Original subtitles

Taronga, the zoo with the head -turning view.

But dig a little deeper.

I just planted that.

And you'll discover there's a lot more to Taronga's two zoos than meets the

Hello. What's he doing?

From their devoted keepers. I watched him being born, so him and I have an

amazing relationship.

to their first -class vet team.

So just here, that's the lump.

Taronga's passionate staff... To be laying on that dirty floor, it was so

it. ...are themselves a special breed.

A lot of slobber there, bud.

Ensuring nothing but the best for the animals in their care.

So impatient.

Good girl. Hang on.

On this episode...

A mystery.

It's been just slowly growing.

Sends this African wild dog to surgery.

Could be benign, could also be cancerous. But is the medicine worse

cure? Taking an animal out of the pack is a very big deal.

Will her pack take her back?

A very big day for the world's smallest penguin.

Quite a deep wound.

See, you've got one talon and the other talon grabbing the bird like that.

And you've heard of counting sheep.

One, two, three.

But counting snail?

Four. So there's my fifth one. It was hiding underneath a tiny piece of palm

front.

Taronga Western Plain Zoo in Dubbo. It's big, beautiful and plays a vital

conservation role across 63 species, many listed as endangered or critically

endangered.

High on the endangered list are these four sisters.

African wild dogs, I think, are one of the most underrated animals at the zoo.

We get a lot of guests who confuse them with hyenas. They're actually completely

different species.

African wild dogs are quite a bit smaller than hyena. They've got big,

round ears.

They look like they've been painted. They've got all unique, amazing markings

all over their bodies.

One of my favourite things about African wild dogs is their vocalisations. They

have a whole heap of noises that they make. Some of the noises, they kind of

almost chirp and chirp. It almost sounds like a bird.

They estimate that there's probably only about 5 ,000 African wild dogs left,

which is so, so few, which is why I'm so passionate about having them here at

the zoo and getting people to come along, learn about them, see them.

If you don't know what they are, how can anyone care what's happening to them?

Wild dogs are pack animals. They hunt, eat, sleep and play together.

Their bonds are strong.

But today, one must be separated from the pack.

We are going to be doing an anaesthetic on one of our female African wild dogs,

Masego. It's been close to two years, I think, now that she's had a little lump

that's been under her chest that we've been keeping an eye on.

We've kind of held off on doing the anaesthetic until now, purely because

doing... on African wild dogs is a really big deal.

Because they are a social carnivore, their social dynamics are so strong,

pack dynamics are so strong, taking an animal out of the pack is a very big

deal. Not only is Geordie worried about what the vets might find, but how the

pack might react to her when she returns.

She will come back, she will smell different, she's had all these different

things happen to her, they haven't seen her for a few hours.

There have been times and records of dogs coming back into the pack where the

pack just hasn't accepted them fully back in.

With so many unknowns, it will be an anxious wait for Masego and her keepers.

Far from the open plains of Dubbo, back in Sydney.

Most of the injured animals brought into Taronga have had unfortunate run -ins

with humanity.

Hi, little man.

I'll have to grab him in the neck because he is going to swim off into the

oblivion.

But sometimes injuries can be put down to struggles in nature.

Jump.

It's a dog -eat -dog world out there.

OK, we're here.

Or in this case, bird -eat -bird.

Here is the penguin.

How's it looking? Was he in the water? He was in the water. He made me venture

in there in my gumboots. And he was walking? Yes, although he was swimming.

Let's see if we can just gently lay him.

So this little penguin came into us with quite a few wounds over its back and

on its belly.

And just the pattern of the wounds, there's sort of three wounds over its

that looks like they could be rake marks or talon.

So possibly this animal has been predated upon by like a seagull or

like that.

But we never really know.

They should call this little penguin lucky.

Not only did it escape its attacker, but it found itself in the care of vet

Frances, who's doing everything she can to get it healed up and back in the

wild. So these are the wounds on his back.

And that was quite a deep wound, that one. Also, so we see here's his belly

wound.

So this also was quite a deep wound when he first came in, right through to the

muscle. If you think of like a seagull, you know, they've got big feet.

One talon and the other talons potentially grabbing the bird like that.

Hard to know if that's what happened.

Got away with it lightly because those talons are very long and sharp and can

pierce all the way through.

I guess you're relatively defenceless as a bird if you can't fly.

If something's coming at you from above, there's not an awful lot you can do.

Left on his own, the penguin's chances of survival were slim to none.

So it was basically out of the water, on the beach, not really able to move away

from people, and that puts it in a very perilous situation. So I think it was

good that this bird was found and was brought into care.

The bird has been able to feed and, you know, be in a safe environment.

Whilst the zoo is giving this penguin the best possible chance of survival,

still very weak and has lost a lot of weight.

Released too soon.

It'll be easy pickings for another predator.

There's tension in the air at Taronga Western Plain Zoo.

Masego, the wild dog, needs surgery on a worrying lump on her chest.

It's hugely stressful for Masego, so keeper Geordie and the team are going to

try something they've never done before.

We've never actually hand -injected an African wild dog for an anaesthetic

before.

African wild dogs are incredibly pack -focused.

It can be very challenging separating them for training sessions.

It took us quite a while to get them comfortable to be hand -injected in

It's a daring plan, but the vet team are all for it.

Luckily, the keepers have been training to actually give her an injection rather

than us have to dart her or sort of stress her out a lot.

We're just preparing the medications now, and then once we get her up here,

we'll be able to have a look at those lumps and give her a full health check.

Truth is, no -one knows how the dog will react to a hand injection, so the team

are trying to cover all bases.

Caitlin and I will head down in just a moment, and it'll probably take us 10,

minutes just to get all the yard set up and get her in and get her injected.

If she happens to just get half a dose, what we'll do is we'll run her into the

raceway and then hopefully we can... can get her through there as well if

needed. Good idea.

Yeah, we'll give you a yell as soon as she's done from our end, I guess.

So if we get part of the injection, sometimes these injections can sting a

little bit, so sometimes the animal will move away.

The keepers will try to get her back again to give the rest of the drug.

and if they're really solidly trained, they often will come back and do that.

If she doesn't want to do that, then we'll just wait and see what kind of

we get from the injection that she's had, and we might need to give her a

top -up.

Is the theatre all set up?

Yeah. We want as few people as possible heading towards her so she doesn't get

the gist of what's happening, and then hopefully it'll be a nice, smooth sort

injection by the keepers, and then we can bring her back here.

Go ahead.

Great, thank you.

Wild dogs are highly perceptive and nervous of any change.

Yeah. So only their keepers will go near the enclosure until Masego is asleep.

The dogs have just come into the night yard, which normally every day would be

their time for their training session.

But today it's obviously going to be the real deal with a real injection. So

they don't know that. Yeah. But we're hoping that that goes well as it would

every other day.

Coming up.

Trekking into the wild. As you can see, it's pretty dark.

To save a species.

Here we go.

The team holds its breath as Msego has her moment.

We've never actually hand -injected an African wild dog for an anaesthetic

before.

And you want to be a zookeeper?

Oh, lovely.

That sucks.

It's cleaning day at the hippo's house.

The little penguin is the only one of its species to breed on the Australian

mainland. I love all the penguin species.

The little ones that we're lucky enough to have, look at them, I mean, they're

very cute.

And standing barely as tall as a bowling pin, they're the littlest penguin of

them all. They've got lots of personality. They're larger than life.

What's not to love about a penguin?

But being so tiny makes them an easy target.

for birds of prey.

This little penguin was brought to Taronga after narrowly surviving a

sea eagle attack.

Hello, mate.

All right. Stick your eyes, friend.

Steppy, steppy, steppy.

You've got to turn around, but then you won't be able to see.

Real laceration, isn't it? Yeah.

It looks like it's healing well, but it is quite...

Deep just there. It is deep.

Yeah, it's going to take a while.

He'll be good, I think, if he's swimming around a lot and he'll just have to

preen himself a scratch.

Slowly but surely, this lucky little bird is making progress.

But aside from healing wounds and putting on weight... Put on 23 grams in

hours.

You're being cute on the weight scale.

..there's something else.

that the team are very concerned about.

Penguins have very waterproof plumage and he's lost some of that during the

process of being injured.

See all down the back of his head, top of his head, all down his back, on his

tail. If he's not waterproof, then the water gets into his skin and he gets

cold. Without that waterproof coat, he won't be heading back to the wild any

time soon.

But the penguin is onto it already, spreading a waxy preen oil from a gland

close to his tail.

Eventually, the feathers should seal up like a zip. The more time he spends

doing that, the more he'll regain his waterproofing qualities so that he's not

getting cold.

He won't be released until those wounds are completely healed.

And all those feathers have grown over and he's then got a waterproof shield

around his body.

At Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, Masego the wild dog needs surgery to

remove a suspicious lump from her chest.

To reduce her stress, keepers are going to sedate her by hand instead of using a

tranquiliser gun.

It's a completely new approach.

And despite months of training, she's very skittish.

Down.

Move up.

Down.

Can I touch you?

Touch.

Good.

It was a pretty momentous occasion for us because we've never actually hand

-injected an African wild dog for an anaesthetic before.

That was good.

It was so much less.

stress on the dogs compared to when we've had to do it before so we'll

definitely keep doing this from now on because it was just, it was amazing.

Go ahead.

Hey, she has the full dose so we'll just start separating them now and we'll

give you a yell when she's on her own and starting to show effects.

Well done, that's great.

It may be quite quick now.

They usually start to show some effects within a few minutes, and probably

within less than ten minutes we'll be able to go in with her.

All right, let's go. The clock is well and truly ticking.

Every minute Masego is separated from her pack increases the chances they'll

reject her when she returns.

There's a lot to do, and the only one relaxing now is Masego.

So if you just pop that...

The first job is to make sure she's safely

anaesthetised and breathing properly.

So I'm just putting a tube down her airways and the reason I'm doing that is

want to be able to maintain her airways. So at the moment she's under drugs to

keep her anaesthetised but we wanted to hook her up to some oxygen so we can

sort of better get that colour.

rather than sort of that muddy grey back to a nice pink.

All right, I think we're ready to move up to the hospital. Ready to roll.

The first hurdle is cleared.

Masego is intubated and breathing regularly.

All right, so if we get one person on each end.

But there's still a long way to go before she's safely back with her pack,

they'll take her.

On Norfolk Island, 1 ,000 kilometres off the east coast of Australia...

Taronga Zoo and the Australian Museum have joined forces to establish a unique

breeding program.

They're on a mission to save one of the world's most endangered species from

extinction.

But they can't save them until they find them.

So we're out today in the National Park on Norfolk Island and we're looking for

our endangered species of snail, Advena camberlite. We've got our head torches

on because as you can see it's pretty dark.

In here, it can be pretty hard to spot a snail on the ground.

Everyone thought the snails were extinct, killed off by drought and rats.

But a tiny population was hanging on in this remote valley.

So we're just sorting through leaf litter.

Looking for these snails.

We find lots of shells.

You can see they're pretty small. They're only about two centimetres

There's a little collection of shells from the snail that we're looking for.

But it's much harder to find the live ones.

One of the reasons I love working with snails is that they're a group where

there are so many extinct species. In fact, they're the group in the world

the most extinct species.

And people don't generally know this. They think maybe mammals or birds are

threatened. But snails, especially snails that live on islands, are really

vulnerable to disturbance. It's very easy for species to go extinct.

Go on. Here we go.

Hey.

All right. Great.

Our first advent of cambellii for captive breeding.

There's a whole stack in there and there's two more there. That's like

Finding these snails is a huge accomplishment.

but they still need to be flown safely back to Sydney.

Number six weighs in at 0 .75 grams.

This is the process of packing up the snails and getting them ready to pack in

their little cardboard tubes to transport them to Taronga Zoo.

Packing very carefully.

So this is what the final setup looks like. We've got the snails packing their

individual tubes.

Wooden box, polystyrene. Beside them we have these water bags.

half filled with water that's going to help control the temperature while

they're flying back to Sydney.

The hopes of Team Snail lie in this precious cargo.

15 individuals on a mission to save their species.

Still to come...

Getting that sinking feeling at the hippo's house. Now the cleaning begins.

My favourite bit.

At Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, Masego, an African wild dog, has now

been sedated for 20 minutes.

I'm going to try and go straight into here, do you think? Yeah.

She's been transferred to the zoo's brand new $14 million hospital.

Now that we have Masego on the table, we can do the physical examination because

the keepers have noticed a few lumps that have been coming up.

We might sample some of those lumps.

There is a large lump on her chest that we'll probably look at potentially

removing. We check her teeth, we check her eyes, we check her ears, do some x

-rays, so giving her the full works really.

The longer Masego is away from her pack, the more likely she will be rejected on

her return.

But the vet team want to make the most of this rare opportunity by starting

a full health check.

What was the weight? She's 29.

She's a bit bigger than we thought.

While she's under anaesthetic, it's a good opportunity to check their teeth.

These guys are obviously being carnivores and getting a lot of bones

They don't have a lot of tartar, but you can see there's a couple of little

fractured teeth, which isn't surprising.

Broken teeth can lead to serious infections, so Bec gets straight on to

the problem.

That was just a little bit of local anaesthetic, just like when you go to

dentist yourself.

And even though she's under anaesthetic, their perception of pain can still

register, so it's good to give her extra pain relief. And when she wakes up as

well, it'll be a bit numb.

That won't be painful.

Besides a few broken teeth, Masego is in good shape.

What's not so good is so far the examination has taken more than an hour.

And with time away from the pack critical, It's on to the main mission,

worrying lump on her chest. Yep, words are done.

X -rays will give a clearer picture of what's going on inside Masego's lump and

whether it needs surgery.

X -ray.

That lump on her chest is a bit, I don't know if it's a bit calcified. Oh,

really?

So just here, we can see that's the lump on her chest, that little sort of

cauliflower -looking thing there, and it is quite tissue -dense. Oh, the better

to get it off.

Oh, yeah.

It's more dense than the muscle surrounding it.

We've been monitoring this one for a couple of years, and it's been just

growing. Today it's got a little bit of an ulceration on it, which is just from

a little bit of fighting and argy -bargy with the group over the weekend.

But I can get my fingers all the way around it.

It doesn't seem to be adhered to any muscle or tissues underneath.

I guess, just like any animal, lumps could be benign. They could also be

cancerous. And it's up to us today, I guess, to get some samples and further

investigate those lumps to see maybe they're just wounds, maybe they're

abscesses, maybe they're little skin pigmentation changes, or maybe they are

something a bit more nasty, and that's what we want to really get to the bottom

of today.

Back in Sydney...

Andrew is looking after one of the most threatened species on the planet.

What I have in here is a species of snail called Advena cambellii and

it is a critically endangered species of land snail and they

were thought to be extinct for about 20 years.

Andrew went to Norfolk Island on a rescue mission and returned with a

cargo of 15 of these critically endangered snails to start a breeding

Snails are a really important part of the ecosystem because they break down

plant material and algae and fungi, so they're really important for cycling

nutrients through an ecosystem.

So this species is well worth saving. But like all things snail...

Progress has been slow.

Looking after snails has been a huge learning curve for us as keepers. Even

feeding the snails was a big learning curve.

We put down some of this unbleached paper.

We smear it quite thinly.

And the way snails feed is as they're sort of moving, they have almost like a

single sort of tooth and it kind of scrapes away at the surface as they're

moving over the food plate.

Turns out Norfolk Island snails are quite fussy.

and demand their smorgasbord of oat and nettle meal, combined with calcium, be

served on paper.

Who knew?

Every time we feed them, we make sure we do a full head count.

So I'm struggling to find my last snail.

I've got my adult. I need five juveniles.

One, two, three, four.

Because they're so small, and because they're...

it can be a little bit hard to see them sometimes.

So there's my first one. It was hiding underneath a tiny piece of palm frond.

It's OK. We've found them all.

No need to worry.

It's just as well all snails are present and accounted for as they're getting a

visit today from Isabel, who was on that original rescue mission to Norfolk

Island, and Taronga conservationist Monique.

So here we are.

Hey, how are you? How are you going?

Good, thank you. How are they going? How have they been?

Yeah, they've been doing well.

I'm just going to grab this tank because we already have some

of our second Zuborn generation from this collection.

Oh, look, I can see on the top. Yes, F2 is there.

A little neonate on the top there.

And so far, so good. The breeding program is producing a new neonate, or

snail, every 10 days or so.

Is that one trying to escape? It's trying to escape.

It's woken up.

I'm so excited to see that the snails are going really well here at the zoo.

Already we've got four zoo -born generations from that first collection.

Snails, out of all the species in the world, snails are the group with the

extinctions worldwide.

And most of it's driven by snails on islands.

You know, they're so vulnerable.

It's fantastic that we're able to come together as a team and, you know, save

these little snails.

Next. We're just going to assume it's nasty and make sure that I get as much

it as possible.

The closer they look, the more worried the vets are about Masago's lump.

Many endangered species require a global effort to save them.

And Taronga is proud to be playing their part in ensuring the future of animals,

like this one, taking her first leisurely swim of the day.

Kimberi, inside.

Kimberi lately has been enjoying her morning swim, so she's been a little bit

slower and a little bit more unreliable coming in, so we'll give her a little

bit of time.

Good girl.

That's it, sweetie.

Good girl, sweetie.

That's it, you're all right.

Fergus and Kimbiri are actually fully grown adult pygmy hippos. They're only

really found on the west coast of Africa. So common hippos living in the

savannah in all the water holes where we've got the pygmy hippos, they live in

really damp, swampy, dense rainforest habitat, which is actually why they

look... Very, very different compared to their close relatives. So that's why

they're a lot smaller, their head's smaller as well.

Their spine actually slopes slightly forward as well, so their head is kind

closer to the ground. So that way they can navigate a lot easier and better

throughout the rainforest that they live in.

There are only 2 ,500 pygmy hippos left in the wild.

So there are high hopes these two can help add to that number.

To set the mood, zoo staff want to make sure this pair are as healthy and happy

as possible.

Pygmy hippos are a solitary species, so they choose to live on their own and

travel throughout the African rainforest on their own and have their own little

areas. Here at Taronga, we've got the two separate exhibits for both Fergus

Kimbiri and only bring them together for breeding purposes.

They are territorial and mark their territory through their faeces.

All that territory marking means, from time to time, their habitats need a

serious clean.

It's no -one's favourite job.

Good morning. We're planning to drop the hippo ponds today, so wondering if we

could switch them off and open up the valve.

All good to drop the hippos.

Pygmy hippos being semi -aquatic animals, they spend a lot of the time in

water. So naturally a lot of faeces and branches, leaves and everything will

flow on into there.

It's not that it's too dirty in there, just more of a routine clean that we do

every couple of months.

We'll be dropping the water and then pretty much hosing it all completely all

over so that way we can clean all the debris out and then refilling it with

fresh water for our hippos today. And now the cleaning begins.

My favourite bit.

Over at the wildlife hospital... Look at you. Hello.

Morning. It's a very big day for a very little penguin.

Good morning.

Recently attacked by a bird of prey.

Guess what? You're going home today.

Very cute.

I don't have any breakfast.

No. You can't have breakfast this morning.

She's not impressed. She's not getting breakfast this morning because she might

vomit in the car, you know.

Since her last check -up, Libby has discovered that her feathered friend is

female and she's now doing better than ever. Her wound has healed completely

she's got feathers over the top of it.

All her downy feathers have grown over the top. You can see the wound is still

there, but she's now waterproof.

So today, this little penguin's going home, back out into the wild.

It's always the best time, the most exciting days for me, getting animals

to go out into the wild, and then the best day of all is the day that they get

released into the wild.

Good girl. After a month's recuperation, the penguin seems back to her fighting

weight.

There's just one last check before she's cleared for release.

I'm just going to pop her in here.

They look really sweet, but they actually bite really hard.

It's a very good reaction for a wild animal when you're being caught.

Ready to go?

I'm so happy with her weight. It's the perfect weight.

to be released into the wild for a female penguin.

So now all we have to do is drive her to her release site.

For an hour and a half, the wild dog pack at Taronga Western Plain Zoo has

missing Masego.

They don't know it, but she's getting cutting -edge care.

We're in our new operating theatre today, and this is actually the first

that we've used this operating theatre in our brand -new hospital. It's a bit

a change for us because prior to this, we'd been working in quite an old

facility that was around 40 years old. Probably in its day, it was progressive,

but in modern times, we did need to move into a bigger space with newer

technology and newer facilities.

One of the reasons that we don't want this to get bigger is the bigger it

the harder it would be to remove, the bigger the hole would be.

In terms of lumps, we do see them a lot bigger.

This one is, if you can see underneath, I can pick that up. So there is, in

terms of removal, we tend to do an elliptical shape so that it comes

nicely.

So we have got plenty of skin there to close that.

So I guess this is just like any lump removal that you're doing your dog or a

cat. Dogs often get what we call fatty lumps, lipomas, and then they also

cancers and tumours, nasty things like soft tissue, sarcomas and mast cells.

And we don't know what this lump is, so we're just going to assume it's nasty

and make sure that I get as much of it as possible, including what we call

margins. So in case it is a nasty cancer and it's spread out, we want to make

sure that we get all of it.

I'm actually going right down to the muscle belly just to make sure.

If you want to chuck it onto a piece of gauze, I'll take it away and put it into

the pot. With the lump successfully removed, the tissue will be immediately

to pathology to determine if it's harmless or cancerous.

After nearly three hours away from her sisters, it's now time.

to see if they will accept Masego back.

At Taronga Zoo, saving a species can be dirty work.

In the critically endangered pygmy hippo habitat, the pool has been drained, the

gumboots are on, and now the fun begins.

So you can see here, it's mainly just a big mix of leaves that have fallen in

the pond, a bit of a mixture of mud.

and then a mix of their faeces as well, which is all just kind of dropped to the

bottom of the pond.

Oh, lovely.

It's all about providing the perfect environment for Fergus and Kambiri to

in the mood and hopefully add to their brood.

And, of course, there's the risk that that's going to happen.

Oh, lovely.

No!

Oh, that's hippo pond drop, Paula. That is so annoying.

Oh.

When did it happen? I usually get dirty, but not this dirty. Not this dirty. Not

this dirty.

That sucks.

That really does suck.

Where's our drain?

There it is.

Oh, my God, there is a lot, isn't there? Yeah.

When we're cleaning the ponds, we don't use any harsh chemicals or anything like

that. We just use the muscles of the keepers within the ungular team and then

just a hose and a gurney.

That way, when we refill the pond again, we know that there hasn't been any

chemicals in there that could affect the hippos and just keep it as natural as

possible for them.

Lovely. That's all done, though. Time to start refilling.

It really is good to see her entering the pond there after cleaning it for the

day, making it nice and fresh for her.

We put in a lot of hard work and effort. You would have seen throughout the day

I was covered in mud and really get into there. So it is awesome to see the

hippos really enjoying themselves after today.

Hopefully the pygmy hippos can soon get their minds back on the job of saving

their species.

Masego, an African wild dog, has been asleep for more than three hours.

Critically, she's been away from her pack all that time.

So strong is their pack mentality, keepers fear they might not accept her

I'm just going to give her an injection in the muscle.

It's going to reverse some of her sedative.

And then we're just going to be watching her eye position and watching her mouth

movements to see if there's any swallowing starting.

With her breathing tube removed, the vets and keepers continue to monitor her

recovery closely.

But they're not the only ones.

Something very unusual has happened today and where's their friend and what

happened?

We really don't want to be introducing her back with her pack until she's

alert and awake and able to defend herself if there was any aggression.

The social dynamics in this particular pack are quite good but any time that we

take a wild dog out of their social situation and then bring them back

always a little bit of a risk of aggression towards the animal that's

away and while she's recovering from an anaesthetic she's a little bit maybe

less aware and less... able to defend herself.

So we've just got to gauge when that perfect time is when she's awake enough,

but we don't want to keep them separated for so long that they get anxious about

not being able to be together.

As Masego starts to wake up, the pack slowly edge closer.

So far, everything is going according to plan.

But the biggest test is about to come.

Masega's up and moving around. She's looking really good.

And from what we've seen so far in her wake -up, the other dogs have been able

to see her the whole time and they've been interacting through the fence and

those behaviours have been really nice. So we're very confident, but we're also

aware that, yeah, things can always, always sometimes not go how you're

So, yeah, so fingers crossed we'll get started.

Geordie, we're ready to go when you are.

Cool. Thanks, Adam.

We'll send them out now.

Yeah, she's just coming out now.

What's happening?

Next, taking the plunge.

So cute.

Home time for a little penguin.

And a reunion for Miss Sago.

But something's not right. She's sniffing the ditch inside, so she

knows that something's different.

It's been over a month since an injured little penguin arrived at Taronga

Wildlife Hospital.

And she's finally ready to go home.

Have the bird.

Have the bird.

It's always the most important part.

Her new home is only 30 kilometres up the coast from the zoo.

And having grown pretty attached, Libby and the team are determined to see that

she gets there safely.

That penguin is so quiet.

Maybe she's having a little rest.

That's good. I think we're the excited ones to see her go home today. She's

taking it easy.

Yeah, she'll be excited once we arrive, though. Yeah. It's so great to see

penguins go back out into the wild.

Hello, you.

What's happening?

Hello.

How was your trip?

Look at the little eyes. She's so cute.

Can hardly let her go. So cute.

What a day.

Beautiful. I want to get in the water.

I know.

Me too.

I'm just looking for a spot with a little bit less weed.

Maybe just a little bit clearer.

Okay.

We'll just have to stop her jumping out and running.

Ready to go.

Cheers.

little girl.

Hi, sweetie.

Look what's happening.

Oh no, you're home.

Okay, are you ready?

Are you ready to go? Are you sure?

Here you go, little puppy.

Look at her. She's looking around.

Working out where she is.

Amazing. Bye, little girl.

There's a big colony of penguins just around the corner from this release

So it is an island where you're not allowed to go.

It's just the penguins live there, the penguin colony, so you're not allowed to

land on it.

At least she's heading out in the right direction.

Yep.

Job well done. Yeah.

She's gone.

I've released hundreds of penguins, but they're all very different and very

special.

So we'll miss her.

Geordie, we're ready to go when you are. Cool. Thanks, Adam.

Out at Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, staff are comfortable that Masego

has recovered from her anaesthetic and can be released back into the pack.

Okay, she's coming.

Oh, good girl, sweet.

All the dogs are cautious.

Oh, did she just lay down?

Masego's doing all the right behaviours, all the behaviours we were hoping to

see anyway.

So she's being very submissive. So when the other dogs approach her, she's

making herself very low, which is usually a very submissive behaviour in

dogs, which is exactly what we were hoping to see.

And I think as well, combined with that, she's also still a little tired.

She's still got a bit of a hangover from her anaesthetic.

One by one, her sisters approach to check her out.

Mambo's just had a sniff of Masego and she's sniffing the stitches side so she

obviously knows that something's different. It probably smells a little

weird as well.

So Masego's just getting up again.

Mambo's just inspecting her surgery site.

Obviously Mambo knows something's a little different and probably wondering

Masego's been up to all day.

The reunion has gone better than anyone could have hoped. So a little feeding

time celebration is in order.

But not even a meal is enough to rouse Masego.

This sleeping dog just wants to lie.

The vets did tell us that she might not feel hungry this afternoon after her

anaesthetic, but I think she just needs to sleep it off. The other dogs are

hanging out with her.

She's still definitely got that drive to hang out with them, so she gets up and

moves where they are. But, yeah, still a little bit tired.

Tired or not, Masego is safely part of the pack again.

The band is finally back together.

We're stoked. That was probably the smoothest... introduction that i've seen

wild dogs anyway normally there's quite a bit of commotion a lot of noise

whereas that one that one went very smoothly everyone pretty much ignored

but she was doing all the right behaviors they were doing all the right

behaviors so we can't really be be much happier than that don't a few days later

the pathology has come back and the news is unexpected

Yeah, so as you know, we took a couple of biopsies from those lumps and we've

sent them to our pathologist down in Sydney.

It has actually come back with a cancer.

So, yeah, we weren't expecting that.

It was a bit of a surprise to us as well. It's called a mast cell tumour.

They're actually the most common or one of the most common skin tumours in dogs,

domestic dogs. And this is actually the first time that we've heard about it in

an African wild dog.

The good thing with Masego is that on that day that we did her general

anaesthetic, we were able to do chest X -rays and that, but we couldn't see any

evidence of it. So that's one good thing, to be honest.

If there had to be a cancer diagnosis, this is the one to get.

It's very low grade and it hasn't spread.

I think the best thing for her, given how healthy and happy she really is, is

that we just keep an eye on her, keep her comfortable, keep her with a pack.

I'm pretty optimistic that I don't think this is going to rear its ugly head and

cause a big problem for her. Even though it's a cancer diagnosis, I think she's

going to be fine.

That was quite devastating, I guess, to hear that it was a cancer diagnosis.

But having said that, Bec did give us a lot of stuff to work towards. I know we

have such an amazing vet team here, the keepers, all of us that look after her.

I think we're really confident that we can keep a really good eye on her and

make sure that her welfare is the most important thing moving forward.