Original subtitles

You guys are so cute.

Look at them run.

Look at those legs go.

Think smarter.

Wow. They all got it.

He's so pro.

Like, where have you been? What smells have you gotten into?

We're going to give some enrichment to the colobus, kind of give them a little

midday snack.

All right. Ready?

Look at Bonnie. Oh, my gosh.

Got some of their greens and peanuts and raisins. Yep. Now the hard part,

getting it across the moat. Right.

A colobus monkey is from Africa. They're pretty unique.

They have amazing hair that we all love.

In the rainforest, it blends right in because if you're on the ground looking

into the trees, you're going to see light and dark, and the black and the

that they have really blends in up in the trees.

So Whitney Gomba up there, August is soaking in the corner.

We have four females and two males with Imani being our oldest male.

There's Imani.

Imani is a little bit easier to tell apart from the others because he has a

unique hairstyle.

All the colobus really look very well kept all the time, except Imani.

Imani, your hair looks fantastic.

It's blowing everywhere.

Wind blowing and everything.

Grooming is one of the most important activities for colobus monkeys.

And we have a little bit of concern about Imani, just with his social

We don't see the females in his group grooming him like you would normally see

with colobus.

All right, I'm going to try to throw to that end.

Oh!

Amani is nine years old. He definitely should be the dominant male.

Oh, you're going to lose it.

And so tomorrow we're going to do a really thorough physical on Amani.

Good just to get a checkup, yeah.

It's like I'm in the Olympics. Oh, Bonnie!

And he could just be a quieter individual.

Yeah.

Go get it, Bonnie. You can do it.

Lots of action right now.

Oh, they're so feisty.

Be nice for crying out loud.

Everybody share.

Oh. They hugged it out.

Maybe you already got them out. Yeah. I think they enjoyed that. Yeah.

A little bit of fun before a doctor's visit tomorrow.

Yeah.

You're going without me?

You're like, I'm out of here.

Safety in numbers.

Good time.

We have two clouded leopard girls. Their names are I and Shigu, and they are

sisters.

Shigu has been kind of on a roller coaster of being sick for the past month

a half.

You're okay.

She's been having a lot of stomach issues and going off food and just being

of not herself.

There's this spot, and I don't know what this is, Lauren.

We're just hoping she stays on the path of starting to feel better.

Hi, Cougar.

What are you doing?

It's been really stressful dealing with this with Shagoo, never knowing what

we're going to come in and see that day.

She's been doing better the past couple days.

Yeah. So we'll see how she is. If she wants to come over, maybe we can try to

get her outside first. Okay. Yeah, I think that's a good plan.

Hey, Shagoo.

Over the years of training with Aya and Shagoo, we have worked really hard on

being able to work free contact with them.

Hello. So they're very comfortable with us being up close and personal with

them. I'd rather not climb all the way in there.

Come here.

She's just staring at me.

She's one of my favorite animals I've ever worked with, so whenever she

feel good, it kind of hurts my heart a little bit.

I don't think she's going to come out.

She is just really off today and just seems to not be feeling good again.

Will you come down?

Good girl.

Kind of stumping all of us.

So we'll be updating Dr. Melissa and see what she thinks.

Yeah, hopefully it's nothing, like, more serious, but still, like, all up in the

air, which is crazy.

Night, night, sweet birds.

Bye, sweet girl. Oh, chop, chop. Chop, chop, birds.

It's just really worrisome.

There

are

vultures that come into the habitat.

When you give a great life to the birds that live in the zoo, all the

surrounding birds, the wild birds want to come live in the zoo too.

Recently there has been a new strain of bird flu that is killing birds across

the country.

There is an avian flu outbreak and we want to make sure that our birds are

and safe and healthy.

So now we're kicking into high gear protecting our flock and we have quite a

birds that we have to move into indoor spaces.

So it's kind of like this little shell game, moving animals around to make

for the birds.

We're going to move the flamingos over to our okapi barn, and that is where

the okapi lives.

The flamingos are very noisy, so Zach is going to have some noisy neighbors now.

We're going to move them as a flock, which is something that's new for us.

I'm like, pull it my way a little bit.

Okay. We're trying to create a chute system for them.

They tend to be kind of a skittish animal, so we want to kind of make it as

as possible for them.

I've moved a lot of animals in my time, but I have never moved 17 flamingos at

once.

Like, I'll be able to put it so that this, all they have is a little six

step. They're not very good at stepping.

So I'm interested to see how this is going to work, knowing that, you know,

of the flamingos here have the ability to fly.

And then we'll need one here, one there.

Look at them. They're like, what is happening?

Tiffany to all animal units, can we get two or three people to help with

flamingo? We need a few more.

We're having Papa, the animal team, come over to help in a crazy situation.

And then you'll need four people out there. I'm really proud of our team.

We need just a person here.

So basically, we wanted to have enough so that we're not scrambling like, ah!

So, ready?

Ready! They're excited.

It's okay.

I know.

There you go. There you go.

Just give them a sec.

It's an overwhelming, daunting task to think about moving a big flock of 17

animals.

I know, now they're really mad.

Okay.

Do you want to come in a little bit?

As a mammal guy, one of the most interesting things

is that they have a very, very...

close kind of like pack mentality they all move as a group you don't get

stragglers you don't get one leading they all kind of move together they

me of like a school of fish or a flock of birds kelly can you walk behind them

please it's going really well everybody seems calm

they're not freaking out too much

They did really great going into the trailer. That can be kind of a scary

situation. I'm glad they have each other to talk to. They definitely were vocal

the entire time.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Florida to all units, we are moving flamingos in a trailer.

This should be a short -term kind of mild inconvenience.

Just to ensure that they're safe and they're thriving.

While we deal with avian influenza.

This morning we're going to do a physical exam on our oldest male,

Imani.

All the Colobus monkeys really look very well -groomed and well -kept all the

time, except Imani.

Maybe he just does.

Bad hair.

Yeah.

We should give him a mohawk.

And then we'll get blood, we'll get RAS, we'll get ultrasound, we'll get urine.

We do want to just make sure that there's nothing going on that could be

contributing to the different behavior than they expect.

All right, we've got the medication ready.

We need to sedate Amani so it's safe for us to go in and get hands on him and

bring him down to the hospital.

Good girl.

All right, step one, they're separated.

He's separated.

The biggest challenge today will be that normally he's used to getting lots of

rewards for voluntary injection training.

But since Imani's getting a physical, he cannot have any food.

Imani, come. If he doesn't cooperate, then we postpone it to another day.

come.

Imani, come.

Good.

Ready,

buddy?

For Imani, we have gotten some reports from the staff that he is just not

showing some of the normal social behaviors that we would expect from a

adult male colobus monkey.

So we want to make sure we do a really thorough exam.

Yeah. It's good that he came right back over to you.

Imani will just fall right asleep and never really know what happened.

How is he doing?

He's down.

Perfecto. When they're jumping around the habitat, you definitely don't notice

how long the colobus legs are.

I'm pretty short and he has very long legs. So that was really cool to

be able to touch and interact with him.

Fabulous. Perfect. We'll put his face towards the passenger seat so I can

him.

All right. We'll see you guys there.

Transporting a colobus from the colobus in the hospital.

Can someone help me with those legs?

It's kind of exciting for us to do these exams just because we don't get to be

hands -on with these guys a lot. We don't get to style him very often.

He's looking very handsome.

You want to give Imani a little bit of love?

Cute little waist.

Just getting close -up looks at fingers and toes and all the things that we

normally don't get to see up close.

One of my favorite call -of -the -facts is that You know, their name actually

means deformed one because when they were first discovered and described,

thought that they did not have normal thumbs. They thought they were deformed.

It's just a tiny little nub on the side of his hand.

Their vestigial thumbs are ridiculous looking.

Sorry, Imani, you're not deformed. You're not deformed. You just have a

vestigial thumb.

Why don't we get going with some rad setup?

Close up. They're very long.

All right, that looks good.

Let's get the ultrasound ready.

Today, we're going to get some baseline images. We're going to get blood work

and make sure, in general, he looks nice and healthy.

As long as everything looks good, that's really all we need.

I mean, he's got really good muscle.

It's really cool to see that he is in really good physical condition.

He is pretty jacked.

Microchip place.

Almost done with all this.

And then he got his vaccine.

All right, let's get the crate ready.

Based on the exam we did today, there's no obvious reason for just the different

behavior that they're seeing in Imani. We are going to wait for the blood work

and make sure that there's nothing underlying that we might not see

And as long as all of that looks good, he'll get a clean bill of health.

So you'd be removing the target right when I give her the food?

Yeah. Good!

She's so gentle.

She's very gentle.

I'm a brand new keeper with the herps department. I did intern here a couple

years ago, and it was the best time of my life.

It's like a potato chip for them. A few bites and it's gone.

What I love about reptiles and amphibians is that I get to show people

be a little bit scared or hesitant that they are just as amazing as the mammals

that we have here at the zoo, too.

I would go have some food and get them fed.

Okay. So when they see someone like me who's super passionate about what I do,

they get to leave with that when they leave the zoo, and that's probably my

favorite thing about my job.

Mucking the gator pond is honestly in my top two favorite things to do while I'm

working. When I was an intern, I thought that zookeeping is what I wanted to do,

and after my internship, I knew it's what I wanted to do.

Get your knees up, your back straight. There you go.

That's cool.

In addition to the animals that we have on Habitat and that we get to show the

public every single day, We do have these awesome, awesome projects that are

just kind of hidden from the public.

So they've been getting a lot bigger?

We have a striped newt breeding program here to breed striped newts here on

grounds and then release the offspring back into the wild.

Because of habitat loss, pollution, we're losing these animals pretty

the wild.

So here we get to breed and release, which makes you feel really good.

You see them? They have gotten bigger.

That's awesome.

Newts are amphibians.

They start out as a tadpole.

As the ponds they live in dry out, they become a land -based animal.

As an adult, they're about maybe two to three inches.

I do love these newts.

So I'm just getting this tank all cleaned up. We are going to be putting

striped newt larvae in here, and it'll give us easy access to a full view of

their body, and we can actually measure how long they are as they're sitting

from the bottom with the ruler.

For us to go and release them into the wild, they do have to be 1 .5

centimeters. Right now, I'm just siphoning out the newts that we can

All right, my babies, come hither.

We got one.

Whoa. Helping the striped newt doesn't only help the striped newt.

You know, it helps many species out there. The striped newt is food for

animals, birds, snakes.

I'm proud of the team for getting the newts going.

The precious cargo.

Yeah.

Awesome.

There we go. I can see them a heck of a lot better now.

So on all of these newts that we have in here, they all either have only front

arms or have front arms and are developing their back legs, which has

fun to watch.

He's at 15.

He's right there.

There's a lot of different parts of conservation, but being able to be one

them who breeds and actually releases these guys back into their natural

habitat, it's super exciting. It's one of the main reasons I'm here at Zoo

Tampa. We're going to be able to release some newts back in the wild.

Oh, my goodness, piggy.

Oh, my goodness.

Good morning.

You ready for the good stuff?

Last night, we noticed that Shagoo was acting pretty nauseous and was extremely

lethargic to the point we, like, literally had to, like, pick her up and

her. Kind of scary.

I have the injection ready, so you want to try to line her up? Yeah.

Shagoo is definitely up and down.

Last night, she was really, really sick.

She's had episodes like this before, but she's never had one this bad.

Will you come over?

Yeah, last night was definitely scary.

Hello, Shagoo. What are you doing?

What was that?

I'm super concerned about Shagoo right now.

We really were hoping that she was going to continue on a positive path, but

unfortunately she's kind of gone downhill again.

Based on what we're seeing, we don't want to wait for her routine checkup. We

want to bring her in for an emergency exam today.

Oh, my goodness.

Shagoo just is so loving and she loves getting scratches and playing and

just something special about the relationship I have with her.

Definitely hoping for some answers from this workup and something that will tell

us what we can do to make Shagoo feel better.

This exam today is going to be really helpful to get all of the information we

possibly can to guide our next step.

Definitely hard seeing our animals like this.

Very stressful situation for everyone on our team.

Let's get her intubated.

What was the weight on that? 6 .5 kgs. We lost about a kg.

All right, let's do Brad's next.

At Chico's last exam, we found what looks like a mass in her abdomen.

Right now, the most likely source of the mass is either the adrenal gland, which

would not be a great thing, or a lymph node that was really big because she had

a lot of GI issues.

All right, here's the thing again.

It's not still here.

It looks like the area that was swollen that we aren't sure what it is is still

there and about the same size.

We need to do a little bit more investigating to identify what's going

what the end treatment is going to be.

All right.

Let's get the scoping stuff ready.

We are now going to do an endoscopy of Shigu's stomach.

She's not getting better, and we need another piece of information. So this is

another thing that we can do to get a physical look at the inside of her

stomach.

Playing detective a little bit here.

The biggest part of the mystery that we've had all along is, what is this

Is it a sign of cancer?

And that's what we need to figure out.

Okay, go.

Just real slow. I'm going to try to get us through the sphincter.

Doing the endoscopy is kind of the next level of imaging that we can do for

Shagoo.

There we go.

Forward a hair.

Pause right there.

Pause right there.

Shagoo has had a lot of different testing and imaging, and it's like

work trying to piece everything together and figure out what's going on with

her. Right here, Lauren.

Mm -hmm.

It's the ulcer.

Let's see how red that is. Yeah.

An uncomplicated ulcer is usually something that we can treat.

Let's go.

All right, go forward.

We just confirmed at least one of Shagu's problems, which is going to

help us target her treatment.

This could be part of what's been going on with her the whole time because it

makes you feel really crappy and it's not a very comfortable condition.

But it also could be an effect of the primary underlying problem that she has.

Keep going.

Nice and slow.

Esophagus looks really good. Keep going.

Perfect, we're out.

Good job, Goober.

Let's unhook all of her things. Today was a really helpful exam because we

keep adding pieces to the puzzle.

I need the door on, like, right now.

We still don't know if the mass in Shigu's abdomen is a tumor or if it is

some swollen lymph nodes with inflammation.

We need to take Shigu to a facility with more advanced imaging so that we can

get a clearer picture of what that structure is.

What's up, Gu?

I know absolutely nothing about flamingos, but now I have 17 of them in

barn due to the avian flu, which is going around in wild bird populations.

They are loud. They are incredibly loud.

Zach is usually the only one in there.

He's probably wondering what is going on.

Zach has the most impressive tongue at the zoo.

For sure. He swings that thing around more than any other animal at the zoo.

He uses it to rub his eyes, pick boogers out of his nose. He'll use it to get

food.

We go free contact with him. We share the same space because of his calm

attitude and demeanor.

He enjoys scratches.

I know a lot of other zoos that would never dream of going in with a male

Oh, you got itch?

What'd you think?

Oh, it's so hard to step away from Zach. Like, he's my buddy, and it's fun to

hang out with him.

Zach has been cool with flamingos so far, and now he's going to get a few

bird roomies.

We're going to be moving the marabou family.

This is all preventative. We don't have any cases in any of our birds here at

the zoo, and the goal is to keep it that way.

We have these chicks in the nest. We have parents actively raising chicks

So everything is going to be done to be absolutely as careful as possible, and I

know it will be fine because we have really good expertise here at the zoo.

Okay, we're headed over to get Will, and then we'll need you to come back with

us to do Kate and chicks.

This year, Will and Kate laid three eggs, and all three eggs hatched.

We recently named the three chicks.

Last year, we started with a land before time kind of theme.

So we have ducky, littlefoot, and spike.

Marabou storks are not necessarily pleasing to the eye. They're just like a

unique bird. Because they're scavengers, you know, they don't have a lot of

plumage or feathers on their head.

And that way, when they're eating from a carcass, they don't have to worry about

anything kind of getting stuck to them.

He's over in the corner. Oh, yeah, he is standing in the corner. He looks a

little scared right now.

Will is just wondering, why are there three of you?

Why do you have towels? Where's my food?

Oh, hi.

Oh, Will.

Wow. I thought you had him. I tried, Diana.

Oh, yeah, this is no longer a sneak attack. Will is very aware of what we're

trying to do.

I have never seen a bird do that. No, he's never jumped that high.

Typically, it's really not that challenging to catch them for any sort

exams or workups or anything.

But the fact that they have a chick in the habitat on the nest right now means

they're incredibly protective of that.

Like, literally, his beak was, like, in your hand.

Was it? I got it. You were, like, right there. I was like, ah!

And then he was, that looked like the winning touchdown for a second there.

I have a mission? I love birds.

It's not good to, like, push them so much. No. Either.

So we're going to completely just change gears and we're going to go for the

chicks first.

And then at least they're removed from the equation and we can focus on mom and

dad because mom and dad are a challenge at this point.

But now the obstacle is getting him off the net because he likes to fly over.

We're changing and adapting. We're able to think quickly on our feet.

They all have to go. So I think...

You know, if we shift and start with the chicks, I think that's okay.

The team has protective eyewear on. All right, William.

Because they go for the eyes.

Right now they're in parent mode, and they're protecting their young.

What the?

They literally sound like little velociraptors.

Yeah, that's, like, terrifying.

Oh, boy. I do feel like someone's going to get stabbed.

Hey, will you guys grab some of the plastic shovels from the elephant barn,

least three of them, and head to Marabou?

I know that if we reach in there, we're going to get pecked and attacked.

They're going to go into mom and dad mode, which is what they should be

So we're going to use the shovel to block two incredibly angry birds.

We're actually going to use them as a shield to protect the team members as

remove the chicks one at a time.

That's why it's going to take a lot of people to do this. Will's very angry.

The avian influenza was actually carried by wild birds, and because our marabou

live in open -air habitats and share the space with wild birds, it's very

important that we move them to a protected location now.

Those chicks are freaking huge. I have never heard them make that sound before.

Spike is a big boy, and he is going to hold his ground. You can tell he will.

For sure.

Oh, boy. He's big.

Are we ready?

All right.

That was aggressive.

I got

his beak.

I got his beak.

We got Spike first. He did exactly what an older Marabou boy should do.

protecting the nest, protecting the family.

Okay, one down.

Oh.

Just something big can't be in there. He's a big boy.

Did he just sit down? Yeah, he did.

Oh, poor buddy.

They've never been off their nest, so they are terrified, as they should be.

They don't know what's going on.

Do you think we could get both? I have never moved five marabou plus a nest at

one time. I think that's incredibly rare.

They grow up so fast.

But it is necessary because of this avian flu outbreak.

They're so cute. Oh, my God.

Got your babies.

He's mad.

Will and Kate are, like, incredible parents. They're so attentive to all of

their offspring. They're incredibly protective.

They have so much experience. And they've had a clutch just about every

can count on every winter Will and Kate laying at least two to three eggs.

So the fact that they've been producing so well here is great for not only them,

but great for Marabou Storks.

This is definitely much easier without having the chicks now.

Mike to hospital.

Transporting Marabou from Mixed Yard to Okapi.

This is new to the family, and it's new to all of us.

Now we move into the next phase, which is... Moving the nest to its new home.

We've never done this before. Nobody has, so it's a learning experience for

everybody.

The marabou nest smells awful.

There are flies, and it's covered in poop, and it's stinky.

Disgusting.

We are literally going to carry it across the zoo.

We cannot risk this nest breaking.

I have no idea what we would do if this nest broke.

So we're just trying to get it to where it needs to go as best we can.

No, I think that's okay. Let's get that thing, that hole filled in.

Yeah.

Don't peck my face. Don't peck my face.

Happy Easter.

It's a marabou.

This area offers so much more protection to them than their current habitat.

Luckily, we have enough room for everybody here.

We're taking Shigu, our clouded leopard, to get a CT scan to get better imaging

of the unidentified mass we've seen in her stomach on radiographs and the

ultrasound.

The biggest thing that we are looking for today is to confirm if Shigu has a

tumor of her adrenal gland.

We are going to the University of South Florida. It is actually not an animal

hospital. They take care of people.

Probably the first time they've had a clouded leopard, but this is not the

time that they've helped us out with a case.

We did bring a manatee here last year.

You start seeing the gashes coming in. Yeah. And unfortunately, the advanced CT

imaging did confirm our worst case scenario for her diagnosis.

Heart rate is about 50.

Really what we're able to do here is provide some of the newest imaging

available to humans to be able to figure out how to help the animals. Perfect.

All of us are volunteering our time because we all are very much animal

and so it's a little treat when we get to help out.

So we're going to come up here alongside. I love being able to connect

other side of medicine that works with humans because we do all the same

just on totally different species.

Where is her IV?

Her IV is on her tail. On her tail.

It is hard to not go down a rabbit hole of worst -case scenario what could

happen with Shagoo.

She just is one of my, like, soulmates. I love her so much.

She is my cat.

Her.

Her. So her, right? This is Shagoo.

Hey, Shagoo.

Nice to meet you.

She's very precious.

Isn't she beautiful? She's six years old.

How long did they live?

They live forever?

They live forever and ever.

She actually lays, like, nice and flat, and the mass is about here.

We're going to raise now?

Okay. Perfect.

A CT scan is a lot different than the radiographs and the ultrasound that

done so far because it actually looks at more of a 3D complete picture of the

internal structure of Shigu's body.

Our initial reaction, of course, is that it is... Absolutely adorable, and we're

really excited to see, but, you know, also sad that they're not feeling well.

And so our job is to figure out what's going on.

This gives us a whole other level of information, and I am very excited to

all these images.

All right, so let's get them out.

Let's close that door.

I'm so happy if you tell me it's not the agreement.

An adrenal tumor, if it's not treated, can actually become a life -threatening

problem for her.

As soon as we're done with multiple scans, we're going to go ahead and wake

up from anesthesia. And once she's recovered, we're going to get to look at

final images.

All right, let's grab the crate.

No matter what it is, we are going to do everything we can for her.

It's like, oh, my gosh, I had the craziest day.

Hey, Melissa, we think we figured out what's going on.

Really? So when you go in there, we'll show you. Oh, my gosh.

Do you mind showing them what you found? Sure. Please go ahead.

If we can rule out the adrenal gland, that will take us in a very different

direction for Shigu's treatment.

The adrenal gland, there's no adrenal mass.

That's normal.

All right. Awesome. That is a weight off of us.

It's a huge relief to know that right now her adrenal glands look fine.

You guys are so amazing.

We're always happy to help.

Lauren, did you hear it is not the adrenal gland?

No. That's good.

Yeah. That was the biggest thing. We just needed to make sure that was not on

the table.

Today, we really got a big piece of the puzzle.

We don't have a definitive diagnosis by any means, but at least her adrenal

glands are normal and we can continue to focus on her GI disease.

All right, could you keep waking up, please?

Leaving happier with some answers, which is what we needed. So, thank you. No

problem. Thank you. See you guys.

We're going to keep Shigu on her antibiotics and her ulcer medications to

support her stomach because that is not feeling good right now.

Hi.

You okay?

I'm okay.

Imani has been doing really well since his workup, and so we're just keeping an

eye on him. He's doing great. I see you.

All right, kiddos.

All of his x -rays and everything show a completely normal health peak. All of

us, exactly what we want to see.

Two, three, be careful of Bonnie.

He goes and shows off and then runs right back to mom.

He's like, I was tough with my mom.

Even at almost nine years old, he's still a bit of a mama's boy.

Six.

Maybe we're just seeing some behavioral quirks where he just has a little bit of

a different personality than a dominant male.

Hanging out by mom.

Two peas in a pod. Maybe he's just an old soul.

It's a funny group. Yeah.

There's not a lot of departments at the zoo. I don't think they get to go out

and physically release animals.

We're in the Appalachian Cola National Forest meeting a gentleman from the

Coastal Plains Institute.

We have 17 newt larvae that we're going to release here today. All right. Put

them into the pond where they belong and make the magic. How about that?

Sounds good.

Releasing these guys into the wild. We're not only helping the newt

we're helping the population of animals that eat these guts.

You know, the whole circle of life thing.

So it's exciting that we can come out here and make a difference and try to

replenish those populations.

Welcome to paradise.

We're going to walk over there to one of our Stripe Newt Repatriation Project

recipient ponds that we're going to release into right now.

The whole purpose of the Stripe Newt Repatriation Project is to literally

back the Stripe Newt from the brink of extinction.

This is where the magic's going to happen today.

Going to release your babies right here into this beautiful pond.

Look how rich the vegetation is in there.

Saving species, I think, is important work.

A lot of people might not agree, but to be able to breed something, raise it up

to a point and release it, feels fantastic.

It's just so exciting. Spencer and I just keep looking over and smiling at

other because this is just absolutely incredible.

We're hoping for these guys to eat, breed, and be happy.

It's perfect. But first, before we release newts into a recipient pond, I'd

to see if we already have newts present, like from past repatriation events.

We are standing right in the zone where there would be newts if they're here.

Let me just show you what I like to do. About three months ago, we put 152 newts

into the pond. And what we want to do before we put the new newts in today is

find any of the newts.

Just one signifies that we're having some success in our repatriation

Let's make several sweets and put a decent effort in here to see if we

have striped newts. Oh, here's a humongous crayfish.

Look at that.

That's a predator and a half.

So it's a rough world out there for young newts.

We released newts here three months ago. We don't know how they're doing unless

we're checking in on them.

Two good -sized tadpoles.

Oh, nice.

This is so much fun. I'm going to come up here on my own time and volunteer and

dip net. This is fun. If we find any of the prior newts today, oh, I'm going to

jump out of my skin.

Just takes one newt in your net to get the magic data point, which is presence

of striped newts here in this wetland.

If we get one, then mission accomplished.

All right, I got a newt. Oh, my God, you do. Look.

You got a nuke. You got a nuke. Look at that. It is.

It is. It is. It's a striped nuke.

Man,

look at that. A striped nuke. We did it. You did it, Dan. Look at that, man. You

did it, Dan.

Look at that.

Sweet. That's all we needed to know. This is a really large moment for the

striped nuke project. Very cool. It really is because to see them still

you know, three months after the first release is fabulous. This, oh, I'll tell

you the gender right now. It's a male. Yep. Boom. You guys know.

See these things all the time. Look at that.

Oh, look at those little pearly whites in there.

Those are little spermatophores, I believe.

He's breeding ready, by the way.

Look at that, a striped newt. He's beautiful. He's sassy. I win.

Yeah, you win.

Congratulations. That's awesome.

Fabulous. This is already the best day ever, and we haven't even released the

newt.

I need that on a T -shirt.

Release the newt. Release the newt.

Let's do it, y 'all.

Awesome. Thank you.

So cool.

The most magical moment of the project is when you get a newt and release it. I

got him.

In my hand.

There you go.

Those are good looking newts that y 'all raised.

That's our baby.

The fact that we are helping out not only striped newts, but bringing

to endangered amphibian populations.

I feel absolutely fantastic.

That's really a big takeaway message I think people need to pay attention to.

It's really cool.

That's awesome.

Go say hi to your sibling.

Being able to raise something in human care and release it and see that it's

working, that's phenomenal.

And I can't wait to help with in the future.

Sandy's returned to her habitat.

She was in a different enclosure for a little bit due to the avian flu.

So we wanted to make sure she stayed safe and healthy.

But we're really happy that she's back where she belongs.

It's like confetti. Woo!

Party time.

We're so relieved that we came through this avian influenza.

Our team just threw down as far as moving all the birds. That was an

collaboration.

We ended up just evaluating every single habitat and species at the zoo and

trying to do the best thing for those animals to keep them safe.

So we're really, really proud and really happy that it all went so well.

The animal care staff did an incredible job.

Excuse me, this is for Sandy.

You've been here the whole time.

She's so happy to be back with her skunk friends.

She missed them all so much. Yep.

And as difficult as it was, the outcome was great that we didn't have any avian

influenza cases. And that's still our goal is that we don't want to have any

here at the zoo.

Hi, pretty girl.

Another pandemic that we made it through.

We're becoming pros.

I have to pet her.

Shiggy's doing so much better.

Since ruling out the adrenal tumor, she's currently only on a couple of

antibiotics, the omeprazole to treat her ulcers and her allergy men.

Today we're doing some enrichment with Shagoo.

We're going to give her a head of lettuce that has little pieces of her

stuffed inside.

Okay, definitely feels good to have her back to her old self.

Shagoo is doing awesome. We'll keep everything going with her treatment

seems to be working.

We're moving in the right direction.

All of that inflammation is improving.

Shagoo is 100 % back to her normal self. She's playing. She's talking to us.

We'll keep all the same antibiotics going because everything's working.

And then we'll keep watching her GI panel to make sure that she doesn't need

additional vitamin supplementation.

Sounds great.

Awesome.

She is definitely one of my top favorite animals that I work with, and I just

love her so much.

Right? Yeah.

All right, I'll see you later. All right, bye.

She's just doing so much better than before.