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 it 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.

Laying on that dirty floor was so worth 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.

Hey, buddy, that's it.

From a real rodent. They'll actually eat their own poo.

To the real queen of the jungle. They are a dangerous animal that you're

with. You have to know your job and know your role.

Team Taronga.

They're impressive.

Get up close and personal.

Oh, look at that.

Anxious times for a very special arrival.

It's pretty thin. You can see the ticks, like masses of ticks on it. So the next

phase is actually going to be very challenging.

And the secrets of convincing a galah.

We're going to give him lots of feeds to make this a very positive place to be.

To soar like an eagle.

For staff at Taronga Zoo, working here is more than a job. It's a labor of

Good boy.

Caring for animals comes with enormous rewards.

Yeah, OK, thank you. But also has huge challenges.

For keeper Ellen, just preparing their meal can be tricky.

Today I am prepping our lion meat for our seven wonderful lions.

We have Dad Ato, Mum Maya, the two male cubs, Kari and Lizuko, and our three

female cubs, Ayana, Malika and Ziri.

They don't necessarily get all of the nutrients they would out in the wild, so

we supplement it with our vitamins here.

Our male adult lion isn't a massive fan of chicken.

Generally, when we hopper the food through to him, he kind of turns to the

of the hopper, looks at us and is like, really, you don't have anything else for

me? But he will eat it.

Ellen is about to face a much bigger challenge than preparing dinner.

Malika, one of our female lion cubs, is having a general anaesthetic for her

annual health check, which we do on all of our animals.

Malika has never had a general anaesthetic before, and Ellen's never

administered one.

It will be my first time pole injecting an animal for an anaesthetic, so it's

definitely very nerve -wracking.

It's essential for all of the drugs to go into her at once so that it's a

procedure. She goes down really calmly.

And if that doesn't happen, then unfortunately we may need to dart her

things like that. So it's definitely a little bit stressful.

This is Ellen and Malika's last dress rehearsal before the real procedure

tomorrow. I've been training her over the past year or so for a pole or a hand

injection.

I will have a second keeper who's the feeder and I'll feed while I'm down the

other end.

So I'll ask her to drop and then I'll click your reward and we'll see how we

from there, what she's doing.

For safety reasons, the procedure will be performed in the back of house den.

For me to be able to touch her, originally it starts with a bamboo

Touch.

Good girl.

Also a blunt needle on the end of a pole as well.

Drop. Between them, Malika and Ellen have the routine down pat.

Touch. But it needs to be.

Tomorrow the vets will be inside the mesh with her while she's under

Finish.

We'll get Malika. Good job.

Taronga's labours of love happen far away from the zoo also, like here at

Lakes on the New South Wales mid -north coast.

It's a paradise for both dingoes and humans, but that can lead to problems.

You can be driving right through the course and they can be, like, I don't

two metres off on the side and that big stuff and you just would never know.

Six wild packs roam the beaches.

the bushland and, unfortunately, the towns.

When you come to an area like the Mile Lakes region, you encounter dingoes

living in the town of Hawksnest.

You'll see them walking down the street and that in itself raises a whole other

bunch of challenges around managing them.

Shall we go for a cruise down to that car park at the back of the beach and we

can start tracking from there? Yeah.

It's fair to say behavioural biologist Ben from Taronga and his colleague Neil

from the University of New South Wales are dingo fans.

It's worth keeping an eye out because they do just wander through the town.

They're searching for ways to change dingo behaviour to prevent conflict with

humans. The Mile East Dingo Project started with the objective of developing

ways of managing dingoes so that we didn't have to kill them.

People are sometimes tempted to feed a lean dingo and as the saying goes, a fed

dingo is a dead dingo. It's a really good way to turn them into a problem

animal. So we put collars on the dingo and we follow them around and see what

they're getting up to.

For the last four years, Ben and Neil have been tracking local dingoes. to

better understand where they go and why.

Maybe head to that high spot up on the dune first and see if we get a signal

from up there.

Okay. Sounds good.

This morning we're going to do a bit of radio tracking in this area here,

looking for our collared dingoes. We're going to start up on top of the dune at

the back of the beach because that's a nice high ground which should give us a

good long -distance radio reception.

Oh look, tracks just here. They're in the right spot. Let's go up to the spot.

Hopefully they're still around.

This morning I'm looking for the dingo that we've nicknamed Andy.

Andy's the dominant male of this pack just here.

We collared him just over a year ago.

One of the reasons why we want to find him now is we're coming into the

season, so we want to see if he's partnered up with another mate and who

might be.

In Australia, dingoes are the top predator, the apex predator, so

them and having them in the environment is really important ecologically.

Andy the dingo is playing hard to get.

We're not getting a signal for him here at the moment, so our next step will be

to go and look in the scrub between here and the edge of town.

It's time for Malika, the lioness's, first health check.

It's not something anyone is taking lightly.

Here's the vet bag, emergency, and the blue one. So today we're going to be

doing the anaesthetic of Malika in her inside dens.

The heart's racing this morning. It is pretty crazy to be so close and personal

to, you know, one of the best predators on the earth. So excited, nerve

-wracking, but excited.

I think there's lots of healthy adrenaline in these procedures.

Everyone's really well trained, but they are a dangerous animal that you're

dealing with. You have to know your job and know your role and know that what

you're doing is risky, but you're doing it in the safest way possible for the

cat and for yourself as well.

Push it, sweetie.

The first and most important element of today's procedure is ensuring the

anaesthetic works correctly.

So this is the pole syringe.

And I'm going to fill this with the anesthetic, and then the keepers

inject the anesthetic because the lions are used to them. But we do get a bit

excited when we're doing any kind of dangerous animal because we need to be

careful. Just double -checking my doses, 0 .23.

No one is more anxious than Ellen.

It's her first time administering the anesthetic.

No pressure. No pressure at all.

The first attempt has missed.

Drop.

Set.

Luckily enough, with the training that I've been able to do, she did drop a

second time for me and allowed me to get the pole injection in on that second

go, which is amazing.

Good girl.

You're OK, sweetheart.

I'm going to go in.

With the injection in, it's up to vet Kimberley to decide when and if it's

to enter.

So I'm just kind of waiting to get the all clear that Kimberley's happy, Liz is

happy with the way the anaesthetic's going.

Poke her ear and around her eye to see if there's any response.

No blink response. I think she's quite deep. She went down very quickly, which

is good. The next point of call, I'll go in and shackle.

and have her attached to the mesh and cargo net on the top until everyone's

completely happy that she's at a depth that's safe for us to all go in. Let's

see if I can feel.

There's no jaw tone.

Okay, that's good.

Yeah, this is kind of the nerve -wracking part, to say the least.

While I'm going in, all of you should be outside.

Malika seems safely asleep.

You going behind me, Rob? Yep.

But everyone's holding their breath as Kimberley goes through the door.

Coming up, a national icon... Oh, wow.

..in real trouble.

It's pretty thin. The really plump platypus, you wouldn't be able to squish

those edges together at all.

And the world's biggest rodent. Three, two, one.

But what brought a tear to his eye?

Let's grab the rope and see if we can crank that mouth open.

At Taronga's Wildlife Hospital, a very special patient has just come through

door. Hi.

What have we got here?

We have a brand new little juvenile platypus. Wow.

Just come in this morning. Yeah, yeah.

So we found it up in Rimba, up on the central coast, on a rural property, just

in the yard, under a bush. Okay. The dogs were barking at it. They don't

they got to the platypus.

Vets only see a few of these a year, and it's a special moment when they do.

Must be small, isn't it? Yeah, a tiny little beak.

Oh wow, there you go.

That is beautiful.

I can see already it's got ticks, quite a lot of ticks on it. It may be that

that burden of ticks is actually having an impact on the animal in terms of

maybe it'll be quite anemic.

To properly examine the platypus, it will have to be anaesthetised.

One way of assessing body condition in platypus is what's called the tail

index or the tail fat index, and you squish the tail together.

Like a really plump platypus, you wouldn't be able to squish those edges

together at all. So the condition is pretty thin.

The scale is 1 to 5, with 5 being a very poor condition.

So I would say it's about a four out of five.

It's actually really exciting having this little platypus here because, in

platypuses are my favourite animal. You know, just the most bizarre creatures.

They're just this mixture of birds and reptiles and mammals and, you know,

anatomically and physiologically, they're just so unique and, yeah, it

makes them a fascinating animal.

2 .6.

Their numbers are declining.

They're very impacted by a lot of human activity, building dams, changing water

flows, agriculture.

Obviously, predators such as foxes and dogs and cats also impact them.

If the platypus has been bitten, X -rays will show up any internal injuries,

like broken bones.

OK. It's also ventral. Get the mask off.

Looks pretty good though. There's no injuries that I can see.

I can see the ticks, like masses of ticks on them.

All those little dots there are the ticks. One there as well. There.

Cluster there.

One there.

The medication here would kill the ticks.

Just wipe it over the areas where the ticks are.

Lizzie's going to give it some fluids while I'm doing this.

So the next phase is actually going to be very challenging for us. The

requirements are quite specialised in terms of the food and their environment

that they live in. They can be quite picky with the food that they choose to

and the temperature of the water is really important as well and the

side of things is going to be a very significant part of ensuring that this

little girl recovers well.

The zoo team will need to work around the clock if she's to have any chance of

survival.

Malika, the lioness, is undergoing her first health check.

When I first go in, until I get her 100 % stabilized, she'll be, I'll just slip

her on her side, she'll be right where she is. Yeah, I'll just come in with you

and I'll stand in the front corner. Okay.

She's been given her anesthetic shot.

You're going behind me, Rob? Yep.

Vet Kimberly needs to make sure she's really asleep. Okay.

Ellen? Yeah.

She's looking for any sign of reaction and hoping she doesn't get one.

Anything? Not really.

No jaw tone.

No blink reflex.

No, we're good.

You can come on in, Liz.

Malika is safely asleep.

Cargo net on her. But she needs to be secured just in case.

Andy, can you do the cargo net and the hobbles?

Yeah.

We're doing a baseline health check on the lion because we want to know what

normal values are. You know, what's her normal weight? What's her normal blood

work look like? And then we can compare and know if she's got changes in her

liver function or she's got signs of infection.

With Malika now receiving anesthetic via an IV drip, the net and hobbles can be

safely removed.

If we can just roll her over.

Is that the head?

Yeah. One, two, three. Because I need the left side up.

Okay, cool. Thanks.

I might just look in her mouth if you don't mind.

Sure.

Okay, can you just pull the jaw?

It's a rare perk of the job, being able to get so close to such a powerful

animal. Can you check the front claws and just make sure there's no ingrowns

anything?

God, they're impressive.

Okay, that's a COVID vaccine.

Left shoulder.

COVID can be caught by zoo animals.

So Malika will now join a study on the vaccine's effectiveness.

She's perfect, isn't she?

She's so pretty.

Within half an hour, the checkup is complete.

Everything looks perfect.

Okay, let's let her get up.

I'm reversing her.

It went really smoothly, didn't it?

So we'll do the baseline bloods and we've got her serum for the COVID study.

Vaccinated.

Yeah, I'd say she's got a really clean slate of health. A few hours later,

Malika is fully recovered and back with the pride.

Ellen's first anaesthetic has been a success.

Everything went really smoothly, which is amazing.

She's recovered really, really well and we've been able to place her back with

her family and that reintroduction was really fantastic to see because they're

all a little bit worried about her, wondering where she was, but they're all

back together and happy now.

A two -and -a -half -hour drive north of Taronga in Mile Lakes...

Conservationists Ben and Neil are on the trail of a male dingo called Andy.

So this is a good spot. There's a walking track that goes down the side of

golf course here.

He's proving elusive despite wearing a tracking collar.

Well, you reckon we have a track just up here?

Yeah, I think this would be good.

I mean, this is pretty much where you would expect single males to spend their

day at the golf course.

Okay.

I'm getting a little bit of a signal. Oh yeah?

Yeah, over here just in the bush.

Over this way.

I think he's going to come out of the bush and cross onto the golf course. Oh,

yep.

Here he comes.

Oh, yep, yep.

Finally.

Collar's looking really good. It's moving.

Freely, and he looks in really good condition.

Oh, hang on.

Have a look at that. He's got quite a big wound on his flank.

Look at that.

Can you make it up?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he does.

The wound appears clean and superficial, so Neil and Ben feel veterinary care is

not required.

Looks like a bite.

Maybe from another dingo, do you think?

About time of year again, going into the breeding season.

Where we see a bit of aggression.

So what I'm going to do now is connect up this download antenna.

Every hour his collar will record a location.

We're able to download the data from the collar onto the laptop and we'll be

able to see where this collar, therefore this dingo, has been in the last month

or so.

He's clearly not concerned about being out on the golf course. He's sitting

there with the lawnmowers running in the background and he's not phased by it,

so he's definitely a golf course dingo.

Absolutely.

We've been tracking Andy for almost 12 months now, so we're starting to get a

really good understanding of his behaviour and his relationship with the

Hawksnest. He's obviously comfortable and familiar with people, but he still

maintained enough of that dingo instinct to stay away from us and not wanting to

approach us. So that's what we want to see from the dingoes in the town, that

we're not seeing any of those concerning habituation behaviours where they might

start to approach people.

Andy's data has been downloaded.

revealing exactly where he's ventured over the last month.

That's like the standard range. So we've got his home range sort of encompasses

most of the southern part of the town, a lot of that beachfront there.

Yeah, so that's good to see. He's healthy, he's doing well, and great to

data. We'll get a lot of information from that when we look at it in a lot

detail. With the help of Andy and his pack, Ben and Neil hope to work out the

dingo movement patterns and how they can encourage them to stay away from

humans.

Coming up... This is an important part of the first sets of training.

..will Taronga's latest additions... You're a pro, Jetta. Like he was made

it. ..make real galahs of themselves.

That's a safe perch. That's a very good perch.

And the little platypus.

Time to eat.

In the fight of her life.

There you go.

You get snuggled up in there.

So this is not something that we ever trained Warren to do, but he's insane.

One of the most fun things to do at Taronga is the free flight bird

There's magic in the air as they swoop overhead.

Free to fly away, but choosing to stay.

It looks easy, but it takes months of preparation.

And for two rescued galahs, Jeddah and Jirigi, it's the first day at school.

Good morning, everyone, to your stations.

So we are here with our beautiful galahs, and today is an exciting day

they're starting to do training. So very important for these birds to practice a

lot of skills before the brief light presentation.

So we're going to have a couple months ahead of us in training, but it's a very

exciting time. We'll start with the basics, the ABCs, baby behavior, and

eventually, hopefully, they'll be flying long distances.

Hello.

What do you think?

Good job.

So this is an important part of the first steps of training.

This is called a nagel.

It's a specific term we use here at Taronga.

And it simply means like their crate or their transportation enclosure that they

go to and from to. So it's the first step we want them to practice because

in this has to be the most reinforcing, the most fun place where you get tons of

seeds. So as a first step to any training, there, you saw there's a

of hesitation.

You slowed down in that step. That's not a problem.

We'll try again, leaning forward.

Nice job.

But you can see she's choosing to go inside that nagle.

And they stay really nice and calm inside.

And we can shut this door.

Then we know it's time to move on to the next step.

So this is the first time that they've ever seen...

This step stool, again, we're going to give them lots of reinforcers, lots of

seeds to make this a very positive place to be.

And this is an important part of their training because eventually this perch

will move further and further and further, and they're going to fly these

distance A to Bs.

So we'll see if they're comfy. Oh, easy.

You're a pro, Jetta. Like he was made for it.

Jeddah has parked with flying colors.

Time for Jirigi to step up.

So this is a new perch.

Sometimes novel things can be a little bit scary.

Yeah, that crest up. The eyes dilated a little bit.

But they're still leaning forward.

So it's really good information that I'm still able to move forward.

But maybe slow.

What do you think?

Oh, that's okay.

Good job.

Chris is safety.

Slowly bring them forward like we did. Sometimes a step up is easier than...

Eventually, the galahs will fly 100 metres in the open air.

But for now, Jiragi still has a lot to learn.

That's a safe perch. That's a very good perch.

Hey, boys.

How we doing?

Keeper Jacob is crazy about capybaras.

They seem to like him too.

Or maybe it's just the breakfast.

Hey, buddy.

Enough of those.

Capybaras are the world's largest rodent. They're closest relative to

rodents like guinea pigs, beavers.

They live across South America in a lot of jungle areas. So we're talking the

Amazon, Peru and a few other countries throughout South America.

They look small and stout, but they're really fast. They can run up to about 35

kilometres an hour.

About as fast as a horse.

These guys are amazing swimmers.

His feet are partially webbed. They can actually hold their breath for about

five minutes.

There's not much Jacob doesn't know about capybaras.

And some of those things, he probably wishes he didn't.

So capybaras, they'll actually eat their own poo.

When capybaras eat their food, grasses ferment in their gut. And once that goes

through in the form of poo, they'll actually reconsume that because there's

lot of nutritional value still in that food that they need to absorb.

One of the capybaras has what Jacob hopes is a simple problem.

But the fear is it could be something more sinister.

So over here we have Rodney.

Now, Rodney is...

Had a little bit of trouble with his eye.

He's just had a little bit of discharge.

So we're a little bit concerned because it can sometimes mean that there's signs

of dental issues.

Because these guys' teeth are constantly growing and there's a lot of action

happening here, there can be a lot of pressure and potential infection that

occur around the teeth that can actually affect the eyes.

Left untreated, infected teeth will eventually kill a capybara.

So Rodney has an urgent date with the vet.

At the wildlife hospital, it's been a tough week for the juvenile platypus.

To help her put on weight, she's been virtually spoon -fed six times a day.

For her, when she's feeding, we're trying to keep the water temperature

about 28 and 31 at the moment.

That seems to be where she thrives at the moment with her eating.

The duck is the thermometer and the water bath is there because platypus

naturally feed under water.

She does enjoy maggots.

We know all the things that platypus should like.

We're going to add black worms.

That will give her a nice little selection of bones.

That way we ensure that she's continuing to eat well and that she's putting on

weight.

Even with the dedicated care, there are no guarantees with platypus, and the

first few days were touch and go.

All tucked up. Wake up, little one.

Time to eat.

There you go.

There you go.

When she first arrived, she was about 320 grams, so she did

lose a fair bit in the first couple of days, and she's just now started to

increase in weight again.

Try another cricket.

There you go.

We're not so keen on the crickets this afternoon.

Platypus are obviously one of those iconic Australian species and very few

people do get to look after a platypus. So to have the privilege of having one

in care and to be able to spend a lot of time hands -on with looking after her

is very special.

You're going to come out, okay.

You can come out for a little while.

Okay, so come on. There we go.

You get snuggled up in there.

She's probably full now. She's filled her cheek pouches up. The way she's

grinding her bill there.

So she'll be extracting the food out of the cheek pouches into her bill and

she'll grind away, help the digestion and then she'll swallow that.

We're going to call this feed done.

Tuck her in there.

She's improving, but the platypus isn't out of the woods yet.

For staff, there are plenty more sleepless nights ahead.

You're done.

One, two, three.

Rodney the capybara has been given an anaesthetic and transferred to the

hospital. Beautiful.

At 35 kilos, it's no small job.

So Rodney is one of our capybaras. He's four and a half years old.

He's had some white, puffy discharge from one of his eyes. So we're

that he's actually got a blocked tear duct.

So we're going to try and pass a little catheter into it so that we can give it

a really good flush and see if there's anything lodged in there, see if there's

evidence of infection.

First, Jess wants to rule out another, more serious possibility.

The tear duct runs down your face sort of internally and pops out just towards

the tip of your nose, which is why if you're having an ugly cry, the tears

out your nose as well as your eyes.

If there are any dental problems, that can push against the tear duct and cause

an obstruction.

So one of the things we'll also be checking today is to make sure his teeth

in good nick.

So let's grab the rope and see if we can crank that mouth open.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Both the cheek teeth and the insides of those big front teeth.

continuously growing. And that's a reflection of their really abrasive

They need to have teeth that are constantly coming through. Otherwise

get worn down and they starve.

That looks pretty good to me. Perfect.

Fortunately for Rodney, his teeth aren't causing his eye issue.

Jess needs to know what is.

This is a little bit of a yellow stain.

If there's any trauma to the surface of the eye, you'll pick up the dye.

And it'll also come out his nose and tell us that his tear duct is patent, so

that's quite good.

And we've got no uptake on that one either.

So it just means there's no scratches on the surface of the eye. One of the

reasons that eye might have discharge is if there's a scratch and it's

uncomfortable. I didn't think that was going to be the case with Rodney because

there's no indication that the eye itself is uncomfortable. There's no

of the tissue around the eye.

But it's worth checking on the same.

All right, can we take his mask off? And I'm just going to have a look at his

nostrils.

So I'm interested to see whether the stain comes out his nostrils. It should

glow, but it's not.

With no dye emerging from his nose, it's likely there's a blockage somewhere in

the tear duct.

Jess will try to clear it.

Numb it up a little bit.

I'm just going to try and flush the tear duct.

It is just there.

Can you see that tiny little opening?

That's what we want to catheterize. So this is just a soft little hollow

catheter.

I'm just going to give it a flush.

Flush anything that might be occluding the tear duct out.

That was a blob of pus that had come out.

We've got two little openings to that T -deck. One's on the lower eyelid and

one's on the top eyelid. So they both join kind of like that and then run

And as I've been flushing the lower ones, pyrrolent material has been coming

the top one, which is what we got a sample of. So we'll be able to culture

and see if there's a particular bacteria that's growing in there that we might

be able to... Oh, look at that.

So that's just a big old glob of pus.

The galahs debut at the free flight presentation is just three months away.

Training is stepping up for the two budding stars.

So this is Jeddah and Jirgi.

They're here in the Blue Mountains Bushwalk Aviary and it's a nice safe

them to learn how to practice flying around other birds and interact with

The net -covered aviary is a safe place.

If Jeddah or Jirgi gets spooked, they can't fly far.

We're going to do some in and outs first with the birds and make sure that

they're comfortable going in and out of their naggle.

And that was great. You can see she was leaning back inside, so that's awesome.

We can take that as a yes for going to the next step, which is going to be some

short distance flights called A to B.

The presentation flight will be 100 metres over the audience.

But you've got to start somewhere.

Jeda. Good job.

And we can do one more?

Mm -hmm.

Once again, Jeda knows exactly what to do.

Awesome. So short distance, we've seen no hesitation.

That's our sign to move on to the next step. And we're going to try a really

long one. You have to kind of maneuver between some trees.

Ready?

Good work.

So we're going to work Jirgi now. We'll do the same test.

I'll just do one scene.

She soon gets the hang of it.

So both of the birds have done really well today.

No worries. So that was really important. Great job. Welcome back.

It's very exciting. I think both of these birds are probably ready for the

step, which will be to fly outside and hopefully very soon be in presentation.

Good job.

Coming up. I'm just going to try and flush the tear duct. All eyes on Rodney.

Have a look at them under the microscope and we can see what white blood cells

there, so it's definitely pus.

Three, two, one. But will there be more tears at bedtime?

We'll watch him to make sure he's doing all right.

Rodney the capybara has a runny eye.

Jess thinks she's worked out why.

So that's just a big old glob of I think what's probably pus.

That's just come jetting out of that tear duct.

And onto my finger.

Mmm.

Thank you. And there was none of this coming out of the other tear duct, so it

does suggest that, yeah, definitely a tear duct problem.

Now, we've had a look under the microscope, and we can see what white

cells there, so it's definitely pus.

That seems to have accumulated in the tear duct somewhere between the opening

and where that blockage is sitting.

Certainly Rodney hasn't been showing any signs of eye pain. He's not had any

squinting? No, no squinting or looking like it's uncomfortable at all. Hasn't

been rubbing it.

The path will be sent to pathology for testing.

It's hoped the solution will be as simple as antibiotics to clear up

infection.

For now, Rodney will be returned to his exhibit and woken up.

So that is his reversal.

Well, let's take a few minutes to take a check.

He's recovering really well. It's only taken him 10 minutes to sort of come to.

We won't let him back out with the group just yet. We'll probably wait until

he's up and about and motivated to eat and drink, which might take maybe an

or so, and during that time we'll watch him to make sure he's doing all right.

Rodney is soon ready to rejoin the gang.

Hey, buddy, that's it.

He's back outside. He looks very happy.

It's good to know that there's nothing wrong with his teeth and it was all

purely to do with his tear ducts.

Capybara's teeth are very important to them, so it's good to know that his

are nice and healthy.

Rodney's obviously had his tear ducts flushed and a lot of pus came out during

that. which is great because it means he's probably going to feel a lot of

relief.

He's back with his brothers now and everything's back to normal.

The Galahs free flight exhibition is in just two months.

It's time to give them their first truly outdoor training.

They're performing without a net.

So we are headed to the concert lawns today. It's an exciting first step,

time ever being outside.

Good morning. This is when the training wheels come off.

Exciting? Nerve -wracking.

Previous to this, we've been flying in aviaries, which are always netted, as a

safe opportunity for them to practice all of these skills for flying.

We've chose this area because it's really covered.

It still allows for a lot of wind to move through the environment and all

that the birds will eventually need to learn how to fly with.

So wind, other birds, there's cockatoos and lorikeets flying all over the place.

But it's a really beautiful spot because it's very sheltered. There's tons of

trees around us.

tons of landing opportunities so if our birds were to ever get nervous and to

fly off our hand hopefully they land somewhere safe nearby and then they can

come quickly back to the hand all of these are important steps to their

progress so this is

jetta and you can see with their body language that they're leaning really

to get back into that nagle that's exactly what we want to see chris are

ready are you ready okay we're gonna do A short A to B.

Nice.

Ready?

Good job.

Perfect. I think that was great. You want to back up a little bit?

Ready?

Superstar.

Checked me.

Once again.

Jeddah is a natural.

Now, Jirigi.

It's a big, wide world out there, with nothing to stop her if she chooses to

away. So we're going to go for a longer flight.

You've done so good with your short flight.

She's done it. My favorite part about training these birds is just really

watching them grow.

It's wonderful to see them navigate the skies and kind of take flight in a sense

and become confident individuals who know how to navigate with wind patterns

other birds in their environment.

It's just a really special and magical thing to see.

Yeah, I think they're ready for the next step.

Next step, the big event. But can they perform the all -important 100 -meter

flight in front of a full house?

Next. When you look at her, you really don't mind.

It's crunch time.

She's a good little brat.

For the little platypus.

It's hopefully going to survive and pull through. It's all about the critters.

And pre -flight nerve.

Welcome to pre -flight presentation here at the Taronga Zoo.

As the big day arrives for Jeddah and Jirigi.

So this is what we've been working for for months now.

It's 5 .30 in the morning.

Keeper Rob is part of the team looking after the platypus.

He's got the day's first feed.

Whether it's cleaning out water bowls or organising breeding programs or coming

in at still dark to make sure some little munchkin is hopefully going to

and pull through. It doesn't matter what it is, but it all comes back to it.

It's all about the critters.

She likes the water temperature about 30 degrees.

When we first saw this little platypus, she was essentially emaciated, very

weak, anemic.

And to be honest, I don't think she would have survived.

And now she's thriving. It takes a lot of work to get them to start eating and

things like that. And the team here put an enormous amount of work into feeding

her six times a day.

Sometimes it takes two hours to get all the food into her and get her used to

the different food items. And they've done an incredible job.

I've been doing 6 a .m. feeds. Oh, that was a big yawn.

And 5 .30 and 8 .30 p .m. feeds.

Mind you, when you look at her, you really don't mind.

She is a good little brat.

On the scales.

344 .6, so you're up about 7 grams or thereabouts, I think, from this time

yesterday morning.

Time for breakfast.

This isn't the first little platypus like this I've dealt with. About 26, 27

years ago we had a little platypus come in that we called Annie and she was one

of the very first platypus ever successfully hand raised.

She'd been chewed on by a dog before she got here so she was even in a worse

state than this little one.

So at least now this little one's got experience from what we've done in the

past which does make things a bit easier.

Rob's knowledge is making a huge difference.

The platypus is on the road to recovery.

Behaviourally she's great, she's exploring, she's interested in things.

still be in hospital for quite some time. She's got a long way to go before

feel that she's ready to go out into the zoo or in fact be released. It's still

a fair way down the track before that would actually happen.

That's probably one of the biggest senses of achievement. You've taken

that was really, really thick and in a bad way, and you've got it better.

Oh, it is bedtime, is it?

After three months' practice, the big day has finally arrived for Jirigi and

Jedha. Their first... free flight bird presentation.

It's awesome to have a free flight presentation here at the zoo because it

really helps to inspire conservation, caring and action when you see how

these birds are. So we are excited to see how they go with such a large crowd.

Even though Megan has been training galahs for over 10 years, there are

few butterflies around.

Welcome to Free Flight Presentation here at the Taronga Zoo.

My name is Megan, and you're in for a bit of a treat this morning. We have two

new birds new to the presentation.

Their names are Jeddah and Jirgi.

They're a tiny pink species of cockatoo, also known as a galah cockatoo, and

this is their first time that they're going to be flying in the presentation

today. With months of hard work on the line, it's time for these birds to

Okay, I think we are ready to go, so let's see how these birds do.

It's very exciting.

Jetta's on his way.

Awesome.

Whoa. Here comes Jurgi.

Pretty cute, don't they?

They have done an awesome job. We've been working with these two birds and

others for months now.

It's such an awesome sight. There goes Jurgie.

And Jetta's checking if there's any more snacks.

She's on her way home. Thank you so much for being here with us.

It's awesome. We have such big crowds and the birds are completely confident.

So this is what we've been working for for months now.

And it's awesome to finally see it come to fruition.