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FIRE CRACKLES

ELEPHANTS TRUMPET

FIRE CRACKLES

INSECTS BUZZ

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

The planet is entering its sixth mass extinction event.

The rainforest has been burning at a rate of - get this -

three football fields per minute.

The sixth mass extinction is not just something

that is going to happen, it's something that IS happening.

Everything from pollution to deforestation,

overpopulation, global warming.

Scientists say that means that up to 75% of all species could vanish.

This may be the least-experienced generation with nature.

Empty The Tanks, for so many animals, is a death sentence.

We're talking about killing animals that were raised in human care.

Keiko was murdered.

More than 300,000 dolphins die a year

just as by-catch for our fishing industries.

For many species, it is almost too late

out there in the wild because of threats like illegal trade.

HELEN MIRREN: Since the year 1500,

over 680 species have gone extinct.

Some are well known.

Many are not.

But in our interconnected global ecosystem,

every species matters.

The signs are everywhere - from fires consuming the planet

to plastic choking our oceans.

Scientists are sounding the alarm.

A new mass extinction is upon us.

There have only been five other extinction episodes like this

in the whole history of the planet.

There are about 8,000 known amphibian species

that are going to be disappearing very rapidly.

The baiji river dolphin in China - we didn't act fast enough,

we didn't act smart enough and they're gone.

Over 1 million pangolins have been poached

over the last decade and illegally traded and killed.

Everything that you can possibly make a profit with

will be affected by illegal trade.

DR BYERS: It's our duty as humans to do what we can right now,

starting right now.

People often tell me, "But the planet will survive."

And that is true, that Planet Earth will be here.

But it might be a very different planet.

Or maybe we will not be part of it.

The loss of bees and pollinators

threatens our crucial systems of agriculture.

The destruction of forests and coral reefs

exposes hundreds of millions to catastrophic floods.

Everything is connected.

Life on Earth hangs in the balance.

But all is not yet lost.

Threatened species have escaped from extinction before,

with human help.

In the fight to save those animals on the edge of existence,

we already have crucial allies on our side -

zoos and aquariums.

Once synonymous with exhibition and entertainment,

modern zoological facilities

are leaders in the fight against mass extinction.

Extinction is a natural process,

but we have intervened to such an extent

that there is no possibility of natural selection any more,

because that takes time, and there's no opportunity

for that adaptation to take place in a species

whose habitats and environments we are destroying.

And so it's the human intervention that makes this

a completely different situation

than anything that the planet's ever experienced.

Man-made extinctions are happening every day.

We have to stop it as human beings. We've just got to stop it.

What zoos have become now are tools for conservation.

An accredited zoo is a zoo that is dedicated

to saving endangered species.

The animals are in trouble because of things that we did to them.

We destroyed their habitat, we've removed their prey.

So we could just leave them alone if we're willing to lose them.

For people working in conservation, that's not an option.

We have to step in, protect them from the threats that we're facing,

increase the numbers and get them back to a healthy level

so that they can be on their own again.

If we don't do something to bring them into a rescue situation

and into a conservation breeding effort,

we know that they're just going to disappear forever.

Zoos have an important role to play in these recoveries,

because the methods that we use to grow a species

are things that very often are designed or created in zoos.

Once numbering in the millions,

there are only about 6,000 grey wolves left

in the continental United States.

In the 19th and 20th centuries,

the wolves were hunted nearly to extinction

in government-sponsored poison and trapping campaigns.

In Yellowstone National Park,

the last wild wolf pack was killed in 1926.

HOWLING

For the next 70 years, Yellowstone's top predator

was effectively extinct inside the park.

It was only through human-managed breeding

and reintroduction programmes

that we were able to rescue them from the brink.

The Yellowstone wolves are an example of a keystone species,

a species with an outsized effect on many others in its ecosystem.

The disappearance of wolves in Yellowstone

triggered a trophic cascade.

Elk populations swelled

and they overgrazed on trees and plants.

Fewer trees led to increased soil erosion

and attracted fewer beavers.

Without the beavers to create natural dams,

there were fewer fish in the rivers.

Even the microorganisms that depend on the fish were affected.

When the wolves were returned, the effects were dramatic.

Elk stopped overgrazing and trees grew back,

inviting more birds and more beavers.

The beavers built new dams, spawning new pools,

which attracted more otters, muskrats, reptiles and fish.

The wolves also killed coyotes.

Fewer coyotes meant more rabbits and mice,

which led to more foxes, weasels, badgers, hawks

and even bald eagles.

The wolves restored the balance of an entire ecosystem.

What we learn in the zoo

is now really becoming practical conservation

in the field as well.

How to do small population management.

Wolves are highly social. They live within family packs.

If we took an adult wolf and released it in the wild,

it wouldn't know the area or the other wolves.

It would be in trouble.

The two strategies that have been used

to get wolves back into the wild

are either to release a whole family together,

so at least they have each other to depend on,

or - even better - take pups from the zoo population

and put them into a litter in the wild.

Then they grow up in that family, they know the environment,

they know the other animals.

In a highly sociable species such as a wolf,

you need to use that kind of a trick.

That whole process is called cross-fostering.

Some pups that were born at Brookfield Zoo

were moved down to Arizona to be put into a pack

where there was a newborn litter of pups,

then some of those pups from the wild

were brought back to Brookfield

to be added to the litter back at the zoo.

The moms are perfectly happy

to accept the new pups into their family,

which is convenient for us

because it allows us to give them better genetic diversity.

When the populations have very few choices for mates,

they end up having to mate with the cousins, half-siblings,

and that causes genetic defects.

When they started the aggressive programme for the Mexican wolf,

they were down to just seven wolves

that were already in protective care.

WOLF HOWLS

There are lots of positive, encouraging conservation outcomes,

but when you see it all scaled up,

the sheer range of species needing their help,

you realise how big that problem is.

We focus a lot on urgency in conservation

and the kinds of indicators of urgency that we use

are things like, for example,

the Red List of Threatened Species of IUCN continues to grow.

We're adding threatened species at a much higher rate

than against the historical evolutionary background.

It might be that there's lots more species for us to find

but if we destroy those habitats,

we're never going to be able to find them.

So the best time to act would be when there are still

hundreds or thousands in the wild but you know they're in trouble,

and not wait until you're down to the last few animals.

The black-footed ferret's another example

where we let it go too long,

we let the population crash down to the last handful of individuals.

And that meant we needed a massive protection programme.

The black-footed ferret was thought to be extinct by 1979,

after ranchers had wiped out their main prey, the prairie dog.

But in 1981, a Wyoming rancher's dog

found several ferrets living on his property.

Suddenly, there was an opportunity to save a species thought erased.

American zoos have committed millions of dollars

to saving the black-footed ferrets.

They have been released back into the wild.

The problems they face, however, are still there.

And those problems include decimated prairie dog populations -

and their primary prey are prairie dogs -

but also diseases.

The protected population that we're breeding has to be maintained

until we can get the numbers up high enough in the wild

so that even if a local disease decimates a population in one area,

others can then move in and repopulate that area.

DR RODRIGUEZ: We know how to save nature.

And if you look at the world of threatened species

and species that have recovered from extinction,

you can see that we have the tools,

we have the knowledge, we have the experience.

Some species have gone from one breeding pair,

two breeding pairs left in the wild

to now be hundreds of thousands of individuals.

And there are many examples of these,

where you get the right experts together, sufficient resources,

and they can turn around the situation.

We can save species from extinction.

We know how to do it. We just have to do more of it.

Zoos and aquariums are our most crucial partners

in the war against mass extinction. They're actually on the front lines,

saving species, providing and funding conservation programmes

around the world and, importantly,

rehabilitating many animals and rereleasing them back into the wild.

Even as more zoological facilities increase their conservation efforts,

sceptics still remain.

Now, another bigger question is taking centre stage.

Should we even have zoos to begin with?

A group of animal rights activists lined up outside as well,

calling for a boycott. Animals deserve better.

They deserve better than to be put on display for our entertainment.

A number of people do say we should just leave them alone

and sort of let nature take its course.

But it's not nature taking its course.

It's... We killed them.

Visitors heading into SeaWorld were greeted by loud protesters today.

It was part of a worldwide rally where animal activists

called for the release of all mammals living in captivity.

Don't go to SeaWorld.

There are a lot of people who are talking about zoos

and using examples from 30, 35 years ago.

We're in this industry because we're passionate about animals.

And we wouldn't stay in the industry

if it wouldn't be willing to grow with that.

This morning, SeaWorld announced that orcas currently in our care

will be the last generation of orcas at SeaWorld.

For some animal rights protesters, that change was not enough.

These animals live in the sea. That's where they belong.

I don't actually believe that zoos should exist at all.

Boycotting zoos in a blanket way hurts

because there are a lot of zoos that are doing good work

in their local communities for the local wildlife, and worldwide.

And so by indiscriminate boycotting, you're harming a lot of good work.

We have to get our priorities straight in the conversation.

There's a talk right now

about whether zoos and aquariums should exist.

But in fact, they're our ark against the sixth extinction.

We really need to make a differentiation

between accredited zoos...

..and those that are not.

I think like any business, there are bad players,

there are bad zoos.

There are what we call roadside zoos.

There are bad zoos and aquariums that actually should be shut down.

Zoos that are not accredited should not be visited.

It's just as simple as that.

American Humane saw an opportunity to improve and evolve

existing industry certification programmes,

and we created the American Humane Certified programme

for zoos and aquariums.

It's an evolution on existing accreditation standards.

Global Humane is the only third party-accrediting body,

so they go to zoos and aquariums around the world

and they look at the status of the welfare of those species,

and only institutions that measure up

actually become accredited.

Often the thing with zoos is, you always aspire to be the best,

but you often end up being judged by the worst.

My name's Joe Exotic and this is Sar.

There's a wonderful range of excellent institutions

doing incredible work,

both for helping to conserve species in their breeding programmes

and to inspire educational awareness,

but also to contribute field conservation support.

They do so much more than just inside their doors.

So much research around the world is funded by zoos and aquariums.

A lot of people think that the ticket they buy to the zoo

just goes to the running and operational running of the zoo.

Zoos are involved with a lot of conservation projects in the field

and they provide financial help,

but more and more, actually, they provide the skills

and the staff, and your money contributes to all of that.

PROTESTERS CHANT

When you boycott a good zoo and aquarium,

you're impacting conservation projects around the world.

You're not just impacting your local hometown zoo.

You may be actually impacting the ability

to save an entire species in another continent.

Wildlife experts believe that some activists

misunderstand or misrepresent the conservation role

played by modern zoos.

SeaWorld paints their whales because they have so much fungus it breaks,

and nasty marks from being in captivity.

I wasn't... I didn't know that. They paint their whales? Yes.

Can you tell us where you get your research from? Erm...

Maybe you weren't inspired,

but what do you say to the kids that were inspired by SeaWorld

and have grown up to care for the environment?

Well, I did learn to care for the environment by go...

Well, never mind. Scratch that.

It hurts me that some people actually boycott zoos

because there's many, many very good zoos.

And we really need to support good zoos

because they do amazing work for conservation.

Those animal extremists sit on the sidelines.

They're not even in the game.

Zoos receive, I think, if I'm not mistaken,

something in the order of 800 million visitors per year.

And they also invest hundreds of millions of dollars

in conservation in the wild.

So what you see at a zoo is just part of the picture.

There are many other things going on behind the scenes.

So, the Sumatran rhino's one of the most threatened species

in the world, and that is reduced to very small, isolated populations.

RHINO GRUNTS

What we're doing with this project, the Sumatran Rhino Rescue,

is to identify some of these individuals

that exist in populations of one or two

in very small pockets of forest and put them into human care.

They can reproduce and create a population

of about 30 rhinos, which are the minimum that we think

that are necessary to reintroduce into the wild.

And if we were to just let the rhino go and not intervene,

most likely, it would be extinct within a few years.

It requires lots of expertise

and the zoos and the people in the zoo world,

much of this expertise has been developed there.

Is that normal or imaginary, in other words?

If you feel her jaw...

that tooth is sticking out right here.

The level of professional expertise

and training and science and stewardship

that is happening in all of these institutions

is remarkable.

It's actually boots on the ground, working today to care for animals

and to extend the care of our animals to animals in the wild.

Clear.

I spent a lot of my career in rescue and rehab.

And when I'm, you know, 3am on a holiday

neck deep in freezing cold water, helping a stranded animal,

the person next to me is somebody from a zoo or an aquarium.

Oh, my gosh. It's in there.

Oh, my gosh. Sorry, big girl. OK.

You're doing good, right, girl? Oh, my gosh!

I think, er... I feel awesome. I mean, this is the whole reason

I wanted to be a wildlife veterinarian -

helping animals out, especially those ones affected by us, right?

So... oh, my gosh, it feels really good.

Heart's kind of going. That was good.

A lot of people think that whales and dolphins living in the ocean

have a pretty easy-going existence.

But the bottom line is

we've created so many problems for them as a species -

humans have - that we're seeing significant declines

in the populations of wild dolphins and whales.

Everything that we do as a growing species on our planet

has implications for the ocean

and for the animals that live in the ocean.

The baiji, a freshwater dolphin, once roamed the Yangtze River.

HORN BLARES

Their population declined drastically as China industrialised.

In the 1950s, the baiji population was estimated as 6,000 individuals.

By 1997, fewer than 50 remained.

By the time a conservation plan was approved

by the Chinese government in 2001, it was already too late.

The baiji was the first documented extinction of a large marine mammal

in over 50 years.

If humans had acted sooner, a cetacean breeding programme,

aided by the work of scientists at leading aquariums,

may have saved the baiji.

Some protesters have successfully pressured

tourism providers and governments

to cut ties with zoological facilities

that breed cetaceans.

There are so many ways

that knowledge we gain of animals in human care at zoos and aquariums

contribute to their preservation in the wild -

it's impossible, really almost impossible, to list or itemise that.

We know so much from learning how to care for animals in human care

that translates to understanding those animals in wild habitats.

To breeding experts, this move was contradictory.

Observation and study in controlled habitats

is crucial to saving cetaceans in the wild.

Why create new obstacles to protect cetaceans

when so many are in dire need of help?

The Chinese white dolphin is beloved by the people of Hong Kong

for their friendly disposition and unique pink colour.

HORN BLARES Pollution and boat traffic

have reduced their numbers to critical levels

in Hong Kong's Pearl River Estuary.

This time, the government has stepped in

and created new marine reserves to safeguard the dolphin.

There is still hope for the Chinese white dolphin,

but threats to cetaceans and all marine life

continue to multiply.

Boat traffic, shipping traffic, not just hitting whales and dolphins

with their propellers and killing them,

but the noise they make interfering with their ability

to find the food that really isn't there any more.

HORN BLARES

Noise pollution from commercial shipping,

oil and gas drilling and military sonar

is another danger to marine habitats.

Whales and dolphins rely on sound to communicate and hunt.

Environmental noise greatly reduces their range of hearing.

But there's another threat to ocean life that's harder to measure.

There's a lot of disinformation.

There's misinformation and there's deliberate misinformation.

Shark attack numbers reach an all-time high.

They're attacking humans more than ever before.

Millions of sharks are killed a year.

We shouldn't be afraid of them.

We should find the right place and the right way

to take care of them and let them live.

It's just devastating to think

that we don't take care of the animals that we're afraid of.

Sharks are universally feared.

Bees, ants, dogs, horses and jellyfish

each kill more humans every year than sharks do.

Fear persists in spite of the facts.

As a result, sharks are more vulnerable than ever.

Humans have proven to be much more lethal for sharks than vice versa.

Shark finning presents the most immediate threat to sharks today.

Shark fins are typically removed while the shark is still alive...

..to be used in soup or traditional Chinese medicine.

The finless shark is then discarded to slowly suffer a barbaric death.

The loss of sharks has dire consequences

on the ocean's ecosystem.

Much like the wolves of Yellowstone, sharks are a keystone species

affecting every part of the ocean around them.

The sharks' plight does not generate

the same level of empathy as other animals,

despite their ecological importance.

Most of us will never see a wild shark in our lifetime.

And yet we are instinctively afraid.

Decades of misinformation

have defined the human-shark relationship.

Depictions of hunting sharks

are typically presented with a dark, ominous tone.

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

FLIPPER THEME PLAYS

Shots of hunting dolphins tend to be playful and upbeat,

yet both species are top predators.

# They call him Flipper, Flipper

# Faster than lightning... #

It's movies like Jaws that have scared a generation of people,

especially younger children, about the shark

and how ugly and dangerous and... you know, it's a menace.

JAWS THEME PLAYS

When our decisions about animals

become driven by a cauldron of emotion,

we oftentimes do more damage than good.

I'm Krysten Ritter for PETA.

We're doing a campaign to raise awareness

about orcas being trapped in captivity.

Words have power.

These words like "captivity" - they force us to think

that there's something evil happening here, when there's not.

So we don't tell people that,

"I have a golden retriever in captivity,"

because we don't think about it that way.

We think about it from a language of love.

A big misconception is that animals in zoos aren't loved.

In all the zoo environments I've worked over my career,

I cannot think of an environment that is more loving,

that is a better example of human-animal bond and relationship

than the zoos and aquariums that I've worked at.

We know the difference between happy vocal

or when something's happening.

We don't just train behaviours.

We rub them down.

They love being rubbed down. We play with them.

We can tell these animals are happy.

Anti-zoo disinformation revolves around inflammatory language

and factually questionable claims.

Phrases like "animal prison" or "slavery"

imply that animals in zoos and aquariums are abused

or otherwise mistreated.

Protesters have especially focused on cetaceans,

claiming they can simply be removed from human care

and deposited into wild habitats.

Empty The Tanks, for so many animals, is a death sentence.

We're talking about killing animals that were raised in human care.

Keiko, the orca whale known to millions

as the star of the Free Willy movies, is dead.

He was released before he was really able

to capture his own food.

His name is Keiko.

But millions know him as the star of the hit movie Free Willy.

It was a grand experiment,

the release of a captive killer whale,

taken home to Iceland after so many years in an aquarium.

The greatest adventure of the summer.

MARK SIMMONS: The Keiko Project started

after the movie Free Willy came out.

So a lot of public opinion and, of course, organisations

that had the idea that they wanted to show the world

that a whale under human care could be released.

The success of Free Willy in 1993 made Keiko into a global icon.

Activists launched a campaign to return him to the wild.

The movement was soon incorporated into the marketing

for the Free Willy sequel.

You can order the Keiko adoption kit and become part of Keiko's family.

There stickers and even a Free Willy poster.

There's also an amulet to keep you connected with Keiko.

Generally, the idea that the group had

was that once Keiko was in native waters,

he would remember what he needed to survive

and swim off into the sunset. That didn't happen.

In a way, they somewhat panicked and brought in people

that had worked with killer whales, myself included.

We started systematically working on a rehabilitation programme.

Reintroduction is not easy.

Reintroduction is a very complex process.

It's not just releasing animals back to the wild.

Keiko was not a good candidate for release,

by many different measures. First of all,

he'd been with his human foster family for his entire adult life.

He was never in the wild long enough to acquire survival skills.

Most North Atlantic killer whales

use complex behaviours to herd and stun their prey -

things about which Keiko doesn't have a clue.

Part of their survival

is based on the highly social animal that they are.

Dolphins and whales, once they've learned

where their food comes from

and learned to live with people who provide care for them,

they don't generally go back and operate on instinct.

We've seen in a very short timespan

that a dolphin that knows it's being fed by a person -

once it learns that, it never forgets it.

It would be like you raise a puppy from its earliest days at your house

and then you take it out into the woods

and you let it go and you say,

"There you go - go fend for yourself."

From Keiko's perspective,

he was simply being deprived of everything he'd ever known.

He's gonna seek out that which is familiar

and not only familiar, but that which is positive.

And that's his relationship with humans.

He was never documented as eating live fish, ever. Not once.

There was never any evidence, any sighting of it.

We had tried many different ways.

Keiko suffered a very long, drawn-out death.

The ideology that human relationship with animals is criminal somehow

is what killed Keiko, unnecessarily and horribly.

Keiko was murdered.

Reintroduction is important.

This is an important part of wildlife and zoological management.

It would be wonderful if we could release

every animal back into the wild.

This is something that I guess activists would like us to do -

open our cages and let animals run free.

It takes quite a bit of effort to retrain them

to actually survive in the wild.

We have to be very careful.

There's very good guidelines - they are put together

by the International Union for Conservation of Nature -

which we all follow, and if all the boxes are ticked,

then of course we will release them back into the wild.

It has never been done with killer whales.

If it ever is done successfully,

it will be done by those who understand what it requires.

Like our top zoological parks.

Right now, we maintain more than 350 species and subspecies of parrots.

Blue is the last male of his kind. I have a kind?

Sometimes people think that it's just easy to release the animals,

so why we just release them straight away?

But first, we must understand the threats

that make that species threatened.

We have to restore the habitat and the conditions

before releasing the animals.

RAFAEL:

Reforestation is also a powerful tool

to fight climate change.

Trees absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere,

offsetting emissions from human sources

like transportation and industry.

The abundance of vegetation is essential

for animals like parrots that depend on a robust forest.

Loro Parque has saved ten species of parrots from extinction.

On the other side of the world,

a very different creature is benefiting

from radical human-led breeding innovations.

The kakapo.

The only flightless parrot in the world,

the kakapo were once widespread in their native New Zealand.

Like the dodo centuries ago, the kakapo's inability to fly

left it vulnerable to invasive species.

By the 1970s, their numbers were estimated at fewer than 50.

A huge and growing pressure to wildlife

is the moving of species around the world.

The real problem with invasive species today

is that when they get into environments

where the animals or the plants,

they have no history of having to deal with those kind of animals,

they are often very vulnerable and they will be predated on,

they will be outcompeted.

And that's all due to us moving our materials around

or whatever it is.

So, when these species are moving around,

they can just destroy those natural systems.

Responding to that kind of problem in these collaborative efforts,

all kinds of different skills,

sometimes it often needs a rescue role,

that the things like a zoo can provide.

Repopulating the kakapo is complex.

They only breed every two to four years.

When they do mate, less than half of the eggs are fertile,

most likely due to inbreeding.

To maximise the number of viable eggs,

scientists embraced a 21st century tool,

3D-printed eggs.

Flightless birds built their nests on the ground,

leaving their eggs vulnerable to predators.

To prevent them from becoming prey before they can even hatch,

fertile kakapo eggs are removed from their nests

to be incubated under human supervision.

The mother is then given 3D-printed smart eggs

that move and make noise, just like real eggs.

This allows for her maternal instincts

to remain undisturbed throughout the process.

After the real chicks hatch in protected care,

they are returned to their mother's nest.

DR BYERS: Without question,

we're experiencing a planetary crisis.

1 million of the 8 million species on the planet

are threatened with extinction.

Pangolins are shy, solitary and nocturnal.

Much about them is still unknown.

In Asia, pangolins are an object of fascination,

even inspiring popular fashions.

Follow the story, if you would, of the rhino horn

and some of these iconic species.

This little animal is very much used for medicinal purposes

in the traditional Chinese and Asian markets.

The scales that are used in that process,

they are made of keratin, just like your fingernail is.

They're not going to cure insomnia or insanity

and things that they make claims for.

Pangolins remain the most heavily-traded animal in the world.

And if we don't do something about this right now,

this species will go extinct on our watch.

Zoos, conservationists and media campaigns,

like this one, featuring Jackie Chan,

have been raising awareness of the pangolin-poaching epidemic.

Up to now, pangolin only defence from poachers

was to roll up into a ball.

But now all species are protected by law.

The pangolin is not alone.

The illegal wildlife trade has become an international crisis,

driving a wide range of species toward extinction.

Illegal wildlife trade is more lucrative than dealing drugs.

Because the crime is not treated as high as, like, drug dealing,

the level of prosecution is low.

And I think it's one of the biggest threat to the extinction crisis.

We are now really facing a crisis of empty and silent forests.

It's like vacuum cleaning the forest.

The illegal wildlife trade threatens humans as well.

Many scientists suspect SARS and other coronaviruses

have roots in exotic meat markets in Asia.

All wildlife trade is now banned across China.

The coronavirus was traced to a seafood market in Wuhan

that was illegally selling wildlife.

Governments are stepping up.

They confiscate animals, which is a good thing.

But then you have all these large numbers of animals

and often zoos provide the platform for these animals

to actually get a new home...

..or get at least taken care of until other solutions are found,

such as either releasing them back to the wild

or sending them to other good facilities for permanent care.

So, one of our roles in Singapore Zoo

is actually to take care of confiscated wildlife.

So whenever there's large confiscations,

all the animals will be brought to the zoo

and we take care and rehabilitate them.

In a world without zoos,

it's unclear who would have the resources and expertise

to care for the thousands of animals rescued from traffickers every year.

For many species, it is almost too late out there in the wild

because of threats like illegal trade.

So if we do not bring them under our care

and we don't establish assurance colonies,

they may not have a chance.

These are Pere David deer.

Today, there are 700 of these animals worldwide.

This herd produces offspring yearly.

And one day, these deer may once again live in the wild.

This film about the Pere David's deer was made in 1979...

..in a zoo-run wildlife refuge in Virginia.

The full story of the Pere David's deer

and the assurance colonies that saved them

goes back to the turn of the century.

The deer were driven to extinction in China,

when war and famine left them as one of the few food sources

for starving peasants.

Before their disappearance, 18 deer had been relocated

to private menageries throughout Europe.

Over the next few generations,

those 18 grew into a population of over 5,000.

Their extinction was reversed

by a well-managed reintroduction process.

Pere David's deer now thrive in China

and around the world.

Assurance populations are a fundamental principle

of modern conservation.

If those 18 deer had never left China,

the entire species would now be extinct.

The whooping crane was once widespread

throughout North America.

By 1938, overhunting and habitat loss

had reduced their numbers to two separate groups.

The first flock consisted of just 18 migratory cranes.

Each winter, these birds flew over 2,500 miles

from Canada to Texas.

The second flock consisted of 11 known migratory cranes

in Louisiana.

A hurricane in 1940 decimated the Louisiana flock.

Only one bird was recovered.

This is Josephine...

..the sole survivor of the Louisiana flock.

Josephine was brought to the Audubon Park Zoo in New Orleans.

Two birds from the Texas flock were brought in to breed with her.

Over the next few decades, baby cranes were hatched

at several sites around the continent,

including the San Antonio Zoo.

The whooping crane was gradually re-introduced

back into the wild.

In conservation, there's a reason why you want to do that,

is to make sure that something that happens in one year -

some catastrophic disease, could hit, for example.

If there are three different locations,

then it's an insurance policy against these catastrophic events.

PAUL PEARCE-KELLY: Sometimes, your only hope for those species

is to provide conservation breeding assistance

in the hope that we can collectively get our act together,

get the environment into a better state,

and that there may still be some place in nature

for these species to go.

But it's a real profound challenge.

When you have catastrophic events, like a giant Exxon boat

that crashes into a reef and spills tons and tons of oil,

the only people then that can go into that particular scene

and save those animals are very innovative

and very educated individuals who know how to handle those animals,

how to get the oil off, how to take care of them, how to nurture them,

how to get them back on the track and how to let them go again.

These are people that come from zoos and aquariums

because they have the knowledge and the background.

Now, you may not know it, but tucked behind

SeaWorld's Penguin Encounter is a facility

that cares for oiled animals.

It takes two or three people about an hour to clean them.

We're increasingly familiar with not just small oil spills

that happen with a high degree of regularity,

but these big catastrophic oil spills

that have happened over the last 20 years.

SeaWorld has been really proud to be involved

in what's called the Oiled Wildlife Care Network,

which is a community of specialists -

veterinarians, animal caretakers, zoos, aquariums, universities -

all working together to respond to these oil spill disasters,

to treat each individual animal that can be saved,

clean it up, feed it up, get it stable,

and then release it back out into the wild.

The work that we do within our parks is only possible

because people can come to our parks

and meet the extraordinary animals that we care for.

Because they do that,

we earn the resources to direct towards field conservation,

to fund the rescue and rehabilitation work that we do.

SeaWorld will get a call

from the general public or from the government, saying,

"We need your help. There's an animal in distress."

Without question, this team of people,

doesn't matter what they're doing, it can be Christmas Day or Sunday,

they get up, they gear up, they go.

When a hurricane was bearing down on the Keys,

animals came to SeaWorld for sanctuary.

Obviously, in the wild, the animals that are injured

or they cannot find enough food, they are suffering.

Especially well known is the case of Morgan, our killer whale.

Morgan was first spotted by the Dutch coastguard

in a shallow part of the Wadden Sea.

Orcas had not been seen there for decades.

Morgan was only a calf,

but had somehow become separated from her pod.

She was extremely malnourished.

Scientists soon discovered that Morgan was almost completely deaf.

This was likely how she came to be separated

from her mother and her family.

Morgan's original pod was never found.

So, the options for Morgan was euthanize

or being here with a special group of killer whales.

We were selected by the Dutch government

because at that moment, that was the most modern facility.

We have the deepest tank in the world.

We have wonderful water quality.

Always when you introduce a new animal into a group,

there's going to be some fights.

She was fully integrated with the group

and now she's one more of them.

Morgan's health improved dramatically.

She mated and gave birth to a healthy calf.

Morgan was a wonderful mother. She was taking care of her,

protecting her. We have to provide extra milk.

And that means you have to bottle-feed from the very beginning.

So we were working 24 hours a day to take care of the calf.

Some protesters continued to demand Morgan's release.

Morgan's deafness makes it impossible.

Independent orca experts ultimately determined

that the only way for her to lead a safe and healthy life

was in human care.

When a severe drought hit south-eastern Africa,

it threatened the food and water supply for millions of people.

Thousands of wild animals also died.

Two renowned wildlife reserves were hit especially hard.

The elephant populations were swelling

beyond the park's already-strained resources.

With little water and vegetation,

the parks were prepared to cull the herds.

And they're losing literally hundreds of thousands of animals

during this drought.

Three American zoos offered to help.

There are five new African elephants at the Dallas Zoo,

but this morning's arrival has some animal rights activists upset.

Protesters attempted to block the transfer of the animals

through a series of lawsuits.

Ultimately, a federal judge ruled

that the elephants should be moved to the US.

Natural habitats for elephants are becoming increasingly hostile.

As human populations expand, elephant habitats are shrinking.

The lack of living space is causing them to wander

into cities, villages and farmland,

creating danger for both elephants and humans.

So, we're working with Asian elephants in the field.

And one of the biggest problems is conflict with local communities.

ELEPHANT ROARS

So we're trying to work in ways

that enable people to live alongside elephants safely.

And one of the ways they can deter elephants

is by actually putting chillies along a fence,

because elephants actually don't like chillies

and it can stop elephants moving into an area of cropland.

Zoos continue to play a crucial role,

helping to manage the sometimes-uneasy relationships

between humans and wildlife.

Zoos are the only place of refuge for orphaned cubs like Kali.

Kali was found starving by the body of his dead mother.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service stepped in

and determined that an accredited zoo

could best serve Kali's long-term needs.

Now a healthy adult weighing over 1,000lb,

Kali is a living example of modern zoo's role

as a refuge from certain death.

Polar bears are uniquely adapted to Arctic life.

They can survive some of the harshest conditions on Earth.

But they cannot survive the disintegration of the polar ice.

The ice is their lifeline,

allowing them to hunt far from shore.

Climate change and food scarcity

have driven polar bears away from their wild habitats

and into populated areas.

This often ends catastrophically for the bears.

GUNSHOT

Hundreds are killed by humans each year.

Many of their cubs are found orphaned and alone.

As climate change transforms some habitats

and erases others entirely,

certified and accredited zoos

can protect vulnerable animals right now.

From the remote Alaskan tundra

to the largest cities in the world...

..the urban sprawl of Los Angeles

is home to dozens of free-roaming mountain lions,

also called cougars, pumas or panthers.

Cougar habitats in Los Angeles are highly fragmented

by the highways that span the region.

Many cougars struggle to cross, in search of mates or food.

Where you end up with isolated areas of forest,

the animals that live there become very isolated.

The populations decline.

Regional zoos have supported recent efforts

to equip each cougar with GPS-enabled radio collars.

Radio tracking of endangered animals

is a staple of modern conservation science.

DR ROCHA: We use tracking to understand their movements,

their diets, their ecological needs.

We can understand their mortality's cause.

If it's roadkill, if it's poisoning...

The collars allow us to know what is happening with these animals.

This type of structure is known as a habitat corridor.

A habitat corridor is an area of habitat

that joins two bigger areas up

to allow animal populations to move between those areas.

They actually need to join up with other groups of animals

in other patches of forest.

So if you link those together

with areas of forest along a strip, then that can allow

those populations of animals to join together.

Zoos and their local partners

are proactively working together to connect different habitats.

DR LEUS: A lot of zoos actually have a lot of people that are employed,

that you might even rarely see,

that are very busy with conservation elsewhere.

I'm only at the zoo about four times a year,

so they really employ me so that they can be more effective

in contributing to conservation worldwide.

Conservation partnerships

help zoos share their expertise across the globe.

Woodland Park Zoo has created a programme to help

the endangered tree kangaroo of Papua New Guinea.

They've partnered with local communities

to build a new wildlife preserve,

marking the country's first protected natural area.

But they didn't stop there.

The zoo ensured a benefit

to the people of Papua New Guinea as well.

Local coffee farmers agreed to include their land

within the boundaries of the new nature preserve.

The zoo-led programme connected them with vendors

to buy and distribute their coffee internationally.

Those stories, they're not the big sensational stories.

Conservation happens in little bits and pieces.

And our job as applied conservation specialists

is to make sure that we're contributing in lots of small ways,

while at the same time telling those stories

and then doing everything we can to contribute in really large ways.

Orangutan habitats in South East Asia are under siege.

Rainforests are being ravaged

to clear space for palm oil cultivation.

Rainforest has been cut down in many parts of the world

to create palm oil plantations.

Palm oil is in about 50% of what you buy in a supermarket.

But the problem is the destruction of the rainforest

is leading to the loss of many, many species,

including things like the beautiful orangutan.

Deforestation threatens a wide range of wildlife unique to the region.

Scientists estimate that a clear-cut rainforest

could take up to 1,000 years to fully regrow.

We don't advocate a boycott of palm oil.

We ask people to look for sustainable palm oil

in the products that they buy. Sustainable palm oil is grown

in areas where rainforest hasn't been cut down recently

and this is much better for wildlife

and doesn't lead to so much biodiversity loss.

We've gone through our entire supply chain at Chester Zoo

and everything that you buy in the shops

contains sustainable palm oil if it has palm oil at all.

Zoos' ability to draw public attention

to environmental issues like palm oil deforestation

is another fundamental pillar of their modern mission.

Their ability to connect with the public

is similar to our favourite nature documentaries.

Both can be powerful tools to raise awareness

and create momentum for positive change.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: The ocean.

The largest habitat on Earth.

But some nature programmes face criticism for presenting

an idealised version of nature,

while avoiding images of the numerous ways

humans have devastated the environment.

Almost all of the plastic ever produced is still on Earth.

Repairing the damage we've done to the environment

requires more than abstract inspiration.

It also needs tangible and unsettling reminders

of what that damage really looks like

and how we can begin to reverse it.

Many aquariums are taking up that cause,

with entire exhibits now dedicated to the massive amount

of plastic pollution suffocating our oceans.

A visit to the aquarium can no longer be limited

to marvelling at the beauty of underwater life.

We must also confront the ugliness

we inflict on the world's largest ecosystem,

the source of the very air we breathe.

Zoological facilities

have successfully combined environmental advocacy

with hands-on conservation work for over a century.

The only reason certain species are alive today

is because zoos and aquariums have saved them from extinction.

The mass slaughter of American bison

accelerated after the end of the Civil War

and completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

Bison herds once covered the entire North American continent...

..from Alaska in the north to Mexico in the south.

This map showing their historical range

was made by the man whose efforts led to the creation

of the National Zoo and the Bronx Zoo...

Hornaday was a taxidermist and a naturalist

for the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1886, he travelled west to collect bison specimens

for display at the National Museum.

He was disturbed by what he found.

The bison were nearly extinct.

The numbers were staggering.

From some 30 million,

he now estimated 1,000 bison remaining

across the continent.

The Smithsonian acquired a single breeding pair of bison.

The public was fascinated

and soon, awareness was growing over the bison's fate.

A few years later, Hornaday had moved to New York City

to establish the New York Zoological Garden,

better known as the Bronx Zoo.

Hornaday had been breeding bison.

In 1905, a new nature preserve was created in Oklahoma.

He offered to move 15 bison

to the new preserve for a reintroduction programme,

an experiment unheard of at the time.

His work was successful.

By 1919, nine herds had been established in the wild

from zoo-breeding efforts.

Bison numbers began to rise once again.

Today, around 500,000 bison populate North America.

Many of them descended from those two original herds.

Bison now inhabit the American West once again,

almost entirely due to the foresight and dedication

of one conservationist.

We knew how to save species from extinction over 100 years ago.

Thanks to the work of zoos and their specialists,

we know even more today.

The story of the bison and their escape from extinction

marked a major turning point in the mission of the modern zoo.

INDISTINCT RADIO MESSAGES

The next shift occurred

with the rise of the modern environmental movement.

We poison the gnats in a lake

and the poison travels from link to link of the food chain

and soon the birds of the lake margins become its victims.

There appears to be growing concern among scientists

at the possibility of dangerous long-range side effects

from the widespread use of DDT and other pesticides.

Have you considered asking the Department of Agriculture

or the Public Health Service to take a closer look at this?

Yes, and I know that they already are.

I think particularly, of course, since Miss Carson's book,

but they are examining the matter.

In the 1960s, ecological catastrophes

like the Santa Barbara oil spill

led to unprecedented public and government support

for environmental protections.

Plastics don't rust. They don't rot.

Buried, they remain in their original state almost indefinitely.

Burned, they pollute our air.

A major philosophical shift occurred over just a few years.

Humans were uniquely responsible for damaging the natural world

and uniquely equipped to protect it.

More zoos turned their primary focus to species conservation,

rescue breeding and environmental awareness...

..building on William Hornaday's ideas from the turn of the century.

There is an extinction event going on.

A lot of people don't know about it.

We've been tracking it since the 1970s.

The role of zoos has evolved over time.

In the early days, we kept animals mostly as curiosities.

But then we started to recognise

that many of the species we had in zoos would disappear.

And that really changed the focus of zoos.

So we needed to start paying attention to genetic lineages,

animal welfare, to their social behaviour,

to make sure that populations would persist into the future.

Can't protect what you don't love, you can't love what you don't know.

I fell in love with animals at zoos and aquariums.

The best part of my job is, every single day,

watching those kids come through that front gate,

just so excited to see our animals.

When a child goes in and sees an elephant,

that child's life is transformed.

That child will begin to advocate for animals.

I've went to zoos a lot as a child, because it gave me an opportunity

to see species that I never would have seen anywhere else.

It's very difficult to see animals in close up.

This kind of quality from zoos helps the public.

Especially now, so much more urbanised.

I was inspired by what zoos were doing for conservation

and particularly trying to protect

some of the planet's most threatened species.

And it's that exposure that gives us the care and the concern

when we hear about their plights in the wild.

I think zoos really do play that educational role

of really teaching kids

that it's not just about the warm, fluffy things -

it's also about the range of animals that exist.

And all of those animals need saving.

It's not just about looking at a penguin behind a pane of glass.

It's about being in the penguin's 32-degree world.

Zoos and aquariums have changed.

If we didn't have zoos, we'd have to invent them in very short order

to respond to the biodiversity crisis that we're currently facing.

If you want to fight the war against extinction,

visit a good zoo and aquarium.

Help them to fund conservation projects around the globe.

We're focused on one of the greatest threats to our planet

that any of us will see in our lifetimes,

and that's the loss of biodiversity around the world.

Join us, because it's going to take everybody to solve that problem.

Any time you have the opportunity to come to a great zoo,

you learn about life.

You're enchanted with it. You have empathy for it.

You suddenly want to do something about it.

And I think that up-close and personal experience

makes the heart and the mind stick together.

MUSIC: 'Sing Out' by Lisa Loeb

# I was trying too hard to fit in

# Make me feel like I belong

# To something

# But it hurt in my heart

# Hiding a part

# Of who I am

# I was wasting my days

# Down on myself

# Down on my life

# And everyone else

# I thought, "They won't understand"

# But it wasn't about them

# It's my parade

# I'll make it great

# Blow my horn

# Throw confetti, celebrate

# You can march, you can dance

# Every moment is your chance

# To be yourself

# And sing out

# There's a story inside me to tell

# Took some time to get the water

# From the well

# Thought I'd waited too long

# Thought I'd say something wrong

# That they won't understand

# But my life is in my hands

# It's my parade

# I'll make it great

# Blow my horn, throw confetti Celebrate

# You can march, you can dance

# Every moment is your chance

# To be yourself

# And sing out

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# It's my parade

# I'll make it great

# Blow my horn, throw confetti Celebrate

# You can march, you can dance

# Every moment is your chance

# To be yourself

# And sing out

# And sing ou-ou-out

# And sing ou-ou-out

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# La, la-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la, la-la-la

# La-la-la

# La, la-la-la... #

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