Original subtitles

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

from the shores of Sydney's famous harbour to the vast western plain

zoo in Dubbo.

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. On

this episode.

Poo is incredible.

Who's poo in the zoo? You can't be shy or scared of it. You've just got to deal

with it.

The serious business.

So we've actually got a nice fresh pile of poo right here. Of animal business.

Unlabeled the poo guy.

X -ray vision.

The computer can get an idea of what a shingleback looks like. Taronga wages

against the animal smugglers. This will save thousands of shinglebacks smuggled

out of Australia every year.

And welcome to the school of rock.

Teaching these sweet birds to make some tweet tweet music.

The playback is having an impact and is being successful.

It's become the core part of our breeding program.

It's a well -known fact of nature that what goes in must also come out.

Poo at the zoo is something that most people don't get to see, but we deal

it every single day, and there's a lot of it. We produce up to 30 tons a month.

That's like 400 tons a year.

Just one elephant alone produces around 100 kilograms of poo every day.

Picking up poo or dealing with it is one of the most basic things you do as a

zookeeper. So you can't be shy or scared of it. You've just got to deal with it.

It might not be one of the most enjoyable parts of the job, but it's

interesting.

Very fragrant poop, but not bad.

It doesn't smell bad. It smells very good. It smells like fresh hay, really.

You can see how fibrous it is. People make paper out of elephant poop because

it's so fibrous.

Isn't that beautiful?

Paper aside, the poo at Taronga has other uses too.

It's a great way to grow an animal's sense of smell through a variety of

enrichment activities.

I have a morning present. I've got a nice fresh bucket of poo.

In the wild, obviously, they would be coming across things like this all the

time. So they need to identify smells. Obviously, if they were tracking herds

and things like that, they need to identify fresh faeces. And we use it to

enhance those skills.

It's something that's obviously a dirty part of the job that the keepers have to

do, but it's also a really scientific part of the job. We get a lot of

information from poo. So I'm obviously interested in what goes in and what

out, and generally poop will give us a lot of information as to what happens in

the middle.

From that poo sample, they're going to be able to extract information which is

hopefully going to confirm she's pregnant.

In fact, every sample has its own unique story to tell.

And, just like the animals at Taronga, it arrives in all shapes and sizes.

Right now we're going to look at koala poop, and that's one of our smaller

in the zoo.

Now normally koalas, we want 120 to 150 pellets a day, and that shows that

they're in good health.

Oh, but it smells lovely and fresh.

It smells just like eucalyptus leaves. I would actually put this in a diffuser

in my home if I could.

Oh, just one more.

Yes, very, very fresh. And I do like herbivore feces. It always smells like

fresh mown hay or whatever they're eating.

Yes, the keepers are counting the fecal pellets if it is in a pellet form like

this. But they're also checking to see, is the consistency good? You know, is it

firm? Is it moist enough? The keepers keep track and they score the poop for

And when that score from the keepers is not good...

Michelle, Australia's only zoo nutritionist and part -time poo

who you're going to call.

So do they have regular toileting areas or is it different every day?

There is some.

consistency to where they will go. It tends to be, so you can see a little bit

here, at the base of a feeding station where a bucket might be.

Today, it's a different kind of monkey business that has keepers worried.

There's a bit more here.

The fact that I haven't actually seen any solid poo from them today might

suggest that they both actually have diarrhea because normally we would see a

normal poo from one of them.

If you have a look at that, Michelle, you can see how watery that is.

I mean, that's a complete grade five, you know, which we'd never want to see.

Yeah. And we haven't seen it for a long time. And a couple of days ago, it was

quite formed. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

So, Michelle, if you have a look at that, this is an old poo, but you can

that it is formed. So, this is what we would like to see more often.

Yeah. So, this, I mean, when we're looking, we're talking this could

now it's older and dry. Yeah. But maybe it was between a two and a three. I

think so, yeah.

And we do normally see that consistency in their poo.

This is what we're seeing right now. What we're seeing today is this.

It's not looking good. Textbook 5 out of 5 fecal consistency, and that means

that it's...

basically completely liquid.

But we're just going to try and see if this is just a one -off thing. Maybe

a fluke, a little bit of stress in their life that we are not really aware of,

could be part of a breeding thing, maybe some hormones that have changed.

We're just going to investigate this a little bit further, give it a couple of

days, see if it improves over time.

And if it doesn't, we'll probably be looking at trying to investigate a

of different factors that can contribute to this kind of fecal consistency.

Oh, what have I got?

Num, num, num.

Every keeper at Taronga, whether it's at Western Plains in Dubbo... Very good

guys, hey? ..or in Sydney... Oh, here we go. Good girl.

..is passionate about the animals in their care.

For these staff, it's actually a calling that's many, many years in the making.

Hey, hello.

Oh, everybody's here.

It certainly was for reptile keeper Stu.

His love for his scaly friends is infectious.

I've always been into snakes ever since I was a little bloke.

Hello, buddy.

The more I learnt about snakes and I'd ask the snake books for Christmas and

go for walks down the bush, I think my mum really figured out that it's

not a phase, that this could be a passion or this could be something that

might be into for his whole life.

Yeah, so I've really got to thank my mum for really nurturing my passion when it

comes to reptiles.

Hello, mate.

Now, this is Oliver.

Oliver is our olive python, so he's one of the largest constricting snakes that

we've got here.

Whenever we access Oliver's exhibit, we do have to be a little bit careful, but

he is a completely non -venomous snake.

We've got to make sure that we don't surprise him, just like any animal, even

any person. No one likes to be surprised after they've just woken up.

If a snake is moving fast, there's a reason. If a snake is biting, there's a

reason. We want to let Oliver know that we're here, so I often have a good look.

Okay, so he's definitely spotted me now because he's just raised his head right

up. He looks extremely alert. And another way I can tell that he's alert

tongue.

The position that he's in right now is a pre -strike position.

He'll do it with his mouth closed. He never strikes with his mouth open.

Initially, he wasn't sure what was coming into his home. Once he realised

me, he's got no fear.

We can pick Oliver up and we can move him around his enclosure. When we need

clean his exhibit or we might need to feed him if he's not in a good spot, we

can pick him up and move him around.

The olive python gets its name due to the colour of its body. It is olive in

colour. But under the right light, you will see all the colours of the rainbow.

Oliver is a python and all pythons are constricted.

That means they wrap around their food and squeeze it. For this reason, they

have to have large, muscular bodies.

They are one of Australia's largest species of pythons. They could grow up

kilos, and some pythons can subdue prey that is 100 % of their body weight.

So if he's a 30 kilo python, he could eat a 30 kilo food item.

They will only constrict their food.

So as long as I don't smell like a rabbit, I should be okay.

Oliver is definitely one of my favourites and that's because I've been

after him for about 10 years.

But also his demeanour.

He's a very large mate that we can pick up with relative safety.

But as large as he may be, when it comes to Stu sharing his love for all things

reptile, his next house call shows that size clearly doesn't matter.

Many of the animals at Taronga's two zoos are ambassadors for species

by wildlife trafficking.

And it's not just overseas animals that suffer this cruel fate.

In fact, this iconic Australian lizard is a prime target.

So shingleback is called a shingleback lizard due to all of these shingles or

body coat of armour.

The shingleback lizards, I like to say, are the most romantic lizards in

Australia. That's because they're monogamous, which means that they mate

life. There's been a recent study which has followed a pair for over 30 years,

which is just absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately, they're really popular in the illegal pet trade.

So most of the shinglebacks here at Taronga are rescued or have been

confiscated.

Reggie here was found in a suitcase on the way to Japan by border force and

brought to Taronga as his home.

Reggie does have a partner. Her name is Georgie. We haven't had any babies yet,

but hopefully soon.

While Reggie was found and given a new life at Taronga, there's thousands that

aren't so lucky.

So Taronga has joined the fight to help, and Phoebe is collaborating with other

scientists around the world.

to try and put a stop to this barbaric practice.

Illegal wildlife trade is the second greatest cause of global species loss

billion dollar industry across the world and a multi -million dollar industry

here in Australia, criminal industry.

And many of these animals are smuggled through the post and we need ways to

detect them to stop this crime.

And to help do that, Phoebe is supplying the most important element.

We get hundreds of thousands of wildlife coming through every year. They might

have died by being hit by a car or some disease process and we take them and use

them to see if we can forward science.

One example is this poor shingleback. I've noticed it's got a bit of a stumpy

arm so it might have lost a front limb there. You can also see that it's been

post -mortem to check for diseases which we do for all our animals here at

Taronga.

shinglebacks, particularly, are Australia's most trafficked animal out

Australia. People find them quite cute to have a male and a female pair as

So a pair of these can go for anywhere between $30 ,000 and $40 ,000.

Probably as heavily trafficked as the shingleback is its cousin.

The blue -tongued, or the eastern blue -tongued lizard in this case, you might

see blue -tongued lizards in and around Sydney. They're very common around these

parts and very highly sought after across the world.

So, in death, these reptiles are actually saving lives, helping fight the

illegal wildlife trade.

So this is an eastern water dragon and they come through the wildlife hospital

quite often.

And even though they're not heavily trafficked, they are really important

to develop this database of different shapes and sizes of lizards.

As part of that process, Phoebe is about to deliver these lizards to the very

front line of Sydney's campaign to stop smuggling.

Coming up, a special recipe for a very...

Special Bongo.

This powdery stuff here called Loosen Up, it just helps with his gut.

And why a love song will actually save this bird's life.

The whole population was reduced down to probably just a couple of thousand

birds. Something had to be done.

Both of Taronga's vast campuses are dedicated to the conservation of some of

world's most endangered animals.

one of which is the sweetly named Regent Honey Eater.

The Regent Honey Eater used to be a really abundant bird in southeastern

Australia, potentially in the many thousands of birds in flocks. But in the

early 90s, the whole population was reduced down to probably just a couple

thousand birds. And at that point, the zoo and people outside the zoo knew that

something had to be done.

Some birds were brought into the zoo.

in the late 90s to begin a breeding program.

Hi, Miss Pink.

Where's your babies today?

Since then, we've released over 300 birds into the wild to bolster that

population. Get ready to join the flock.

And to keep the momentum going after such a successful breeding program, Ben

has his sights set even higher.

His next target, increasing the birds' reproductive rate in the wild.

But this challenge is an even trickier one.

It's an evolving process. We're learning as we go. Research that we've done has

told us that the ability to sing a song when the birds are released is really

important for the survival of the birds once they get out in the wild.

So one of the challenges with breeding region honey eaters is their song is

different to the ones in the wild.

Naturally, there'd be huge flocks of these birds and they'd have the

to hear lots of other males singing during the breeding season and learn

song.

But in the zoo, the young just don't have that opportunity to learn in the

way that they used to in the wild.

And to make things even harder for Ben and his team, one of the honey eaters'

greatest talent is proving to be one of their biggest problems.

It's actually an amazing mimic and in some ways that...

It's prize but also downfall, really.

They're hearing other birds around them. It might be other birds that are in a

nearby aviary or it might be wild birds that live in the zoo grounds as well.

And they're starting to mimic bits of those other bird calls.

We're worried that that might be now becoming a barrier to birds that are

released, to finding mates.

and also forming those big flocks that they would naturally form in the wild.

So, to help the birds hit the right note... We'll put one over there and one

over here.

...speakers are being installed in their aviaries to broadcast the life -saving

love song of the wild regent honey eaters. We're trying to teach the birds

are in the zoo the song that they need to learn so they can get out and sing

right song in the wild.

When the training is complete...

Ben will put their singing skills to the test.

For all the keepers at Taronga... Good morning.

Hey, Kundu.

..carefully planning and monitoring animal nutrition is a crucial part of

job. We're in a Kundu, the bongo's barn, and what we're going to do today before

we clean his exhibit is give him a bit of food. So I've got some pellets here

and a bit of other...

Nice stuff that he can have with his morning lock in. So we just put those

pellets in here in his trough so that he's nice and away from the door when we

bring him inside.

And then we give him some of this powdery stuff here called Loosen Up. It

helps with his gut.

He's a little bit old, so he needs a little bit of a extra push in the

sometimes. And this will make his poos come out nice and easy.

So we just sort of sprinkle that on there.

And then we also give him some linseed oil. And that basically just tastes

really nice.

He's got a little bit of extra stuff in there that he really loves. Tastes

really good.

So we spray that on there.

And now we can head on out and we'll bring him in.

With Akundo's breakfast sorted, Jacob now has the opportunity to see for

the results of his work and just how smoothly things are running.

At the other end. And now we can head out and start cleaning.

So when we clean the exhibit, we obviously want to make sure we get rid

the poo in the exhibit, not just to keep it clean, but also to keep it free of

things like disease and pests.

One thing as well that's really important is we want to make sure that

the poo that we do get is in really good condition as well.

So we've actually got a nice fresh pile of poo right here.

So Ikundu is an ungulate, and what you see is quite common in a lot of

ungulates. but they have these kind of nice little pellet formations, much like

giraffes. And what you find is when you break one open, his poo has got a lot of

green stuff in it, which is actually hay and lettuce and whatnot.

So it actually doesn't smell that bad.

And a lot of that is not really processed that well through their

system, which is one of the reasons. Whereas if you compare it to something

a lion or another carnivore, their poo is often quite smelly.

And people like Michelle, our nutritionist, who keeps track of all

our animal's diet, is really interested in our poo and that way she knows that

what she's doing is right and we know that our animals are really good and

healthy too.

But due to Akundu's age and history, Michelle's keen to start testing him

regularly. Hey guys, how are you? I'm good, how are you?

Good, come on in.

Akundo is an older bongo, and he's been with us for quite a while. He's had a

couple of gastrointestinal issues, so we're going to do a couple of different

things today. We're going to look at his fecal consistency to make sure it's the

right size and shape and texture, and then we're also going to look at the pH,

and that can be kind of a canary in the mine if there's problems in terms of his

acid balance, and see if we need to do any kind of medical procedures or

or not we need to modify his diet because he's just an older animal and we

to make sure he's healthy. make sure that he's getting all the nutrition that

needs.

Still to come, Taronga takes on the smugglers. We're teaching computers to

for shapes of animals.

And Stu's reptile road tour rolls on. This little guy here would be no more

30 centimetres long.

He's the world's smallest python.

About half an hour west of Taronga Zoo...

There's a massive Australia Post facility where scanning technology used

bombs and other terrorist threats is now also being used to detect wildlife.

This is where it all happens.

Phoebe has brought reptile specimens from Taronga to help in a world -first

project to fight the illegal wildlife trade, a multi -billion dollar global

industry.

This here is the RTC 110.

So this is our machine.

So this is, it's really, really big, tall enough.

This is where the x -rays are. And then we come all the way down here. And this

is where we put them. That's right. Great. So what do we have today?

I've got an awesome selection today. Some reptiles. Great. And most

the shingleback.

Gosh, this one's really big.

Yeah, he is. What we're looking for is that iconic shape. But the good thing

what you can do is you can probably...

Put it back in the bag. Yep. Because with the x -rays, they'll just shoot

through this material so the computer can get an idea of what a shingle back

looks like.

We're going to place it here.

Yep. So let's go. Bye, shingle back.

There it goes. So we'll follow it as we come through. I'm going to introduce you

to Kira from the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.

Girl power.

Hey, how are you?

And here's our sample already on the screen. Oh, wow.

You obviously can't see the bag that the lizard is in.

We can zoom in.

Look how clear that is. That brings out more detail.

You can see the eyes.

So much detail.

The unique thing about this is we've gone from 2D to 3D.

3D allows us to look in and around the object. So if someone is smuggling an

animal like this, we can look in and around items such as rice cookers or

Yeah, so important because they're nearly always inside things, aren't

effect. They're training the computer to recognise the different animals being

smuggled. And the most intelligent part of this tech is what's known as a

bounding box.

It'll place items in a box and know what it is.

So the bounding box has put, there's a threat there, which alarms the officer

say, we need to look at this. Yeah, OK.

We're teaching computers to look for shapes of animals, density.

In terms of lizards, they've all got feet and claws. These are the types of

things that we're looking for to allow computers to learn what to look for and

to look for the items in a complicated scenario.

Let's have a look at a variety of species and see how different they look

machine. So what do you have?

So we've got the eastern blue tongue. So really heavily trafficked as well.

We've also got an eastern water dragon. It's interesting body shape, so I think

it's great just to add contrast to the shingleback and the blue tongue.

And now we can pretend to be a smuggler by placing it in luggage. I love adding

it in the luggage.

The good thing is it's really quick, so it means it can process a lot of bags in

a short time.

And ta -da!

That's amazing, and you can really see the three different shapes.

Recognising what those shapes actually have in common...

is what the computer needs to learn.

These animals all look different.

This one here has a really nice long tail, which is unique to that animal.

in essence, essentially what we're training the algorithm to look for is

these animals have a curved body. They've got a skeleton. They're made up

meat, that juicy component that will differentiate these animals, say, for

example, in comparison to an apple. These are the key things that we're

for in the algorithm that will allow us to try and detect, at least.

illegal wildlife trafficking yeah amazing phoebe is about to find out just

smart this technology has already become as part

of reptile keeper stew's rounds he's checking in on some of his favorite

while oliver australia's largest python enjoys his

freshly cleaned exhibit

Right, now we've got something very special.

It's a tiny python with a peculiar name that now has Stu's undivided attention.

Alright, this is little Joe.

Joe is one of my favourites. He's actually named after my housemates

they're both little terrors.

Now what makes little Joe so important, so special, he's the world's smallest

python.

This is an adult pygmy python, and this little guy here would be no more than 30

centimetres long.

Found over in Western Australia, they do like the rocky outcrops. He is that top

predator of these tiny little skinks and geckos that are cruising around those

rocky outcrops.

Joe is a constrictor.

If little Joe was to wrap around my thumb and squeeze, he would stop the

circulating to and from my thumb in several minutes.

And it just goes to show just how powerful constrictors are. Even one this

could do that sort of damage.

It's definitely one of my favourites. And I think a lot of it comes down to

is something with no arms, no legs, no ears and practically blind able to be so

successful out in nature?

Amazing.

And I love being able to educate people that snakes are not evil.

They're not nasty, mindless killers. These are wild animals that deserve our

respect and we should give them a bit of a wide berth.

Coming up, the high -tech business of business. We're going to make a poo

because that's what we're going to need to do for the second part of our testing

today. And why curious cats are bad news for these feather -tailed gliders.

When you're as small as these guys in the wild, you're kind of mourning for

of other species.

Working so intimately with the animals at the zoo is often a very profound

experience for Taronga's keepers.

It's our job as keepers to make sure that we keep her healthy, well -fed,

stress -free, because that's going to help her be able to keep these cubs nice

and safe.

For every high they celebrate...

There's also the loads they battle through.

Doesn't make it any easier though to have lots of them today.

Keeper Paul has experienced them all while working with this amazing little

native.

This is one of my favourite areas because in here we've got feather

gliders. They're a marsupial.

And they're very tiny marsupial. I think we often think about marsupials and

immediately think a kangaroo or a koala.

These are so much smaller.

This is fully grown.

So you can imagine they are so tiny when they're born. So when they're born

after 17 days, which is such a short pregnancy.

And the babies are about the size when they're born of a grain of rice. So they

are so, so tiny.

They call it a feather -tailed glider because they've got a tail that looks

like a feather. And they're not like a ring -tailed possum that can wrap it

around a tree and support their whole weight on it, but they can use it for

steering. So when they glide, it's like a rudder for them.

And they can glide from tree to tree.

And the other thing is, on each of their digits on their feet, they've got a

tiny, tiny piece of skin.

And it's like a little, it's spongy, so it's like a sucker.

So it means that when they're running on a tree, They just adhere to it, so they

can run on a smooth surface, which is very useful. When you're as small as

guys in the wild, you're kind of mourning tea for lots of other species,

reptiles, mammals. So the best thing you can do when you're this tiny and cute

is escape quickly.

But unfortunately, the very existence of one other species in particular has

made any chance of escape near impossible for this tiny glider.

So everybody who has a cat...

who lets it out at night these are fair game and you can probably bet your

bottom dollar that if your cat brings something home and spits it out on your

kitchen floor and you're going oh i wonder what that was it could be a

feathertail glider so so many of them are taken by people's pets which is a

great great shame

I think the easiest way is think about your own backyard.

And there's so many things you can do to make it safer for wildlife.

Be it a feather -tailed glider, be it a ring -tailed possum, be it a bandicoot.

and maybe keep your pets in like if you keep your dog in at night you're

probably going to have a better relationship with your neighbors because

not upsetting them because as soon as any wildlife is using your garden your

garden could be part of the wildlife corridor you don't know that and so

guys are using your garden to travel through to somewhere else so that they

feed but if you've got cats out at night and you've got dogs barking what chance

do they have

In 1991, the one -cent coin had a feather -tailed glider on it, and around

that time they were taken out of circulation.

I don't want it to end up like the one -cent coin.

I don't want it to disappear off the face of the earth.

Ikundu, the ageing bongo, has a history of stomach problems.

But before the vets are called in, nutritionist Michelle wants to conduct a

messy tests.

Hey guys, how are you? I'm good, how are you?

Good, come on in. To see if she can get to the bottom of his gastrointestinal

problems. Perfect position for us here. Yeah, very good.

Okay, so is this typical of a kundu's poop then? Yeah, this is really good.

is what we want to see, nice pellet -like formation.

Cool, so, I mean, you've got one of these as well, right?

So if we compare it to that.

That looks pretty textbook. Yeah, definitely looks too.

Yeah. So there's a couple of tests that you can do just to kind of monitor his

fecal consistency or his digestive state.

pH of his feces is a good indication of the pH in his rumen or his hindgut. And

that can be a kind of a canary in the mine if there's problems in terms of his

acid balance in his rumen.

but he's looking like he's sitting between a six and a seven which is what

want yeah ideally for a really good um gut health we're looking for between

of a six and a half to seven and a half This is obviously a color chart that you

have to sort of visually pick the number. But this will give us a digital

readout. And so it might be 6 .2 or 6 .3. And that means that you'll be able

see it more incrementally change if something happens. A lot easier to score

well. Yes.

Though the initial signs are looking good, Michelle has not finished sticking

her nose into a kundu's business.

Just yet. Well, cool. Then you know what we're going to do? We're going to make

a poo slurry because that's what we're going to need to do for the second part

of our testing today.

So, let's see.

Maybe we've got about 100 grams there, right?

Yeah. So if you just want to pour the water in. Okay. You say when. That's

What I'm going to do is...

Oh, it's very nice and firm.

Also, we're going to be doing some fecal particle size testing, and that's where

we're looking at the fiber size in his feces.

That's an indication of his dental health, because they have to get through

gatekeeper first, and that means they have to chew all of that fiber up to a

reasonable size where it goes into their rumen and the microbes have a chance to

work on it.

We've got a special poo sieve here that we're going to use. Specially labeled

poo. So what we're going to do here...

is sift that through oh sorry watch your feet all right splash back and we're

going to try and get as much of the fibers and see the fiber size and

it's kind of that whole i don't remember i ate corn thing yes so that if it's

coming through hole in the feces that means that they're probably not chewing

that well right and you can kind of take the larger ones and say okay i'm going

to measure how long that one is

And that's about three centimeters.

Exactly. And so if you go through and you see that there's some longer than

that, for example, you want it to be quite consistent.

But then he's likely an older animal with some dental problems already.

And so we wouldn't expect it to be that consistent.

But over time, that might change. You might see much larger fibers coming in

well because he's still pretty good at processing it. Yeah. Awesome.

That's really, really helpful. I'm sure that'll help our team out very, very

much when we're monitoring.

and as he ages, it'll definitely be a good management strategy to make sure

nice and healthy, his teeth are in good condition and his guts are in good

condition as well.

Having Michelle and Angie come down to look at that gives us a good sign that

know that we're doing our job really well and that Akundu is in great health

it's something we can keep monitoring over time as he gets older.

Spending your days digging into poo may not be everyone's cup of tea.

But when you consider what can be learned from it, Paul wouldn't want to

anywhere else. I get labelled the poo guy of Taronga.

Taronga scientists are getting ready to serenade the zoo's regent honey eaters.

One of the challenges with breeding regent honey eaters in the zoo

we're really good at breeding them. Our keepers have bred them for over 20 years

now and we've had...

Huge success.

But one of the things we've noticed is their song is different to the ones in

the wild.

So what we're trying to do is we're trying to teach the birds that are in

zoo the song that they need to learn so they can get out and sing the right song

in the wild.

And to do this properly, they need to start them young.

This is one of our breeding aviaries. This is the region honey eater.

We've got breeding pairs on either side of us here.

and then this aviary in the middle is what we call our crèche aviary and this

where the young will go once they've left their parents.

So what we're doing is we're putting these speakers into the aviary and we're

going to play the songs of wild region honey eaters from these speakers and

that's going to simulate there being a much bigger flock of birds here than

there is and that's going to give those young birds the opportunity to learn how

to sing the correct wild type song that we want them to sing when we release

them.

It's all feeding back to a central location.

So we're loading some wild thongs onto the computer, collected from birds,

primarily in the Blue Mountains, which is a mountain range on the western

outskirts of Sydney.

And that's one of the last strongholds of region honey -eater breeding

territory.

Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, good. That's good. Yeah.

With the playlist ready to rock...

It's time to start the tweeting.

We constructed a playback schedule that mimics the natural variation of song

during the day because we don't want to just play one song over and over again.

They'd start to ignore it. So instead, we play multiple songs from different

individuals and we simulate the normal dawn chorus that you might see in Birds

in the Wild.

Then during the day, there might be a bit of a lull and then a bit of a peak

again in the afternoon.

And that just makes it as natural as possible.

And like any good concert, there's the all -important sound check.

And what we use that for is to be able to check how they've learnt and what

their song sounds like as they get older.

And when we look at the recordings, we can see that they get more and more like

and closer to that wild song.

The playback is having an impact and is being successful.

It's become the core part of our breeding program.

When we put them back in the wild, they can sing like all the other ones and

hopefully find a mate and produce more region honey -eaters.

Today, keeper Danielle is braving the rain and checking in on two of Taronga's

newest residents.

It is a really wet day, but even when it's wet, us keepers just do exactly

we do on a sunny day.

We just wear our gear.

Here at Taronga, we've got two new binturong. They're really exciting, very

young males. We haven't had young animals in a long time.

Previously, we had an old male, Emmet, and he lived out his twilight years, and

now we've got Rimbo and Kamiri.

They're very agile, and they are the coolest animal in the whole entire zoo.

The Binturong are incredibly unique. If you have a look at their face, they've

been described as a face a bit like a cat, a body a little bit like a bear, so

some people call them bear cats, and they've got that prehensile tail.

And their prehensile tail is so muscular, they can hang upside down from

even on the tip.

Being this close to Khmeri, you can really smell him. He smells like

really nice.

smelling animal.

Probably not the scent you'd expect from a carnivorous mammal.

They can actually fold their feet in half, which enables them to climb on

the thinnest wire. They can eat hanging upside down like a bat. They can twist

their top half of their body and their lower half of their body in different

directions, which means they can turn unique corners.

But no matter which way they turn, they can't escape this rain.

not that they want to.

This exhibit is perfect for Bintra. It actually reflects their natural habitat

of Southeast Asia, the rainforest environment, this huge fig tree, and

go all the way to the very, very top, and they love to sun themselves up

And they have a spectacular view of the harbour.

Despite amazing views in every direction, there's only one direction

will be looking.

Benderong are my absolute favourite animal.

They're very unique. Not many people actually see them, even though they're

here. And I love pointing out, look up! Look how high they can climb!

They smell like popcorn!

They're so cute!

They're just incredible animals, and working with them, you have to actually

build their trust and build a rapport.

They're very much creatures of habit. They like their routine.

Just to have that relationship with them, worth everything.

Next, it's a dirty job, but I guess someone's got to do it.

Unfairly, I get labelled the poo guy of Taronga.

As we've seen, Taronga Zoo does a lot with their animals' waste.

But one member of staff gets so close to the poo.

He's been given an unfortunate nickname.

Unfairly, I get labelled the poo guy of Taronga.

Go down to elephants one morning, watch them get the big shovels out and push

that poo into those big bins. Watch the keepers rake the giraffe up, picking up

their poo every day.

But because I have to request the poo to come down for examination, I'm labelled

the poo guy.

But Paul has an extremely important job at the zoo.

one that almost every department relies on.

One of the main roles here at Taronga Wildlife Hospital Pathology Laboratory

the receiving of tons, and I mean tons, of faecal samples every year. But

essentially any animal in the zoo, birds, reptiles, amphibians, we will at

get a faecal sample at least once every year.

And there's lots of different reasons why we actually get the faecal samples

submitted to the lab.

But unfortunately, all the time, you know, we are looking for parasites.

Sometimes they can be very microscopic, so we have to use the microscope to

visualise them.

In this case, these are two examples of some tapeworms. They're very fettuccine

or spaghetti looking.

You know, there are good parasites and there are bad parasites. The bad

parasites are obviously the ones that are causing disease. Is the animal

diarrhoea? Is it losing blood and things like that?

But parasites actually have a health perspective in many, many different

animals. Ruminant animals, for example, need parasites in their gut to help

ferment the food that they're eating.

Chimpanzees we know have a parasite called troglodytella, big word, but they

need that to break down all that cellulose that they're eating.

This is a reason why we need to monitor sort of the type of parasites that we're

seeing. along with the quantity of parasites they were seeing, and giving

vets that information to decide then whether they need to intervene or not.

So whilst Paul knows he may occasionally be the butt of jokes, he also knows

this is serious business and will always remain one of the most useful

diagnostic tools the zoo have at their disposal.

Pooh is incredible, you know, and people will go, they roll their eyes.

Stinky, horrible stuff. We've all changed to nappy. We know what it's

really, there's so much valuable information that we can get from

species samples. So we use that information to help benefit future

of animals in our care.

And this is Kira. Hi, Kira.

A day after helping train the security screening machine to detect smuggled

wildlife... Phoebe is about to find out just how clever this technology has

already become.

This is the type of information that we saw yesterday.

So then you'll notice as we go along we've got the images and these are the

types of images that over time will enable us to detect these animals in the

trafficking route. So this is the first starting point but in the future if we

take a look at this next picture.

And you'll notice that it has that bounding box around the lizard. And this

the algorithm in play because this has shown that the algorithm has been able

detect this, in fact, is a lizard.

So clever!

But this is just the beginning for this world -first collaboration to help stop

animal trafficking.

So in terms of other species as well, like birds and I know sugar gliders are

exotic pet over in the States.

Will the technology look for other species as well in the future? If we

to, and that's what's exciting. So we're evolving, which is great. And so as we

continue to evolve to collect more information on trafficking, but also to

ahead of the traffickers, we can definitely include those in teaching our

computers to look for sugar gliders and lizards, for example.

There's no doubt staying ahead of the smugglers will be a challenge.

But with people like Phoebe and Vanessa on the case, the future will hopefully

look a little safer for Australia's amazing reptiles like Reggie.

This will save thousands of shinglebacks smuggled out of Australia every year

and the numbers of them are depleting in the wild. We might not have any left in

50 years if this continues at this rate. But with this technology, we will keep

these amazing creatures in our own backyard.