind of our grandma of our fur seal, so she's our older version.

Just saying that, she's only about 15 years of age, so she's still got years

ahead of her.

She's just...

Just perfect, little fur seal, happy to do anything, very relaxed demeanour.

Yeah, she's a great little addition to our fur seal colony.

This pool, known as Seal Bay, gives all the seals in the colony the opportunity

to deep dive in natural seawater.

Five metres deep, holds over a million litres of seawater. The seals, they're

naturally designed for a life in the water. Our job here at the zoo is to

that we provide them with the best...

home and environment as we possibly can.

We want to try and replicate the areas that we find along the east coast of

Australia. A nice rocky habitat where you have the ability to alter and change

the currents and give them flows.

Because out in the ocean, things change every single day. So we cater to all of

their needs.

To do that, we have a water technician team.

Up here in the exhibit, I get to hang out with the animals all day. Right

underneath it, the water tech team do all their magic.

It's not quite as pretty as upstairs here.

But it's their responsibility to ensure that we're providing the best quality

water that we can to our seals.

As part of that magic, water technician Troy is about to drain over a million

litres of water from the pool directly above him.

Maya the lioness had settled in nicely to her new harbourside home.

The boys arriving was amazing.

But to have Maya, she's an absolutely beautiful cat. I mean, she's gorgeous to

look at and she's pretty much in the prime of her life.

So I can't wait for her to be a mother again to one of the boys that we have.

While Maya has to wait a little longer to meet the boys.

Lawazi and Atto certainly know she's arrived.

She's picking up their scent in the air.

The boys are extremely aware of her as well.

The next step after they get to know each other by scent is to start to take

down some of the visual barriers so that they'll start to see each other.

And that's the stage where we will really know how they feel about each

And it's also the stage where Maya will choose which of the brothers.

will be her mate.

In terms of personality, they're both a little bit different.

Luazi, he's my favourite because he looks like his grandfather Bruza.

Quite a nice, relaxed, calm lion.

Not necessarily the smartest of the two brothers.

I think Ato might be the smarter brother.

With the training that we've done with them so far, we've just been teaching

them to run out to their exhibit.

And Ato is the one who caught on to that training the fastest.

Otherwise he's been a little bit slow on the uptake.

Maya has a big decision to make and the choice is entirely hers.

Even though males come in, they take over a prize, females get the last say

way because they generally will choose the fittest male, the strongest male.

It can very quickly go bad if you're not seeing all the right signs from them.

And there has been cases where female lions have been killed by males.

It's quite scary for us, and I can only imagine for them, because this is life

and death.

To ensure the right outcome, keepers are taking no risk.

So when we're doing our introductions, we always start with the mesh -to -mesh

contact first.

We'll start to see who she prefers, and we should see nice interactions between

the pair.

With all preparations taken to prepare for their first meeting, it's time to

start the controlled introduction.

Okay, Maya, are you ready?

What we noticed was that every day that Luwazi had access to Maya through the

mesh, he was showing her a lot of aggression.

So he was rushing at the slide, he was pouring at the slide, and he didn't make

her feel comfortable.

It actually got to the stage where when she knew it was his turn to come to the

mesh, She walked away and when arrested upon one of the raised bed boards, she

didn't even want to interact at all.

Maya not interested today.

Whereas the opposite happened with Atto.

Good boy, Atto.

We noticed there was a change in both of their behaviour.

Maya started showing a lot of interest coming up. They even had some nose

touches through the mess.

Cheek rubbing as well.

Good girl, darling.

They would sit very close to each other.

She would spend a lot of time at the slide rolling.

So there was some really lovely interaction.

Good girl, Miss Maya, aren't you, darling?

Based on all the behaviours that we've seen, all the observations, I would

definitely have to agree with her that Atto is going to be the male that we are

going to introduce to Maya.

So with this decision now made, it's time for Luazi and Atto to go their

separate ways.

Coming up, they are so bonded with each other. While the staff keep trying for

lion cubs. We haven't actually seen Maya come back into season.

The lemur delivering spade.

We've had our most successful lemur breeding season to date, which is just

tremendous.

Zoos conduct breeding programs, always hoping for the very best outcome.

And sometimes they are more successful than they could ever have dreamed.

Oh, you're all right here.

Which is exactly what's happened with Taronga's lemur troop.

Hello, how is everyone?

So it's really exciting news this year out here at Taronga Western Plains Zoo.

We've had our most successful lemur breeding season to date, and we've ended

with eight babies, which is just amazing.

Ladies, come on!

That brings our troop number to 17, which is pretty incredible.

One of the largest groups in the region.

Come on, girls.

Where is everyone?

We've got a lovely little bunch of lemurs in this tree.

It's been a challenge to learn the identities of the babies apart, but

getting there.

It's quite important to be able to keep track of whose baby's whose.

This is Toliara.

She's one of our youngest mothers.

Down here we've got Makira, who's also one of the youngest.

This is the first year that we've ever had second -generation offspring at the

zoo, which is really cool. It means that the mums that were born here themselves

have grown up and they're having babies of their own now, which is just

tremendous.

You can see they're very curious at this age.

So this one here, this is Cleo's baby.

Hi. These babies are all just going bonkers in the tree and the adults are

leaving them to do their thing.

They'll leave them be until one of them thinks it's in trouble and starts

panicking because they've gotten stuck in the tree or something.

Then their mothers are very, very good at coming to find where the babies have

gone. So you can see they're all pretty relaxed and there's babies everywhere.

And as long as the babies are calm, then the mothers will be calm too.

When the babies are born, they're born perfect ministers of their parents.

They're quite awkward at jumping. They kind of bounce and hop like little

But when they get older, they really figure out how to leap and jump like

lemurs.

They spend a lot of time hanging on mum's belly because they're really safe

there. It's close to the nipple. It's all they really need.

As they get older, they start dorsal riding, just like this one here.

And the bigger they get, the more time they spend on mum's back. It just means

they're getting a little bit more independent.

Also, you know, if mum's carrying around more than one baby, it's difficult to

fit both of them underneath because there's one sandwiched underneath here

the moment. You can see a little foot there.

We've really noticed that the mums are quite tired a lot of the time because

babies aren't on any one schedule but their own.

They'll sleep and they'll nap and then they'll have huge bursts of energy for

hour. But that'll happen in the middle of the night. It doesn't only happen

during the day.

And all these babies are due to the actions of just one male.

So this is Skynard's first time breeding at Tarong Western Plains Zoo, or

breeding in general. He was an inexperienced male.

He came to us and introduced to the troop quite well and seemed to know

what was expected of him.

we have uh eight females and our breeding male and eight babies uh

little bit more work for the keepers but you know we wouldn't change it for the

world to get to see little lemurs grow from babies to adults and breeding

themselves is just such a remarkable thing to to be part of it

doesn't matter how much time it takes up in our day where we're really happy to

be a part of it

Maya the lioness has joined breeding males and brothers Luazi and Atto at

Taronga. After controlled introductions through a mesh wall,

it's clear that Maya has chosen Atto as her mate.

Which means it's time for Luazi to leave Sydney.

Seeing the unpaired male, Maya decided, Luazi, you're not welcome here anymore.

So this is why this was so urgent and so time -sensitive, that Luwazi move.

We're all in nice and early to load Luwazi, our male lion, into a crate, and

he's off to Taronga Western Plains doing dubbo.

We love you, mister.

Ready? Yep, ready, mister Luwazi.

What a good boy. Hello, darling.

With Luwazi safely in his crate, they can begin the move to the truck.

Hang on, kittens. Hang on, baby.

All right.

It's bittersweet. We love this cat. He's gorgeous. We've only had him for a

year. The exciting thing for him is that there's two females waiting for him at

Taronga Western Plain Zoo.

For him, this is an incredible opportunity to have his own pride.

All right, guys, drive safe.

Bye, guys.

Bye.

It's really sad that Loise is going because it is really lovely seeing the

boys together. But it's exciting as well because obviously that new chapter

starts on our end, which is hopefully May are pregnant and us having Cubs

very near future.

Brilliant job, guys. Really smoothly done.

Great planning, great everything.

Now there's only one more step left in the 18 -year plan to bring lion cubs

to Sydney.

Still to come, the new -look seal bay takes shape. Bring on the seals.

Bring on the people.

And some good news from the African savannah travels very fast.

We believe Maya is in labour.

Bye, guys.

Bye. With Luazi now on his way to Dubbo, keepers in Sydney can turn their

attention to new couple, Maya and Ato. They are so bonded with each other that

they're, you know, happy to be in each other's presence.

But even though Maya has chosen Ato, there's still some challenges

as Ato learns the subtle art of love.

So at first you could see she was quite unsure about him.

Atto seemed reluctant to mate with her.

In terms of a big cat, if you're not ready to mate, then maybe you're

potentially going to be dangerous.

As I expected, Atto was not an experienced male, so he was a little bit

bewildered. Maya was doing her absolute best to let him know that she was in

season, and Atto was a little bit slow to recognise that, or was just a little

bit unsure.

Good boy.

And then we did actually have matings.

In the wild, they would mate all day and probably all throughout the night.

For us, we're seeing up to 27, 28 matings a day for the period of time

they're together, which is fantastic.

You kind of need to see that level of matings in order to get a pregnancy.

A little bit of hair raising for us.

So we had a little bit of fireworks.

You know, it's still early days yet, but we're really happy with the outcome. It

couldn't have gone any better, really.

So we're going to keep our fingers crossed with your mayor.

All the pools in Taronga's Great Southern Ocean Precinct are filled with

saltwater, pumped up directly from the harbour.

Up here on the exhibit side, this is the pretty side.

You know, I get to hang out with the animals all day.

Right underneath it, the water tech teams do all their magic. What they do

there is really important to keeping these guys happy and healthy.

And today, Troy is preparing a rare treat for the seal and himself.

You've got to wear earmuffs or earplugs in this room, otherwise you can't hear

yourself think.

So this is the life support system for Seal Bay. So Seal Bay is all here. The

pool's just there. It's got 1 .2 million litres of water, which goes through all

these filters in five and a half hours. So about four or five times a day, all

the water goes through our filters that are the size of cars and back into the

pool. And that's why we've got clean water in all the swimming pools, because

plant rooms like these.

And Troy is a man who loves to keep pools.

I started working with swimming pools back in 1990.

We're using little tiny filters about this big now. I've got filters the size

my ute.

And basically what we do every day is we make sure everything's still working.

We're doing testing. We're doing bromine reads, pH reads every day, three times

a day to make sure our sea lions have the nicest, cleanest water we can give

them. I love looking after the water. I'm not a keeper, but I kind of am a

keeper where I'm a keeper of water.

Troy cares for all the water the animals need to be kept in good health.

And for the seals and sea lions, that sometimes means a complete change of

water.

Big day today. We're going to drain Seal Bay Pool.

1 .2 million litres of water.

Every three or four years, we drain all the water out of it, basically, so we

can do a bit of maintenance on the pool.

Oh, there you go.

But first, the seals and sea lions are moved to short stay accommodations,

complete with snacks and supplies.

Here's a toy.

Here's a crazy toy.

With all marine life safely out of the pool, maintenance gets underway.

Ah, that's better.

So that's our plant room closed down. Now I don't have to yell, which is

So everything's closed down.

Everything's locked itself off.

We can open the valve and go from there.

That's it.

I'm emptying still by.

As over one million litres of filtered water drains from Seal Bay, down on the

zoo's private jetty, a maintenance crew is hard at work on the water supply

infrastructure.

How is this compared to what you've done before?

Better or worse?

Greens are a lot more blocked, but it's not hard muscles this time.

So really not that bad. Whatever schedule you guys have got this

it's keeping up, no worries at all.

I'll get a gurney onto both sides of it.

With the seawater pumps and filters for Taronga's Great Southern Ocean Precinct

checked and cleaned, Troy has started the huge job of refilling the Albain.

We've given the pool a little clean. We've done some maintenance to the pool

well.

So in about 12 hours' time, the pool will be nice and full.

It's a massive operation to drop and then refill this.

I'm loving that it's filling back up. I don't like to see an empty pool.

The seals will love it. The seals will love a nice clean pool.

When the pool is full to the brim and the seals return for playtime, it's hard

to know who will be more excited, the seal or Troy.

Bring on the seals.

Bring on the people.

Taronga's plan to increase lion numbers is in full swing.

Luazi has gone out to Dubbo to try and start a family.

Oh, beautiful boy, we love you.

But his brother Atto, who remained in Sydney, could have beaten him to the

punch. As matchmaker Louise is noticing some very telltale signs.

A bit of time has gone by now. We haven't actually seen Maya come back

season. We've been weighing her and she's actually been increasing weight

steadily. The other thing that we're starting to see is that her tummy is

definitely getting bigger.

So all of this is certainly pointing towards the fact that Maya is pregnant.

That's pretty exciting.

The gestation period for lion cubs is around 110 days.

And for the excited keepers at Taronga, it can't come quickly enough.

See what she's up to.

As part of the team sort of spirit, we have like a little guessing competition

at the moment to see who can guess the right amount of cups and also the sex

ratio. So that's just a little bit of fun.

How many do you reckon she's got?

Oh, I reckon three.

What are you saying?

The team guessing competition, I've guessed five.

Yeah, going right out there. Ellen also guessed five, and yet we've had people

laugh at us. But I just have this gut feeling.

You might be right.

Five would just be crazy.

Just going to be excited no matter what, and I just hope that it all goes well

and she's a top mum like she has been before. I think she will be because she

experienced, so we've got that on her side, and we're great keepers.

And as Maya gets closer to 110 days pregnant, preparations for delivery

are well underway.

Well, here we are at the maternity den.

An exclusive sneak peek at it because we don't usually have anyone come and

visit.

So basically what we've got here is we've got plywood that's covering a

lot of mesh.

We don't want it to be like... mesh then one day and then fully flyboarded the

next. So we've been putting on one or two panels each day. It gives her plenty

of time to get comfortable and used to it.

And we do this because we want this to be a secluded space and we want it to be

dark as well inside, just like she'd have if she gave birth in the wild.

Animals generally don't need us when they're giving birth and mostly

should go well when Maya gives birth.

This area, the nesting area, is really important. This is like the equivalent

a nursery. They instinctively know that this secluded area is a safe place to

give birth to their babies.

Her last birth was a little bit challenging for her. So there was a long

between cubs two and three being born on her last litter. So that's got me a

little bit nervous.

Like any pregnancy at the zoo, staff will be monitoring constantly.

There is a camera under here, and that camera is going to capture all of the

birth and all of the development of the cubs. So we'll be watching them to make

sure that everything goes well.

With backup on standby 24 -7, the best outcome will be a natural birth.

This is an animal that is used to giving birth on their own, so it's a real fine

balance when you're dealing with a wild animal like this. And any intervention,

no matter how well -meaning it is, could jeopardise her wanting to rear those

cubs. And keep our fingers and toes crossed that all the little babies born

be healthy and well and grow up into our next generation of lions.

I can't wait.

As over a million litres of seawater pour into Seal Bay, keepers and divers

ready to welcome the seals and sea lions back in with a game of hide and eat.

Hey! We've got some fish for you guys to hide in the seals. So there's a very

few little places under rocks and there's little holes that we've already

pre -made, so if the divers can just hide them in.

Those little spots will let the girls out and they'll have a great time

some fish. Lovely.

Yeah, thanks so much.

Cool, thank you.

Adele to Jane.

Yep.

We have some fish for you to hide.

We've just had our whole pool cleaned. It's beautiful. It's crystal clear. Our

water techs have made sure that everything is top notch. All of our

perfect for our seals.

Because the pool is so perfect and so beautiful and clean, it's nice and

we're going to find a fish for our seals and the divers are going to swim that

fish all the way down to the bottom of the pool. They're going to hide that

in different parts of the pool, so under rocks, in little holes that are built

into the rock, various other little nooks and crannies so that our seals,

they get let out, the divers have already put some fish down there,

out into a pool not expecting there to be fish and then actually be able to

some.

Finally, Ollie's ready to bring on the seal.

He's going to let him out.

Hey, you.

Hey,

beautiful girl.

We have Ollie, Tiny, and Molly.

There's some fish for you.

Have a look, Tony.

Whoops, there's one.

We have to make it open. that the fish is there because it's not actually

swimming. So we make it visually accessible for them.

And then that way they can go down and have a bit of a forage. And once they

one, they tend to think there's more than one. So they'll keep looking for a

little while, which is great.

Puppy. Oh, stolen.

I think they're going to have a lot more fun with their food than actually

eating it.

Along with having loads of fun, The younger seal is getting an education.

Tani's been really investigating all the little crevices and the little nooks.

She's found most of the main fish, and then Amali's following her lead, so

learning from Tani, who's the older seal, how to forage and find fish, and

really starting to get into it, which is really nice to see. It's a great way

for her to learn how she'd behave out there in the wild.

They love those GoPros.

It looks like the big refill of Seal Bay has been a resounding success for all

involved. It's really nice to see them so active and investigating their

environment and checking out their beautiful new clean pool.

So, no, it's very, very good.

Lioness Maya has been pregnant for 110 days.

As her gestation period has now passed, Staff are eagerly awaiting the cubs'

impending birth.

We're counting down either the minutes, hours, or still could be counting down

days. She still could keep us in a bit of suspense.

This is Taronga's first lion cub birth in nearly 20 years.

As you can imagine, staff are beyond excited and determined not to miss a

We've got cameras on her nesting area and also in all of the dens that she has

access to.

um so we want to be able to remotely monitor her to make sure that

going okay so keepers have moved to an around the clock observation period

just

past quarter past two in the morning

haven't seen any signs of labor from maya she's just been resting

It's 20 past five, just checking on Maya before I head to work.

Still resting,

lying on her side, and there's no sign of labour.

But only a few hours later, both of the expectant parents have attracted the

keeper's attention.

She went out on exhibit with Atto for a little while this morning, but she was

really restless. She wasn't her normal self. She didn't just go out there and

relax.

She actually started to tell us that she wanted to come back into the holding

area. So we've given her access.

She went straight into the nest as soon as we let her in.

With Maya's behavior changing as each hour passes, keepers Danielle and Tamara

think tonight could be the night.

So I think we're getting really close. I think you might be right.

Yeah, this behaviour is something I've never seen before, like the licking, her

being so restless.

She actually stood up in the nest and her whole body seemed to tense, but it

so quick. So I think we have to watch her really closely.

And if that happens again with you and me watching, we might be able to tell if

it was a contraction.

Oh, there she goes, she's licking again.

Oh my gosh, we might be getting close.

Next, a big day at Taronga. We believe Maya is in labour.

But no -one guessed just how big.

Oh, my goodness, she's licking. She's just started licking again.

Is she about to have a... Oh, my God!

After an 18 -year absence, lion cubs are set to return to Sydney.

So I think we're getting really close. I think he might be right.

Mum -to -be Maya has entered her birthing suite and Louise has rushed

office to watch.

We believe Maya is in labour.

She hasn't had an ultrasound or an X -ray that we might have done in the

So we're doing this blind. We have to judge by her behaviour.

At the moment, we've just set everything up for an impending birth.

I'm a little bit nervous, but at the same time, you know, we need to focus on

what we're seeing right now, and everything is looking really good.

And only a few minutes later, all their waiting is finally over.

Oh, my gosh, and there is one. There's one there.

Right there.

See, she's going around and around in circles because the cub's not fully out

yet. Oh, there we go. Just delivered. So there's our first baby.

2 .41pm, first little cub. And there it is. And now she's going to clean it up.

So she's been a good mum right now. She's doing exactly what she should be

doing. She's licking the cub. That's going to help to remove all those birth

membranes. That's going to stimulate it to breathe.

But Maya's not finished yet.

Oh my goodness, two little lion cubs. That's incredible.

Wow. This is a pretty special moment.

That's fantastic.

And so about 30 minutes between cub one and two. So that is a fairly average

interval.

At this age, they're just little heat -seeking missiles. This little guy is

looking for warmth, looking for the source of food.

See, at the moment, their eyes are closed, their ears are closed.

And at the moment, food's been taken away because the priority is on this new

little one that's just been born.

Such a good mama.

Over the next hour and a half, Maya birthed cub number three.

There it is there.

And four.

So exciting.

Obviously got very good genes.

Three hours now. There's one, two, three, and four.

All looking really great. All looking really vigorous and moving.

Oh, my goodness. She's licking. She just started licking again.

So I honestly thought we were done. Four cubs. That's a huge litter, but she's

actually just started licking again.

So that could mean that she, maybe she's having some more contraction.

I can actually see some fluid around her tail.

Golly, I could not imagine that she's got a fifth one in there.

Her last litter, she had four.

Something is going on. I just thought I saw her tummy tighten.

She's looking, oh my goodness.

Is she about to have a, oh my gosh, she's got five.

cubs. That is, oh my goodness, I never, I seriously would not have thought that

she was going to have five. Five cubs.

So we just went from having two lions to seven. Oh my goodness.

That's amazing.

We all took bets on how many cubs she was going to have and two people said

and I thought they were crazy.

Not so crazy now.

Oh my goodness.

Five. That is, that's a big litter.

So this is just like amazing, amazing, you know, Day for all of us. Seven

We only built six holding dens because we thought that would be our biggest

number. I thought for sure, you know, four cubs would be the maximum that we

would get in one litter.

Louise and the team will need to figure out sleeping arrangements.

and it will certainly mean all hands on deck.

What this means for us, we're going to be busy. So I tell you what, these five

little guys, they're going to keep mum and dad on their toes for sure.

And the birth of five new cubs at Taronga makes a huge contribution to

conservation efforts around the world.

Every birth is important, and these little cubs are such an asset to our

I'm just over the moon. I cannot believe it. I can't believe there's five.

That's just insane.

This is the end of a decades -long journey for Taronga to return lions to

Sydney. But for these five lion cubs, their journey has only just begun.

Over the next four months, they will grow. Hey, beautiful girl.

Become more independent.

Be given health checks. Meet their father, Atto.

Yeah, that's your daddy.

And go on display as a full lion pride.

Just so fantastic.

But their story for another day.

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