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.

Sorry, 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.

It mightn't sound like it.

But this is a love song.

Kayak hasn't sung it for six months.

Let's go!

Come on, buddy! Last one! So just who got him singing again?

An around -the -clock mission... We've been planning this for nearly two years

now. ...to save the platypus.

And... All aboard the Taronga Express.

Hopefully we'll get some brilliant sightings. A global odyssey inspired by

I had tears rolling down my face when that happened.

Of all the animals Taronga has been a home or a help to, one species is

to most tasks.

It's one of the least understood creatures here.

And it's in trouble.

Platypus is a big focus for Taronga. It's our emblem.

It's one of our legacy species.

They talked about platypus being the silent victim of bushfires and drought.

The research shows the platypus populations are in decline.

There's living proof of those fears just south of Sydney.

The Royal National Park used to be home to healthy platypus populations, but

none have been seen for decades.

Thanks to a massively ambitious project, that is all about to change.

We call this a local extinction event, so it's really important that we find

habitat that can support platypus and we can start to put populations back.

The plan is to source 10 wild platypus in other rivers in New South Wales.

and relocate them to the Royal National Park.

To help find them, Phoebe needs to test a number of rivers throughout the state.

I'm going to do eDNA testing.

This involves taking a litre of water from these sites up to a syringe and

we filter this water so that only the particles of the platypus are stored in

the filter.

This will then tell us if platypus are currently living in that river system.

Having identified sites where platypus live, the team are setting traps at

site number one in the snowy mountains.

Shallow nets are set, and from dusk, the rescue boat is ready to go.

But no one expected success to come so quickly.

The little female is anaesthetised and samples taken.

We end up catching seven, but we want to make sure that we leave some in the

source sites and get a good spread of genetic diversity, so just two from the

first site today.

The journey to a new home begins, but first there's a stop at Taronga Zoo.

Communication between animals can happen in a range of ways, through touch,

smell and sound.

A gibbon species can actually manipulate their vocal cords a little bit like we

can and they have an array of different communications that they can do with

those vocal cords. They do duet to each other, so a male will start the duet and

then the female will come in at the end and finish that duet.

The coat colour of a white -cheeked gibbon varies with age and sex of the

animal. But by adulthood, the females are a beige colour and the males are

black. White -cheeked gibbons are found in Southeast Asia and they're critically

endangered in the wild with less than 500 individuals left.

They're what's called a true monogamous primate. However, if an animal died in a

pairing, that gibbon would then go on and find another pair. But they do stay

that family group where there's often a mother and a father and then a few

generations of offspring before they disperse.

Sadly, Kayak, the male gibbon, lost his long -term partner Nellie six months

ago.

Kayak definitely did grieve for Nellie. They go through a grieving process and

his behaviour did change, but we just changed the way we worked with him. So

upped our interactions with him, so we spent a lot more time with him. We've

upped his training, we've upped his enrichment to make sure that he's

lot more from us because he doesn't have Nellie in there to comfort him now.

After she passed, Kayak was silent for a while, so we only have heard him

starting to call in the last month or so. The fact that we're hearing Kayak

calling again is a good indication to us that he's ready to find another mate.

And it looks like they may have found her at Perth Zoo.

So Kayak is about to be transferred to meet his new partner.

It's always very bittersweet. Gibbons are a favourite of mine, so I have a

spot for them, and especially Kayak. So it is going to be very difficult to see

him go, but I am very happy that there is a lady waiting for him, and he's

to have a second chance.

When we send animals to other zoos, we want to make sure that they're healthy

and in tip -top condition. So he's going to have a general anaesthetic, where

the vets will give him a once -over, we'll do x -rays, bloods, and just make

sure that he's well and healthy and OK to travel.

Gibbons generally are quite sensitive, so they know everything about their

environment and anything subtle that changes, they pick up on it straight

Part of Kayak's training has been to receive a hand injection from Beck.

And hopefully he won't catch wind that today it's going to happen for real.

It's a super exciting day.

as the first platypus selected for relocation land at Taronga.

Hey! So I've arrived from the snowy mountains. I have one female and one

platypus.

The boy has been rustling around the whole ride home, so I think he's quite

active one.

So the keepers will have a fun time trying to get him out and into the new

facility. Taronga's new platypus facility is huge.

Each platypus will have their own 9 ,000 -litre water tank outside, connected by

a tunnel to indoor sleeping boxes.

All right, well, we might take them both over then.

We've been planning this translocation for nearly two years now with National

Parks and Wildlife Service, WWF and University of New South Wales.

So to have these first two platypus on site for the first ever New South Wales

platypus translocation is really exciting.

I'm just going to let Larry know that they're here.

We've got wriggling. It's a good sign.

By platypus standards.

This male is enormous.

The big one, the boy's huge.

The female is smaller but looks just as robust.

She's a very healthy looking girl.

Both platypus will be given a quick vet check.

What a beauty.

He's a chunky little boy.

My gosh.

Just want to, in terms of ageing, I just want to see the spurs.

They're big.

Yeah.

Male platypus need to be picked up by their tails to avoid the venomous spurs

their hind legs.

It's the safest and most comfortable way for them to be handled.

You're happy then? That's good, yeah. He looks good. We won't disturb him too

much. He's been through a lot already.

The female also passes her first inspection with flying colours.

Are you happy with how they look, Larry?

Yeah, they look great. I mean, beautiful animals.

Really in great condition, great body condition. Obviously, it was a very

cursory look, but they look great. Perfect, yeah.

That male's huge.

He's great. He's huge, yeah. Yeah, lovely animal. Yeah, I think it's a good

start getting these two.

It's pretty exciting, isn't it? Two a day.

Is that your plan, two a day?

Two a day for five days, or ten?

Yeah, we're really happy with how that went. The vets are happy, Larry's happy,

the keepers are happy.

They will live here for the next week or so while we bring in platypus from

other locations.

And then in about two weeks' time, we will release them all as a cohort into

Royal National Park.

Even though the first collection has gone well, these platypus cannot be kept

here for too long.

So Phoebe hopes her next round goes just as smoothly.

Coming up... Atto, tail.

Up first for Taronga.

Now they just need Atto to lie still.

And... Ready, kayak?

The game that got kayak singing again.

Let's go!

Come on, buddy!

Six months ago, this lovely mating call was what visitors might hear as they

swung past the white -cheeked gibbon exhibit at Sydney's Taronga Zoo.

But when female Nellie died, her partner Kayak became silent as he went into

mourning.

With lots of extra TLC from the keepers, Kayak has nearly returned to his old,

boisterous self.

And even better, he's been found a new partner at Perth Zoo.

They're so clever.

It is going to be very difficult to see him go, but I am very happy that there

is a lady waiting for him and he's going to have a second chance.

Today, Keeper Bec will give Kayak a hand injection.

ahead of a general anaesthetic so the vets can do a full health check before

travels.

As soon as he has received the injection, our vets and nurses come down

away because it's very unpredictable how the effect of the medication will be on

Kayak.

Today, the aim of this procedure is this pre, what we call a pre -shipment

health check.

And there's a lot to do. We'll be getting blood.

We'll be doing TB testing.

Because we never know, a visitor might come, you know, from a country where

there's a higher prevalence.

So just giving him a good check over, making sure that there's no

You can see the incredible flexibility of this joint.

Anatomically, it's quite different. It's more like a ball and socket joint,

get in a shoulder joint like that. You can see how flexible that is, and the

joint, which is very movable, and they have this incredible flexibility of the

wrist, much more than we would have.

Has he put on much weight? A kilo, yeah. He's got like little fatty bits there.

His love handles are much higher than... Look, he's getting older, so...

He's allowed to have love handles.

Yeah, COVID lockdown.

We can feel at the end of his penis it's quite rigid and non -human primates

have a little bone in the end of their penis. Obviously humans don't. It's

probably a good thing.

All right, well, let's get the catheter in and get some blood from him.

Strangely enough, humans are actually quite difficult generally to get blood.

They don't have nice big veins like we see in some other animals and in people.

Okay, on, pressure on.

The canine tooth has got a slab fracture.

Seems a bit loose, that tooth, actually.

There could be, like, tracts of pus.

Fractures and pus, that combination is never good.

This tooth here, if you compare it to that one, for example, there's a lot of

bone loss around the root of the tooth, and...

It's a bit darker around the tooth. That would indicate infection.

And the ideal thing would be to take that tooth out.

Oh, yeah, that might do.

Do you want a wedge or something? And Larry decides there is no time like the

present. OK, Deb, I'll need a tray of instruments here.

Excellent.

The root's broken, so I thought there was too good to be true.

The root cannot be left in there, so Larry goes in again to remove the rest.

So there's the tooth there now.

So the fact that it came out so easily is because it's so infected and nasty.

With the tooth gone, there's only one more test to do.

With all our primates, we do tuberculosis testing because, like

susceptible to tuberculosis. Most animals catch TB from people. So we do

tests, one of which is a chest X -ray.

Good, OK, we're done with those guys.

Let's start getting this COVID vaccination into him.

COVID is another disease that primates can catch from people.

OK, I think we should get him in there because he could potentially wake up

quite quickly, like now.

OK, in he goes.

And on his side.

He's 30 years old, so, you know, he's elderly, but Kayak is in beautiful

Are you ready to go home?

The date for sending him to Perth Zoo has not been set yet, but it'll be in

next month or so.

Oh, such a relief, honestly. This day's gone so well. Everything was according

to plan. I couldn't have asked for a better outcome.

The team at Taronga are always looking at better ways to look after their

animals. And today, Keeper Ben begins training on what will be a triumphant

first, if it comes off.

So today we're going to do a training session with Atto, our male lion.

We're going to be doing some blood draw training.

Basically, we do lots of training for husbandry behaviours. So the big cats

a yearly vaccination, so they get the same vaccination as a domestic cat.

we actually recently gave them the COVID vaccine, and after having that, the

vets have asked us if we can collect blood from those animals to see how

effective the vaccines were.

So with Aso, we've been training him...

to draw blood from his tail.

So we're going to use a blunt flushing needle, so just something that mimics

needle, but it's not going to hurt him in any way.

So we can just push that onto his tail to get him used to being touched in that

area. Down.

If you can just creep him forward a little bit.

One more, just a tiny bit further.

Yep, that's perfect.

Atto, hip.

Hip.

The clicker view is our way of communicating with the animal. So it

exact behavior that we want Atto to do and the reward.

Tail.

So you'll see that I'll click. That means that's the exact behaviour that

rewarding him for. And then Deb will give him the reward.

I've just moved away a little bit.

I think that might be it for today.

A little bit distracted, but I think we've still got a few good repetitions

there. That's good.

But, yeah.

I will get attention.

That session was really good. We got a few good touches with the blunt

needle. Hopefully, with a bit more practice, we'll be ready.

for a blood draw within the next few weeks.

Coming up, what Taronga keepers do in their downtime.

Always wanted to go over and help out a little bit with wild giraffe and

conservation in general.

And after months of rehearsal.

We don't know how Atto's going to react.

It's time for Larry to enter the lion's den.

Kayak, the given, will soon be on the move.

He passed his recent health check and the keepers can now begin preparing him

for a flight to Perth to meet a new partner.

Kayak's doing really well after his GA. So that was his pre -shipment health

check. Everything went smoothly.

Now we get to progress on to our next step, which is crate training.

Hi.

Kayak touch.

Good. Good boy.

Come on, come a bit closer.

That's it.

Well done.

Oh, he's coming.

Nice work, buddy.

Touch. Good boy.

This is our target stick. There you go. We'll present that through the mesh, and

Kayak has learnt that he comes along, touches the end of that with his hand,

then we'll reinforce that with a nice high -value food.

Let's go.

And this is going to be really handy for that crate training when we want him to

progress into a space that's quite new. I can present something that's had a

nice reinforcement history to be like, follow this target and I'm going to make

it worthwhile. And that way I can also gauge how he's feeling because that has

the nice history there with it.

He's really warmed up. Come on, buddy.

Hello, you.

Good job.

It's a two -way communication, so I need to make sure I'm listening to him and

he'll communicate with body language.

Is this your foot?

That's your hand, buddy. Where's your foot?

Oh, sorry. My bad.

I have to allow him that opportunity to say no thank you, and then it becomes my

responsibility to make sure that I go back to the drawing board and come up

ways that I can get him to say yes, please.

Stick training has been good fun so far, and ideally, introducing Kayak to the

travel crate will also be a hit.

All right, he's coming.

Kayak! To keep a job, to be able to get there, I don't stand a chance of being

able to run all of those laps by myself, so it's important that we have two of

us.

After six months of training, Ato, the five -year -old lion, is about to be

part of a Taronga first.

We're just preparing some of the meat for his session.

Atto's not very picky when it comes to his meat rewards, so he's got some beef

and some pork today, and Larry is going to come over and have a go at actually

taking a blood sample from his tail while he's getting some meat rewards.

This is the first time that we've actually ever attempted to take blood.

from a lion's tail or a big cat tail.

So it's a really big day. We don't know how Atto is going to react with Larry

being there.

The only thing that's a little bit concerning is the amount of time and the

amount of food that we can give him for the session before we run out of food.

Senior vet Larry will be hoping for as much time as he can get.

The blood drawn today will contribute to important research.

We've been doing a trial with a COVID vaccine that's been made for animals. We

know that animals can get COVID, and the big cats particularly, and particularly

lions, are very susceptible to it. And there have been several lions that have

actually died from COVID in countries overseas.

And this will be an opportunity to get a blood sample and we can send that off

for testing to look at the antibody levels for the SARS -CoV -2 virus.

OK, well, I'm good to go.

OK, once he gets into position, Deb will just be continuously rewarding him?

Rewarding him, yeah. Well, let's hope he performs.

And more importantly, I hope I perform.

Here he is.

You ready?

Yeah.

Do you want to get him up a little bit?

What?

Hail.

Hail.

Okay, that's good, Deb. You can pre -feed now.

The key is for everyone to move slowly.

But that meat supply Deb has will only go so far.

Hopefully, this nearly 200 -kilo lion will stay still long enough for Larry to

get the needle in.

Ready.

Taronga's lonely Gibbon kayak is about to make the long flight from Sydney to

Perth. to meet his new partner.

Okay, got everything we need?

So the keepers need him to think sitting in a travel crate is just fabulous.

I'm setting up the puzzle feeder here for Kayak. It's one of his favourites.

I've hidden a few of the higher value items, his banana, a bit of kiwi fruit

today. He has to actually come in here and use those claws to kind of move it

back to find that banana.

The end goal with this crate is to have him feel as comfortable as possible.

Because this is what he's going to travel all the way to Perth in. We want

build as many positive associations with it as we can.

Even the fact that we've put the same type of bedding in here at the moment

he'll be traveling with. So that on its own has a different smell. So we want to

make sure that he's okay with that particular type of smell.

Again, pairing that with good things.

These are not for decoration. It's actually a part of his diet as well. So

an extra tasty treat. And we tried to find the yellow ones with that little

of pink inside. They are his favorite.

And these are some kiwi slices that are quite nice and high value for him that

I'm actually going to poke through the holes in the crate.

And these are the holes that Bec and I are going to be feeding him through when

he does enter the crate more as well.

This is just a nice little piece of capsicum that I've cooked some oats and

berries and stuffed on the inside.

Popping something like this inside the crate for him is really inviting and he

is likely to want to go in and get it.

This particular session, it's all about him.

Alex and I are actually going to leave the building.

So we'll give him access and he can come in, choose whatever time he wants to

do, hang out as long as he likes without any pressure from us, and he can just

grab that and head back out if that's what he feels like doing. All right.

Here he is.

I think he's progressing pretty well. Yeah, me too.

Really well.

I mean, you're the one travelling with him. Yeah, and I think these little

sessions that I can do with him throughout the day when I'm down there

going to further build on the rapport that we have built on over the last few

years, which will be nice for him when I go with him to Perth as a familiar

face, someone to help settling him in on the other end. Yeah. So, yeah.

Especially when he meets his new lady. Yeah, and his new keepers as well.

A long flight to Perth will be a first for Kayak.

And nearby, Lion Atto is taking part in what will hopefully be another first at

Taronga.

OK, that's good, Deb. You can pre -feed now.

Attempting to take blood from his tail without anaesthetising him first.

Ready.

While Deb keeps Atto happy up one end, Larry is able to draw not one, but two

vials of blood.

We could keep going. Yeah.

That was easy, wasn't it? We're done, mate. Excellent.

Just put your finger on the hole. Yep.

Atto is looking as happy as Larry.

So we'll just finish him off on that big reward.

Cool.

Red gold.

Yeah, we know we can do that now.

There we go.

You need a big hug, buddy.

Cool.

Didn't even flinch when the needle went in.

We've got two blood tubes, so we can actually do like a routine health check

screen on him.

And then we'll have plenty for the COVID serology.

Plenty there.

Great.

Thank you. Excellent. Look at him.

King of the jungle.

See him.

The blood draw went better than anyone could have hoped for.

And while the COVID analysis won't come back for a while, Larry is pleased with

all the other findings.

We've just received the results of Atto's blood test. We did a basic health

screen here at the zoo and it's all come back completely normal.

Basically what we did, we looked at the blood cells and we looked at the

chemistry in the blood and it's all perfectly normal. So he's certainly in

shape.

Generally, we wouldn't actually, you know, we wouldn't anaesthetise an animal

specifically to get a blood sample, particularly a lion because it's such a

procedure. So we do it opportunistically. Whenever we're

know, an animal for another reason, we might get a blood sample. And

particularly if it's a general health check, we would get a blood sample.

But now, of course, that ATO is trained for blood collection, we can do it

pretty much any time we want to.

Still to come, the lengths Taronga keepers go to. It's incredible to see

the tigers I care for in Sydney are so much like their wild Bengal relatives in

India.

It's been an exhausting week, but Phoebe and her platypus conservation partners

have managed to trap and safely transport 10 wild platypus to Taronga

So it's this one? Yes.

Six females.

and four males.

They'll all be released into the Royal National Park, where platypus have not

been seen for decades.

We're just taking this platypus down to the wildlife hospital now for vets to

have a look at her.

So we'll just put her in this little induction chamber, Rob, to get her to go

sleep.

So what we're doing with this little platypus today, we're going to do a full

health check.

and take a whole range of samples and we are going to put what's called an

acoustic tag so it's a little tracking device so we'll insert that actually

her abdominal cavity so just get a little face into the mask and we'll make

she's nice and sleepy so yeah this is our first one for the translocation so

it's pretty exciting okay let's give her a good check over can i have a light on

a stick please so this is a measure of the body condition so

They store the fat in their tail.

Rookie vet Jess is writing a thesis on platypus.

Platypus has lots of amazing adaptations.

They've got these amazing Swiss army knife feet where they've got swimming

adaptation when it's fully extended, and then they've got digging mode with the

claws, and then they've got walking mode, which is where they kind of

along. So cool.

You think that white patch there is their eye, but their eye is actually

above that. They've got very small eyes.

They can definitely see. They've got quite good eyesight and they're quite

at detecting movements.

So any sharp, sudden movement, you know, if you see them foraging and they will

dive. And then their ear is just behind that eye where that darker patch of fur

is.

And they don't actually use their ears or their eyes to find their food. When

they dive, they close their eyes fully, they close their nostrils, they close

their ears.

which means they rely on that incredible bill, which is an amazing little bit of

evolution, to detect their prey. When any living thing moves, it generates

little electrical impulses.

So when their prey, which might be insect larvae or little crustaceans, are

moving in the water, they're able to pick up that electricity, hone in it and

catch them.

Right now...

This evolutionary miracle is about to be fitted with her very own tracking

device. Okay, well let's get ready for the surgery.

So the implant goes into her abdomen and we'll make a tiny little incision in

the middle here.

We don't want to clip too much fur because they rely on their fur coat for

insulation.

It's only a very small incision, very minor surgical procedure.

But we do need to maintain sterile technique because this little device is

to be sitting inside the animal for the rest of its life.

Ready for the incision?

Yep.

For such a powerful device, the tracker is tiny, barely the size of a jelly

bean.

There you go, popped in.

See there, it's disappearing into the animal.

Okay, done.

They've been used a lot in platypus and many other species and there doesn't

appear to be any apparent adverse effect of having that in the animal.

And certainly with the platypus, they've been recorded for a long time after

they've put them in and there's no adverse effect at all.

There's one last job to do.

A second temporary tracker will be glued to her back.

Again, it's tiny.

The second tracker is designed to fall off after three months.

Until then, it will provide even more information to researchers about how

platypus is faring in its new home.

The technology is phenomenal with being able to monitor these animals after

release, but of course it's critically important that we have that information

so we can determine the success of the whole translocation.

OK, I think we are done, guys.

One down, nine to go.

Waking up, girl?

She probably doesn't realise how significant and important she is in re

-establishing a population, a whole population of platypus in the Royal

Park.

Taronga zookeepers like Jen are dedicated to their job and devoted to

animals in their care.

But some go one step further and take this passion with them on holidays.

For a lot of people, going on holidays might just mean an overseas trip or

to the beach or something, which I 100 % like to do as well.

Over the last five to ten years, I've morphed my holidays into a working

holiday, so to speak.

I get contracted to go to different countries in Africa to help translocate

rhinos. So translocation basically involves moving animals from a high

area to start a new population somewhere else in a safer area.

Every time I do a translocation, you learn.

A lot of the work we do here at the zoo, or the management of the black rhinos,

stems from those trips. So black rhinos are thought to be a very solitary

species.

Seeing them or spending so much time with them in the wild, they're a lot

social than we know.

We try and mimic that here at the zoo now.

It is work, but it's a different type of work. It's very gratifying that you can

contribute tangibly to real -time conservation for a species that is under

threat at the moment. They are actually at the tipping point where they could be

gone forever within our lifetime, which is horrendous to think.

So that's where my passion comes from now, knowing that I can tangibly help on

the ground. I'm not a billionaire, but I have a unique skill set that can help

this process.

I get a lot out of it. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Jen only disappeared on her rhino expedition for a few weeks.

Keepers and married couple Geordie and Lockie took a full 18 months off to

volunteer for the giraffe conservation project in Namibia.

When you think of the African continent and you think of wildlife, a lot of

people have that classic image of giraffes roaming across the savannah.

But the reality is their numbers are decreasing so sharply and that might be

thing of the past.

So they often kind of call what's happening to giraffe a silent extinction

because no one really realises that they are in trouble.

I've been very passionate about giraffe throughout my career and I've always

wanted to go over and just lend a hand and help out a little bit with wild

giraffe and conservation in general.

Their role was to monitor wild populations and escort wildlife vet

volunteers to get their first glimpse of a wild giraffe.

There's nothing quite like it, you know, coming around a bend and seeing one of

these guys pop up in front of you. It's just, yeah, there's nothing really like

that, is there?

It was a real privilege to work with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. They

really are the leading organisation for giraffe conservation in the world.

Basically trying to learn as much as we can about desert adapted giraffe.

When you're looking at an area that gets less than 100 mil of rain every year,

so really, really harsh environments, so seeing how animals can not just adapt

but thrive in those environments, especially an animal as big as these

it's really a magical experience.

It gave us, I suppose, a renewed sense of purpose, kind of realised why we got

into this industry in the first place and made me come back and really want to

spread the message as much as we can and be able to back it up with stuff that

we'd actually seen in the wild and we can actually tell people's stories and

to inspire more behaviour change and inspire people to care.

Next. A landmark day. A mix of excitement and relief.

As ten healthy platypus are released into their new river home.

Platypus have not been seen in the rivers of the Royal National Park, south

Sydney, for decades.

But today, the first ever translocation of ten wild platypus will reach its

climax, with four males and six females.

released into the park.

Two years' worth of planning and then about three weeks at Taronga. So to

release them today is a mix of excitement and relief and anticipation

what they do and how they thrive.

I think the whole Taronga team has formed this love for these ten platypus

the last month.

So I wish them all the best and I can't wait to hear what they do from the

acoustic tags and radio tags.

So we're right at the beginning of breeding season, it's why we chose this

of year, so that we could release them when they're in peak condition, and it

means that in the next coming months we might see them starting to interact with

each other. So we'll track these platypus for up to three years, which is

battery life of the acoustic implant, and that will allow us to see how

going, where they've made their burrow, which animals are interacting with which

other animals in the area.

I'm feeling really excited to have the platypus back here in the Royal National

Park after 50 years.

We just released the last four males, but now we have all 10 platypus in the

first translocation of platypus in New South Wales.

The applause is nice when it comes, but it's not what most keepers at Taronga

are looking for.

I've had a great passion for chimps ever since I was a small child.

Chimpanzees are endangered and their numbers have been declining for a long

time. It's really important that we do something to help preserve their

out there and look after these animals.

I was super lucky to get to go to Chimpunga, which is in the Republic of

It's the largest chimp sanctuary in Africa.

and it's run by the Jane Goodall Institute. So when I arrived, a little

-year -old boy had been caught in a snare and he needed more general care,

which is where I stepped in.

The first time I met Mutumba was quite incredible.

He came into the room and he came over to me and he put his hand up to my

which is a greeting in chimpanzee.

So that was pretty special. I had tears rolling down my face when that happened.

So he had to be with a carer 24 -7. So he slept with me and

he would have nightmares every night from the trauma that he'd been through.

Those slowly eased and he stopped having nightmares towards the end.

He's now living on an island in the forest with other chimps as well.

So it was quite an incredible experience.

Meanwhile, one of Taronga's longest -serving carnivore keepers, Louise, is

holiday in India, hoping to see and learn about tigers in the wild.

So here we go. We've got to hand over our passports in a second, heading to

park, and hopefully we'll get some brilliant fighting.

Louise has joined an organised safari driving through several national parks

where Bengal tigers are protected.

On the very first day that we were there, we got to see our first tiger in

wild, and it was just amazing.

It's something that you can't really describe unless you're, you know, to see

tiger. I've worked with these animals for 29 years for such a long time, but

actually be sitting there in a little open -top jeep, feeling quite

and have a big Bengal tiger just sitting there.

After about half an hour, she got up and she literally just walked across the

road in front of us and she started calling.

And to hear a wild tiger calling right in front of you, that was just

incredible. It's wonderful.

It's incredible to see that the tigers I care for in Sydney are so much like

their wild Bengal relatives in India.

Returning to Sydney...

Louise is feeling more invigorated than ever about the work she does.

We're helping to prevent a catastrophe in the wild. We've got an insurance

population here and it makes me more passionate to do what we can.

And I know that what I'm doing every day is helping to save a species.

Having a tiger look you in the eye in the wild, that lets me know that what

we're doing is a good thing.