Original subtitles

NARRATOR: You don't get named one of the best zoos in the world

by accident.

And a view, as magical as this one is,

only gets you so far.

MAN: Good boy!

No, this last year,

Team Taronga have been busier than ever...

Boom. Whoo!

..with their two zoos now bigger than ever.

WOMAN: Come on, handsome man. Let's go.

So, this season, we're taking you closer than ever.

(ELEPHANT TRUMPETS)

And as their colourful residents get ready to make some noise...

(TIGER ROARING) Oh, my goodness!

..let us show you exactly who's who in this zoo.

Just always be watching who's who, who's where.

(HOWLING)

On this episode...

(CHIMPS SCREECHING)

..bring out the chimp.

These are one of the most dangerous animals in the zoo.

But not just one.

Planning to anaesthetise 21 chimpanzees...

All of them. ..is a big job.

As Taronga launches its biggest ever health check.

Look out, look out, look out! We need to have our wits about us.

The future kings of the jungle get ready to meet the people.

Smith to base. We are entering the lion exhibit

via gate number one.

And two very different ways...

Giraffes aren't massive fans of the rain.

..to deal with a very rainy day.

They love getting as dirty as possible,

getting it into every crevice.

(SOFT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

Every once in awhile at Taronga,

a task comes along that is so big...

WOMAN: Hey, buddy. ..so complex,

it requires months of meticulous planning.

So, today, we've got Shiba and Safi first.

And that "every once in awhile" is right now.

We need to do a general anaesthetic on all 21 chimpanzees.

(MUSIC FADES) Yep. You heard that right.

A general anaesthetic on all 21 chimpanzees.

We started last week. We did six general anaesthetics.

And then this week, we're gonna be doing five.

Three tomorrow, and then two the following day.

Every single chimpanzee is receiving a thorough health check.

WOMAN: It's a really big month. There's a lot of coordination.

Have all their health checks done and we collect samples

and they've all got to go to different labs.

You know, everything is ready to go.

We don't want to be wasting any time.

So, she has got nuclear sclerosis.

And then on the left-hand side,

we've got present, broken at the gum.

Doing a full physical exam

is part of any health assessment on a zoo animal.

WOMAN: Chimps, throughout their life,

they end up getting a lot of injuries to their hands and feet.

Scribe? Um, left foot D4, straight.

Les, can you mark that on this ear, there's an abrasion.

OK, this is her tetanus,

and we're gonna put it in her tricep.

Alright, let's pop her in the van.

It's a lot of work, but the whole idea

is that we're managing the health of the animals

and keeping them in top-notch shape.

Alright, we're done.

So, as you can imagine,

planning to anaesthetise 21 chimpanzees is a big job.

And it doesn't happen overnight. There are many different aspects

that we have to plan for - training, conditioning,

what animals are gonna go in what order.

A community of chimpanzees have a social structure,

just like humans.

They have family groups. Friends.

Neighbours. Elders.

And babies. And like us,

they don't always get along.

(CHIMPS SCREECHING) So it's a very delicate balance.

Removing even just one chimpanzee from the group

can upset the whole community.

Being our closest relative,

their behaviours are very, very much like us.

Now, you've got males that are driven by testosterone,

females that are driven by oestrogen.

The different age brackets - so the kids,

they play, they muck around,

they push the boundaries and they get away with it.

But as they start to get older,

they start to get taught and disciplined about what is acceptable

and what is not acceptable in chimpanzee society,

just like we do with our own offspring.

The politics and the hierarchy in there

is what we would expect to see from wild chimpanzees,

so we manage our group here like a wild group of chimpanzees.

Now, we can impact their social structure

when we do these separations and the general anaesthetic.

And then when we put them all back together,

how do we best do that so that there's very little aggression,

and in fact they're looking to reconcile,

as opposed to be aggressive.

Because being separated is something

that they might discipline each other for.

With the examinations of six chimps already complete,

next on the list are the oldest and youngest -

44-year-old Lisa,

and her ten-month-old baby daughter, Lemba.

So, Lisa being older, we need to do some health checks on her

above and beyond what our normal checks are,

just to make sure that, at her age, she is tracking well.

And so we're mindful that her general anaesthetic

may be a little bit longer

when it comes to the general anaesthetic on the ten-month-old.

Because we want to be able to get them two back together

whilst they're waking up.

So we're gonna try and avoid having the baby wake up first

and without Mum there for a while.

The primate keepers work closely with the hospital staff

to prepare for each and every chimp.

Our nurses work so hard making sure that we have stocks and equipment

and all the disposables and so on that we need,

and that, you know, everything is ready to go.

I'm just gonna get the checklist and we'll mark that off.

We've got checklists that we go through,

make sure that the staff are well rested.

Each chimp has their own tray. So this is Lisa's tray here.

On this side is airway management.

So, once we have anaesthetised her, we will bring her back in the van,

and then in the hospital, we put the tube to intubate her

with an ET tube, so we have to have the correct size for that.

This is quite a large tube, for, she is a big adult female,

so this is a 9.5,

when little Lemba has a tiny little tube for her tiny airway.

Do you think that'll fit him?

It's a little bit big, maybe. Mmm.

And these are dangerous animals.

These are one of the most dangerous animals in the zoo.

So we need to have our wits about us, we need to remain calm,

and we remain calm when we have good planning.

Barely a day goes by

when Taronga's babies don't learn a thing or two.

But at Taronga's Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo,

the lion pride's youngest members are all about the fun.

Alright, out you go.

We have three cubs - two males and a female.

Our little female's name is Zawadi,

and her brothers are Bahati and Jabari.

Whoa, here they go. (CHUCKLES)

There's rough-and-tumble, there's chasing, there's pouncing.

Everything that you could want to see in a family unit,

you see with them. It's really fantastic.

Today, keeper Mel is hitting pause on playtime,

because school is in session.

And she has an important introduction to make.

Smith to base. We are entering the lion exhibit

via gate number one.

The Lion Pride Lands Patrol bus will actually be making

its first appearance out on the exhibit with the cubs.

This predator-proof safari bus will give visitors the chance

to get up close and personal with the lions.

But this is the first time the lion cubs

have had the chance to get up close and personal with the bus.

If a cub gets under the bus,

our drivers can't actually see that.

So then they have to stop and wait,

and, you know, if it's a really hot, sunny day,

it's a nice, shady spot under there,

so guests might be stuck out there for a few hours. (LAUGHS)

There's a lot to learn for everyone involved,

be it a new cub...

Hopefully they'll just stay where they are.

..or a new driver.

Maybe just hang here, just stop.

That's it.

Just let them figure out what's going on.

Hopefully they'll follow Mum.

(UPBEAT PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)

See? Cub in the tree.

(BOTH LAUGH)

You crazy kitten.

Oh, that's so cute.

They're our tree-climbing lions. (LAUGHS)

I'm glad we don't have to worry about those three.

Good job, girls!

While the cubs have stayed clear of the bus,

looks like their older sister didn't get the memo.

I do have one of the girls coming behind the bus.

OK, as long as they're not chasing it.

I'm just gonna keep on going,

'cause she's still coming towards the bus.

For some of the lions,

there's clearly still a little work to do.

But first-time driver Smithy has nailed it.

That was good. Smith to base.

We are leaving the lion exhibit via gate three.

Something very different, being in their space.

Very large as well. Yeah! (LAUGHS)

This weird-coloured thing. Mmm.

Taronga's epic plan

to perform health checks on all 21 chimpanzees

is in full swing.

Pole injectives...

Six of the girls are done,

and next up are 44-year-old Lisa

and her ten-month-old baby, Lemba.

Kimberly's gonna come and help me with Lisa

so that we can be doing two things at once.

The whole operation requires military-like planning.

Given her age and previous histories and so on,

um, there's quite a few X-rays and things that we have to take.

So we'll try and keep hers as short as we can

while still getting through everything we have to do.

And Gabi and Creason will manage little Lemba in the meantime,

and hopefully have them both waking up

more or less at the same time.

They're big animals, and they can be very challenging,

but it's all about managing their health proactively.

And so we hope it's all going to go well,

but at the same time, we need to be very careful

when we're taking them out of the chimp house

that we have all our usual safety procedures in place

and that, you know, everything is ready to go

when the animals are anaesthetised.

Lisa and Lemba have now been moved into the chimp house

to receive their anaesthetic injections.

Sorry, yeah, she's just here.

The animals are trained and they're cooperative

and they actually take a hand injection.

So what's your plan? Are you gonna try and move them?

No, no, she is quite active, so...

They're not scared of the needle,

and they actually don't even know that we've injected them.

And so there's a lot less stress on the animals.

Oh, good girl! Good girl. Good girl.

Lisa takes the injection like a pro.

Alright, she's done. MAN: Nice work, mate.

But they'll need to wait for her to fall asleep

before they inject her baby, Lemba.

I think you'll be able to just jab her.

And, like any baby, getting a needle isn't fun.

WOMAN: Hey, baby. What's this?

That's a good girl! (LEMBA SCREECHES)

Yeah. 30. OK. Roll her on.

The anaesthetic is a strong sedative,

so mother and daughter need to have their breathing supported

as soon as possible.

Sean, you can get the other end.

I'm just tipping her...

I'm just tipping her head up.

So you want to wait on her first? Yep.

(TENSE MUSIC)

Just want to get that off. Yep. Want to take that off?

Here, take the tray.

Alright, we're just gonna go weigh her.

There's no time to lose.

Look out, look out, look out! No, Richard, Richard, Richard!

Still to come... OK, everyone out.

..Taronga's oldest chimp causes a scare.

No, I don't think it looks normal.

And, what it looks like...

You got the head and the tail? ..when you monitor a monitor.

He's got incredibly sharp, powerful claws.

(PLAYFUL MUSIC)

For the newest recruits at Taronga...

Hello, beautiful girls.

..whether they're lion cubs or red panda cubs...

WOMAN: Good morning!

..there's always something new to learn.

Good morning, bubbies!

Our red pandas, Keisho and Khyana,

are our 53rd and our 54th red pandas born here at Taronga Zoo.

So, being twins, they have quite a strong bond.

You'll often see them hanging out together,

you'll see them playing together, investigating things,

which is really cute!

Oh, they're coming!

So, asking our pandas to come down to the weigh board

is one of the building blocks or one of the foundation behaviours,

and then we'll introduce a few more behaviours to their repertoire.

We can ask them to touch,

and that will lead to things like hand injection

and ultrasound in the future.

We want to start off nice and small, and then build up

and work towards these further behaviours in the future.

Today, these six-month-old babies are learning how to sit on scales.

Guys, we have to weigh this morning!

But staying still is not a strong point

for anyone at this age.

That's their little target stick.

So they've learned how to gravitate towards this one.

Helps us kind of show them which direction we'd like them to come in.

Alright, do you want to ask Khyana onto her scales?

Khyana!

OK. Hop up for me, love?

That's yours. Good girl!

What do we got? 1.59.

Excellent. So it takes a lot of practice

for them to come out, to be comfortable with us as well.

OK, now ask Keisho on. Keisho!

(CHUCKLES) Oh! Oh, my goodness!

This is saying 1.42.

Excellent! Everyone's getting big.

OK, perfect. (CHUCKLES) Alright.

Keisho, would you like to come down here, please?

Oh, my goodness. Thank you. Alright!

And with school over for the morning,

it's time for breakfast.

Two little hungry pandas here.

Like most babies,

they're still kind of figuring out the whole 'food' thing.

There's a bit of rice cereal, there's a little bit of Di-Vetelact,

which is, like, a milk powder for young animals.

And we're slowly, gradually adding in a little bit of panda bar.

So, we can even use a little bit of milk

just as we're trying to clean up some of that porridge mess.

My goodness, lady.

I think it must taste good. Yeah.

Oh, goodness. Look at that nose.

Do you want to go and see if Mum can fix the rest of it?

Well done, guys! I'm so proud of you all.

Sedated mother and daughter chimps, Lisa and Lemba,

have just been brought into the wildlife hospital

for their health checks.

Look out, look out, look out, look out!

No, Richard, Richard, Richard! (LAUGHS)

All 21 chimps at Taronga will be examined.

4.6.

Perfect. She's very cute. There we go. Oh, yeah.

Vets Gabi and Frances

need to time their procedures like clockwork.

One, two, three. (GROANS COMICALLY)

RICHARD: Pull this out. That's it. Beautiful. Shimmy shimmy.

Lemba is probably gonna be distressed

if her mum is not around when she wakes up.

So what we're trying to do is time these examinations

so that they can wake up together,

and that way neither one of them is upset looking for the other one.

So, we're conscious of the time that it takes.

Lisa's got a lot of tests that we want to do on her.

We take this opportunity to get everything out the way,

and obviously that takes time to do.

(ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

We have an X-ray machine that we use between the two rooms.

One animal gets their X-rays taken,

and then we move the equipment into the other room.

Deb, can you get the X-ray plate?

'Cause I will do that, if we can start doing these X-rays...

WOMAN: Yes, yep.

She's gonna need almost a full set of dental X-rays.

Little Lemba's sedation time

all hinges on the length of her mum's procedure.

And, yeah, just opening her mouth

and make sure she hasn't got anything.

So Gabi needs to keep a close eye on the baby's vitals.

Because Lemba is so young, like a human baby,

it's really easy for her to lose body heat.

And anaesthesia makes them lose body heat. So...

We're covering up the head and the feet.

So that will keep her body temperature nice and toasty.

We're just gonna get an IV line before we intubate her.

Apes have a short trachea

before it divides in two to supply each lung,

so it's very easy to put the tube down one bronchus...

WOMAN: Oxygen on.

..and then you're only giving oxygen and anaesthetic to one lung.

So I'm just gonna check that her airways are both inflating.

Annie? Yeah?

Can you give me two little... a couple of little breaths?

Breath.

Happy? Yeah.

She's got really lovely breath sounds.

(MONITORS BEEPING)

FRANCES: So I'm gonna get the. .. take the chest X-ray.

Over in Lisa's theatre,

vet Frances is about to begin a long list of important X-rays.

(TENSE MUSIC)

We take the opportunity when we have the animal anaesthetised

to really make sure that we get all the information that we need

from this one procedure,

and that's why we want so many X-rays.

We want to make sure that she is comfortable in her old age,

and so we need to understand what her physical health needs are

so that we can help her as she gets older.

Because Lisa is such an old chimp,

the veterinary team need to take X-rays

of virtually every part of her body...

Alright. ..starting with her chest.

We're interested in her lungs,

because we know she's had this intermittent cough,

so it's quite important for us to check out

what her lungs look like on the X-ray.

Let's try that.

Do one more?

It still doesn't look at all normal.

No, I don't think it looks normal.

(TENSE MUSIC)

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

When the sun's shining and the animals are out to play,

there's nothing quite like a day at Taronga Zoo.

You're OK.

But when that famous Sydney sunshine disappears...

WOMAN (OVER PA): Please be advised

that our 12pm Free Flight Bird Presentation

will not be running today due to the current weather.

..Taronga gets its wellies on, and gets on with it.

Rain, hail or shine. Gotta deliver the browse.

They don't like sitting out in the rain any more than we do, so,

we still have to do our job,

it doesn't matter what the weather is like.

With thousands of hungry mouths to feed,

there's no time for a doona day.

We're dropping off the giraffe browse.

So we've got African olive, pittosporum.

Already dropped off one load today, but this is the second load.

Normally, this herd would tuck right in.

But today's weather has made them unusually fussy.

So, typically, giraffes aren't massive fans of the rain.

You might see them sheltering a lot of the time.

Open up the barn. Door!

(PLAYFUL MUSIC)

Today, because it's quite rainy,

we're actually going to give the giraffes access to the barn here.

Now, what that will allow them to do

is decide to have a little bit more shelter,

and there's also some loosened hay

if they want to have a bit of a feed as well.

With hay, typically we want to keep it dry.

It's a lot more palatable, particularly for the giraffes,

they can be quite picky on what they want to eat.

Hi, guys.

Now snug indoors,

the giraffes are relaxed.

And a little bit nosy.

So even if we are experiencing heaps of rain here at the zoo,

our day still operates as normal for the animals as possible.

It can actually be quite a good day to come to the zoo

when we're experiencing a bit of rain.

It's quite novel for a lot of animals.

Hi, Ebo. How are you going, buddy?

So, in our group, we've got Kito and her calf, Ebo.

Jimiyu is the really, really tall giraffe,

and his half-sister is Zarafa.

From the quality time spent together,

especially on rainy days like this,

the keepers have the opportunity to observe and learn

so much from these fascinating animals.

Giraffes have four chambers in their stomachs,

so they're ruminants, so, he'll swallow that food

and then he'll actually regurgitate a small portion of that,

and it's called cud.

And he'll break it down even more, and then when he swallows it again,

it'll go through the other three chambers of their stomach

to be processed even further.

So there you go. See it go all the way down?

Now watch it come all the way back up after a few seconds. Ready?

There it is. Isn't that cool?

While the giraffes make the most of the indoors,

there are some other Savannah residents

perfectly happy playing in the puddles.

(TRUMPETS)

At the wildlife hospital...

FRANCES: I'm gonna get the.. . take the chest X-ray.

..two veterinary teams are examining Taronga's oldest...

But for that, we need her on her side.

..and youngest chimpanzees.

Has that extension set been primed?

In total, all 21 chimps at Taronga will be health checked.

A massive undertaking.

Alright, ready to go on this.

Today, it's essential they complete both procedures

at the exact same time,

so that baby Lemba and her mum Lisa wake up together.

Does she sneeze a lot? RICHARD: No.

It's the coughing that's more of a concern.

But vet Frances has detected an abnormality

in one of Lisa's X-rays.

It still doesn't look at all normal.

WOMAN: No, I don't think it looks normal.

So, we've got a picture here of Lisa's chest,

and what I'm particularly interested in

is looking at her lung fields,

because, you know, we know long-term,

she's had this intermittent cough.

This is her heart in the middle here,

and these darker areas are her lungs.

And we're interested in some of the fine detail changes that happen,

particularly sort of towards the outside of her lungs here,

and so there's some areas here where, you know,

she might have some mild changes there.

You know, she is an older animal.

We would expect some degree of calcification.

But I think I'll send these off to a radiologist,

a specialist radiologist,

and, you know, get an expert opinion.

(SOFT MUSIC) (MONITOR BEEPING)

GABI: They're perfect. They're perfect. They're so perfect!

(MAN CHUCKLES) Yeah, cool. Meanwhile, next door,

vet Gabi continues to examine her own patient -

ten-month-old Lemba.

I'm just testing for any abnormalities in the bone,

making sure that the muscle is nice and symmetrical and even,

checking the range of motion, the angles,

in all her joints, making sure they all move the way they should,

which they certainly do.

You get them as adults and they've got thickened, bent digits.

So it's really lovely when you see these perfect little hands

that bend every way they should. (CHUCKLES)

Can someone hold her mouth open?

So she's got these lovely little baby teeth.

She's got a lovely colour.

Little canines not here yet.

Oh, it's all just so perfect and new. (CHUCKLES)

Aged mum Lisa, on the other hand,

is perhaps not quite so new.

See what I've got. This is hard to work out what's what.

So, I've got one, two, three.

All three on the right-hand side - gone, gone, gone.

So all the upper incisors are fractured at the gum.

So, on the right side, the canine is at the gum.

Incisor three, fractured at the gum.

Some of her teeth are very worn.

That's kind of natural with an older animal that,

you know, she needs to grind up quite fibrous foodstuffs.

So we're looking very closely at her teeth.

And then on the left-hand side,

we've got present, present, broken at the gum.

And then all her molars...

WOMAN: Yep? . .are heavily stained and worn.

Her teeth are terrible.

She's gonna need almost a full set of dental X-rays.

More X-rays for Lisa... So can we get the X-ray plate?

..means more time under anaesthetic.

WOMAN: Bring her up this way a little bit.

Something which must be communicated to Gabi

in the adjoining theatre immediately.

Just so you know, Gab. .. Yes?

..they still have quite a long way to go.

It now means baby Lemba will have to stay sedated even longer.

Just so you're aware, in terms of time,

they're only on exploratory X-rays.

(TENSE MUSIC)

Sydney is being smashed by a flash thunderstorm.

(THUNDER RUMBLES) But as the zoo cops a drenching,

not all its residents are ducking for cover.

A lot of animals are like us

and they like to take shelter in the rain, that's for sure.

Nobody likes being out in the rain if they don't have to be.

But the elephants don't mind it at all.

So, we're just putting the first pineapple feed out

for our elephant girls.

(CHEERFUL MUSIC)

They do really enjoy the pineapple.

So, they get about three feeds a day.

Even in the rain.

It means that they're already clean and they have to do less work.

But it's not just a tasty meal

that's convincing the elephants to get their feet wet.

Yeah, they love the rain, they love the mud.

Hey, Mosey!

You gonna hop in?

They love getting as dirty as possible,

getting it into every crevice of them.

It helps moisturise their skin, protect them from bugs,

and if it is a hot day,

it helps protect them from the sun as well.

31-year-old Pak Boon and 25-year-old Tang Mo

are ex-working elephants from Thailand.

And Pak is the pair's self-appointed boss.

So, Pak Boon being the dominant individual that she is,

quite often she does go over to Tang Mo

and just show some of that dominance.

That might be sort of pushing her a little bit,

sometimes it's mounting her,

sometimes she might just be scratching herself on her as well,

'cause she does like to have a scratch on her.

We're gonna see if they want to go in the pool as well.

The elephants tend to go more in the pool on rainy days,

or even in the evenings when it's a lot cooler.

A cool day like this is perfect for the girls to go swimming.

They cool down, but then they can get dirty again

without expending too much heat and too much energy.

Myself and the elephants, we're both very wet right now,

but it's awesome to see the elephants

displaying all these natural behaviours.

These moments are really exciting for the public to be able to see.

They don't always do activities like these on a sunny day.

And, just like the rain,

Pak Boon and Tang Mo have no plans to go anywhere.

The elephants are able to pick up vibrations with their feet.

If we do have a storm, like any sort of thunder,

they're able to pick that up and sense that very early on,

usually before we know that it's coming.

We don't mind getting wet at all.

If we know that they're gonna be having a good time,

then we're also having a good time,

even when we're soaked through to the socks.

At the Taronga Wildlife Hospital,

vet Frances has found some problems

as she continues the long list of procedures

on aged chimpanzee Lisa.

FRANCES: I can take a picture of that and a picture of this.

She's called for even more X-rays,

which means in the theatre next door...

They still have quite a long way to go with theirs,

just so you're aware, in terms of time.

Um, they're only on exploratory X-rays.

..vet Gabi will now have to wait

before she can X-ray baby Lemba.

Guys, I might give her a little bit more midazolam now, to...

Put that, yeah. ..smooth her out. Yeah.

It's a little tricky anaesthetising a nine-, ten-month-old chimp

when her mother is also being anaesthetised.

Because we want to try to have them wake up

roughly around the same time.

Her mum needs to have a lot more things done,

so with Lemba, we just need to stretch things out a little bit,

keep her fairly light so we don't impact her too much.

EMC 2mL, one half in each leg.

Anaesthetise her too deeply, and it could affect her recovery.

But if she's too light, she could wake up before her mum.

She's just having her vaccinations.

It's quite a large volume,

so we're dividing it between her little legs,

'cause they're so little! (CHUCKLES)

OK, this is her tetanus,

and we're gonna put it in her tricep.

So, tricep is that little muscle.

Meanwhile... WOMAN: X-ray.

We're taking these X-rays and looking at them very, very closely.

..Frances is addressing Lisa's significant dental issues.

Yeah, if you can just do that with your hand on that side.

X-ray.

This one, I think, is obviously not so good.

It does look like there could be an issue associated with the teeth.

Chimp teeth are very firmly fixed in their sockets.

There's, you know, quite...

Not always an easy task to get them out.

But I suspect both of those need to come out.

We're going to be sending these X-rays through

to our veterinary dentist specialist

to have a look at,

and we'll decide on, you know, what course of action we take.

We can certainly do things like endodontics,

which is like root canals and so on.

So, we'll follow up with the specialist dentist

and see where we're gonna go from here.

Frances has now finished with the X-ray machine...

Alright. We're done.

..so it can finally be moved into Gabi's theatre.

GABI: Alright. OK. X-rays are coming in.

We're gonna do a little X-ray of her chest.

We're gonna turn her over,

finish looking at the other side of her...

Lemba has now been anaesthetised for over two hours.

Oop, oop, oop. What's she on? (LEMBA GAGGING)

..and she's started to wake up.

She's got a tube in, so she gagged.

At Taronga's Western Plains Zoo,

the vet team are regularly treating sick and injured wildlife.

WOMAN: We'll get a tube in her, Bel.

And today, they're preparing to examine a rather large lizard,

brought in a week earlier by a member of the public.

WOMAN: When this monitor came in, he was really unwell.

Little bit of blood in his mouth,

so we were suspecting that he'd had a knock to the head,

probably by a car.

He does have a very slight head tilt,

which would confirm our suspicions that there is a head problem.

So we were basically going to just hold,

and I can grab the tail and do it that way?

Vet Jelena has been monitoring the monitor since he came in.

He's a lace monitor, so they're the ones you'll see

running across the barbecue to grab your meat.

That's the ones you will see up in the tree

when you go for a picnic in the national parks.

Lace monitors, also commonly called goannas,

are native to Australia,

and can reach over 2.5m in length.

We've given him about seven days on antibiotics and supportive care,

just to make sure that he is stable.

And now he's actually lifting his head,

he's getting a bit feisty,

which is what you want with a lace monitor.

So, I am drawing up what we call an induction agent.

So this is the drug

that's actually gonna put our lizard under anaesthetic.

Sometimes when we induce them, they stop breathing.

So we just need to keep in mind that this isn't a healthy animal,

and it might react, you know, to the anaesthetic.

While it's Jelena's job to inject this lizard,

vet nurse Jodie has drawn the short straw.

She has to catch him.

There's a lot of things we need to be careful of.

He's got incredibly sharp, powerful claws,

and his mouth is full of very, very sharp teeth

with lots and lots of bacteria on them.

So we do not want to be bitten by this animal.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(TENSE MUSIC)

GABI: So, she's been under for two hours.

In the wildlife hospital,

baby chimp Lemba has started to move

while under general anaesthetic.

Let's get those out of the way.

WOMAN: Lou, she's on it.

It's alright. She just woke up 'cause we moved her.

Let me just...

And she's got a tube in, so she gagged.

Kept us on our toes. (CHUCKLES)

Alright, let's just very gently turn her over.

Oxygen on.

Putting her on 2.5.

I'm gonna give her a tiny dose of midazolam.

(TENSE MUSIC)

The veterinary team are delicately timing her sedation

so she wakes up with her mum, Lisa.

We're gonna do a little X-ray of her chest. Everybody out.

Everyone, there's an X-ray happening.

Next door, vet Frances is taking a closer look

at Lisa's rather lumpy lip.

FRANCES: There's a lump there.

I thought it was bony,

but when you feel it, it's very mobile.

From here, I can move it around.

It's. .. It's very high up.

So I'm gonna go in through here.

Lisa has this swelling under her top lip,

so what we're gonna do is suck out some of the cells in that swelling

so we can see what it is.

We'll get our pathology staff to have a look under the microscope,

and from there, we can work out,

is it an abscess? Is it a tumour?

Is there a foreign body? What's going on in there?

Now, just...

While Frances performs this final procedure on Lisa,

Gabi has finished examining Lemba.

You hold that.

So, this is little Lemba.

She mostly fits on one plate. (LAUGHS)

'Cause she's so tiny, and she's just perfect.

She's so cute. You can just see her little skull,

her heart, her lungs.

She's just really a little X-ray of perfection.

But they can't keep her asleep any longer.

Alright. Annie, when you're ready, we'll move her.

So they need to come up with a solution, and fast.

MAN: Because Lisa will be about half an hour behind little Lemba,

this essentially is just to give Lemba a friend to wake up to.

We rubbed it all over her mum,

so it has her mum's smell all over it.

With Lemba now likely to wake up before her mum...

the race is on to get Lisa back to recovery.

Alright, so, the van is ready? RICHARD: Van's ready.

Stretcher alongside.

And then this bit's gonna come over the top.

You got it? Yeah? Yep?

So this has got the atipamezole.

We knew because of Lisa's age that her general anaesthetic

was gonna take a little bit longer than Lemba's.

You know, the vets did a great job

in having their anaesthesia last as closely as possible.

Don't trip on the front of the cargo net.

(CHIMPS SCREECHING IN BACKGROUND)

So, this is the atipamezole going in.

And just in time,

little Lemba and her mum are reunited.

She just hugged Mum,

and it really showed the bond between Lisa and Lemba

and how much a baby relies on their own mother.

While Lisa is still a bit groggy, her baby is recovering well.

WOMAN: "Mama."

And just a few hours later,

Lisa and Lemba are settled back with their chimp community.

When we put the girls back together,

what we want to be able to do is set them up for success

and that they're actually focused on

greeting each other and grooming each other,

as opposed to anyone getting disciplined.

Over the next few days,

the examinations of the remaining female chimps are completed.

GABI: So I've done a dental exam, and they're in pristine condition.

And the results are in.

The anaesthetics this week have gone really well.

We've done all the females and their offspring

at this point in time. No major surprises.

Lisa's got a few teeth for us to monitor.

In regards to Lisa's cough, there was nothing really there.

So the girls are all done.

They're all happy and relaxed.

Next, we've got the five big boys,

the five adult males waiting to have a go on the last week.

Coming up...

There's something going on in there. Mm-hm.

..the mystery of the monitor deepens.

It doesn't look symmetrical, does it?

At Taronga Wildlife Hospital in Dubbo,

an injured lace monitor, brought in a week earlier,

needs to be sedated for a veterinary examination.

JELENA: He was found on the road with a bit of blood in his mouth.

We suspect that he got hit by a car.

The vet team gave him a few days' rest.

But now, it's time to catch him.

And that's vet nurse Jodie's job.

JODIE: We want to make sure that the catch-up is as quick as possible

so that we aren't causing more stress.

But we do not want to be bitten.

I will be using a very thick towel as my safety

before we inject him.

You got the head and the tail? Yep.

Probably want to be where I am, Jelena.

Just got a bit of soil on here.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

When he's completely asleep and relaxed,

we'll do some X-rays,

really focusing around his head area.

Make sure there's no skull fractures.

With a lot of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation,

it's often not a good ending. (LOCK BEEPING)

As soon as he hits the table, they hit a problem.

He is not breathing on his own.

The anaesthetic agent can actually cause them to breath-hold.

I reckon I'll intubate him. Yep.

Oxygen. Mm-hm.

Do we have something just to hold his mouth open?

We just need to keep in mind that this isn't a healthy animal.

Tube is in.

We've popped a tube into his trachea.

I'm just gonna squeeze that in there.

I'm breathing for him using oxygen

and his anaesthetic gas that's flowing through here.

I'm giving him a breath every 30 seconds.

With his breathing now stabilised,

the vet team can finally take a closer look.

Let's do a physical exam. .. OK.

..and then I can take some blood and we can do some X-rays.

OK.

So, because he was quite sick when he first came in,

we didn't actually have the opportunity

to do a very thorough examination,

so that's basically what we're doing now.

I'm feeling for any laxity or any abnormalities

on one side or the other.

But we're not gonna make any guesses.

We're gonna make sure there's no fractures.

The cause of the problem is still a mystery.

So they need to X-ray his skull for any signs of damage.

And...X-ray! (CLICK)

I just wonder if there's something going on in there.

Mm-hm. Don't know what it's doing.

It doesn't look symmetrical, does it?

No...

So, the physical exam was pretty unremarkable.

Um, I didn't feel any laxity

or anything like that in any of his joints.

He's in pretty good body condition.

We took some blood.

But there is a little area of concern at his skull.

I think we'll review it as a team, see how he goes.

It'll take some time before they can be sure

this big lizard is out of the woods.

(CHUCKLING) Not game to put my fingers too close to his mouth

while he's waking up!

(GENTLE MUSIC)

After several weeks of supervision,

the team have decided on their next move.

He has recovered amazingly well over the last six weeks,

and he is now ready to be released.

With a lot of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation,

a lot of these animals end up, you know,

in some pretty horrible situations.

But given that he is moving around and he is improving clinically -

he is eating, his demeanour is better -

you know, that is, for us, an indication

he's in pretty good body condition and he recovered pretty well.

(SOFT MUSIC)

Despite the abnormal X-ray,

his head injury hasn't caused any lasting issues.

So, we are releasing this lace monitor

back in his territory that he's familiar with.

(SOFT MUSIC)

And that will ensure that he will adjust back into the wild

and thrive for many years to come.

(SOFT MUSIC CONTINUES)

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