- 1 week ago
Taronga: Who’s Who In The Zoo - Season 6 Episode 7 -
Emu Rescue
Emu Rescue
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00babies or animals but what if they're baby animals it was only born this
00:08morning on this all-new season welcome back to the ever-changing world of
00:16Taronga where you'll witness things you never thought possible you can actually
00:24hear her breathe and meet new faces oh hi buddy you'll never forget so good it's
00:32time to discover oh my god exactly who's who in this zoo on this episode you can
00:45even hear him purr every now and then who knew this cheetah is a real pussycat
00:52hey handsome boy but a trip to the dentist can I have a look in your mouth can
00:58change everything hopefully it's a straightforward thing let's get him tubed
01:02and then we can get him on the gas a rookie keeper holy moly how am I going to
01:07do that feeds a ravenous python for the first time my mum's gonna love hearing
01:12about this hmm I wouldn't be so sure Kayla and you've heard of a pain in the neck it
01:18wasn't what I was expecting amazing to witness but what about a baby in the neck
01:23one of the most exciting moments of my career today
01:32Taronga Western Plains Zoo lays claim to some of the animal kingdom's most impressive record holders
01:41there's there's there's the tallest land mammal the heaviest land mammal and keeper Caitlin has just
01:49spotted another the fastest land mammal hello Innes
01:55Innes is one of our more talkative cheetah Innes he is always making noises currently we can hear him
02:04what we would call a chirp or a chirrup which sometimes sounds like a bird and if you listen
02:11real carefully you can even hear him purr every now and then he is a hand-raised cheetah so this
02:24doesn't happen with all of our cheetah but Innes is very used to humans being around him he came some
02:29boy cheetah are renowned for their speed 113 kilometres per hour so very impressive and they
02:40can get to that within seconds of taking off so they can cover up to several meters of distance with
02:45every stride that they take so every part of that body is crucial to them being our fastest land mammal
02:51and there is one particular thing that will get chatty cheetah Innes up and running breakfast
02:59come on Innes hello big boy how are you feeling Innes is 11 years of age for us that is considered
03:12an older age for our cheetah in an older age for our cheetah Innes hello handsome
03:17Hi
03:20Can I have a look in your mouth over the past couple of weeks we've just seen that he starts to be extending
03:28his tongue from his mouth or he's shaking his head in an odd way oh good boy and we're wondering if
03:35maybe something is lodged in his mouth or if one of his teeth aren't right or something's going on in
03:41there so at the moment I'm trying to feed him in a way that I can maybe get a little bit of a glimpse
03:48in his mouth so I can see if there's anything in there but it's quite hard keeper Caitlin suspects
03:55Innes might just need a date with the dentist we do need to find out if something is going on
04:01that we can't see that's causing him grief we'd really like to get to the bottom of it go hand
04:10some in now we're finished yeah everyone at Taronga is wild with excitement over the birth of a new baby
04:23pygmy hippopotamus Kambiri is a proud new mum to her five-week-old calf it's just thrilling watching
04:33the baby splash around in deeper water that's it good girl and no one is more excited about the
04:40zoo's newest bundle of joy than her devoted keeper Tracy well I've known Kambiri since she was born I
04:48looked after Kambiri's mother she is an amazing individual she is the best mother I've ever known
04:55in pygmy hippos she adores her babies she will stand guard over them day and night she will leave
05:03food if her baby needs her and she is so protective the pygmy hippo is critically endangered in the wild so
05:12every new baby is precious they found in Western Africa it's estimated only around 3,000 are left in
05:21the wild and they are not to be confused with their bigger cousins the common hippopotamus a pygmy
05:28hippo is obviously the smaller of the two species hence the name pygmy hippo they're only about a fifth
05:34of the size of the common hippo they are solitary the female and the male have adjoining territories and
05:40they only come together to breed which means the new baby hasn't met her dad Taronga's male pygmy
05:48hippo Fergus Fergus is a very interesting boy well we only put them together when Kambiri is an estrus
05:55which had happened on the 5th of July last year and immediately she led him to the water and they
06:01started mating early October we decided to do an ultrasound on her and straightaway the vets could
06:10spot a little backbone we were absolutely blown away by this we were very happy and then the very
06:19special day arrived does seem to be in label there we go there's the sack it's very close now and she's
06:33straining she's pushing while this particular baby was born in what you might call the conventional manner
06:40there we go we have a baby we have a calf and it's moving so that's always good not all of Taronga's new
06:49additions arrive in such a regular fashion it was pretty crazy the first time I saw the Norfolk
06:56Island snails being born the babies are born out of their neck the whole baby shell and all pretty much
07:02just crawls on out we'll come back to that one later at Taronga's two zoos there are more than 200
07:16keepers caring for the resident animals good boy and every single one of them had to start somewhere
07:24I'm a trainee keeper here at Taronga and I have been here for three years now the majority of my work
07:31involves cleaning and feeding of the animals as well as some of the training aspects here that we
07:37have with some of the reptiles you hungry Kayla is training on the job to become a fully qualified
07:43zookeeper hello rattlesnake and that means learning how to feed the reptiles all the reptiles so what
07:52we have in here is a corn snake I'm so they're a North American species of rat snake completely non
07:58venomous so they are harmless and they move and act like a python but they're not considered a
08:02python with reptiles they can be quite unpredictable here at Taronga we have a classification system for
08:12all of our animals for things like a small carpet python they are harmless an anaconda or a freshwater
08:20crocodile they are listed as hazardous but Rachel she is listed as dangerous Rachel is a reticulated
08:29python which is the biggest snake in the world an injury from Rachel could potentially lead to death
08:36and I'm working towards feeding her we're on as a reptile keeper there's lots of steps that we have to
08:44take towards working with dangerous animals oh do you want to grab the shield I'm going through a sign
08:49off process I have to watch a senior keeper work with the animal ten times she's keen feeding her she
08:58might launch here servicing the exhibit around her I have to then do those things ten times so and then
09:05my final sign off is feeding her one senior keeper in particular who is leading me is Chris he really
09:13is a wealth of experience for junior keepers like us and he's taught me pretty much everything that I
09:18know about reptiles up to now so we've only just pulled it out of the freezer this morning and Kayla's
09:24next lesson not how but what to feed Rachel the Python some people might find it confronting when
09:33we feed the whole animal particularly rabbits because people might have them as pets it's no
09:38different to us eating beef or lamb hey exactly right yeah so you can see it's still covered in
09:42fur and it's got its head and all the organs snakes do need all the stuff that we as picky humans scrape
09:49off our plate so what do we do with it now we'll just let it come to temperature slowly in the fridge
09:53three days perfect so in three days Kayla will watch Chris feed this five meter long reptile then soon
10:06after it's her turn are you nervous a little we do of course need to have some pretty solid safety
10:12precautions working with a dangerous animal like Rachel it's important to continually train up new
10:18keepers to maintain staff safety we'll bring this in here with us to Kayla make sure they're
10:23comfortable with the snake make sure that they're interacting with the snake in all the right
10:26methods and then we eventually hand the tongs and the bunny over to Kayla and she's then going to be
10:33doing the feeds I'm definitely feeling very nervous working towards that I've seen her get a little bit
10:39excited about food and I've definitely been like holy moly how am I going to do that better you than me Kayla
10:46at Taronga Western Plains Zoo this rather large predator is not happy which is making his keepers
10:59worried for cheetah in us over the past couple of weeks we've just seen that he starts to be
11:04fiddling in his mouth he's extending his tongue from his mouth or he's shaking his head around
11:10so we're just interested to see if there is anything lodged in his jaw or all of his teeth
11:18are nice and healthy anything in the throat so we're bringing in the vet team to have a better
11:25look and a closer look so today we're gonna see you know what's going on so one of you will will
11:30hand inject him then we'll we'll come in we'll pop a catheter in and actually just look in his mouth
11:34good luck the team are hopeful in us will take a hand injection otherwise they will have to resort
11:43to darting him you're gonna be a good boy you're gonna be a good boy we don't like to have to dart
11:51animals because it's stressful for them and it's stressful for us and if we can do a calm hand
11:56injection it's just much nicer for everybody really while the keepers might be calm in us also gets a
12:03say and no one can predict just how a cheetah with a sore mouth will react to a sharp needle okay happy happy
12:11going and he's had all of that well done you are such a tough boy good boy in this you are a little
12:23legend doady to yeleana he's had that full injection we'll be there in a few minutes
12:28hopefully in this has a gunner stuck on his tooth it's a straightforward thing and not a big dental
12:37extraction yes sometimes we'll find the cheetah might have chewed on a gum nut or have a little
12:43piece of bone or something wedged in his mouth but we're also keeping in mind that it could be
12:47something a bit more sinister good boy in us okay buddy keeper caitlin is keeping watch waiting for
12:55the sedation to take its effect don't yell at night he's down if you guys want to start coming
13:01the injection went really well he was a such a champion didn't react at all so really happy with
13:10with that he's breathing nicely all right so i might just roll him over
13:15onto the side we'll go back to that way
13:21you guys are good to come in we might just um get that iv line in and get a towel on his eyes
13:34if you want to do catheter i'll just cover his eyes up you're doing the anesthetic yep
13:40bit more yep i'll just lay this down under his legs and then we'll just slide it under him and we
13:50can bring him out from the fence ready one two three okay and now we can check in his mouth and see
13:58if we can see anything just let it go for me and it's vet yelena who gets the honors up the pointy end
14:06so we're just having a look to see if there's any obvious reason for this funny chewing that we've
14:12been seeing well there's no gum nut no gum nut also means there's no simple solution
14:20if we don't see an obvious cause we'll probably pack him up and take him up to the hospital
14:29every once in a while something so mysterious so miraculous happens it has to be seen to be
14:46believed oh that's awesome and this is that once in a while look at home taronga is home to some of
14:55the most critically endangered animals on the planet good boy but the rarest of them all
15:01the norfolk island snail the norfolk island land snail it's definitely not one of the most well-known
15:10animals we have here at taronga however it is incredibly special it's only a couple of years ago
15:15that it was actually thought to be completely extinct sure it's rare really rare they're um
15:22they're quite elusive but that's not the miraculous part this is this adult snail on the brink of
15:31extinction has just given birth but not how you'd expect and in a world first taronga's keepers have
15:42caught it all on camera it wasn't what i was expecting it was pretty amazing to witness
15:47but before we look at that little gem how on earth did this once thought extinct animal end up
15:56at taronga go on here we go to answer that we need to go back to an island around three million years
16:06in the making norfolk island is found off the east coast of australia about a thousand kilometers away
16:12it's basically what's left of a volcano that was active about two to three million years ago
16:17the fertile soil and rainforest are perfect habitat to this little snail however unfortunately it was
16:24declared extinct by the year 2000 but then a team of scientists stumbled across some live snails
16:30and so the hunt was on taronga teamed up with the australian museum on a rescue mission to locate this
16:39tiny elusive land snail
16:42go on here we go
16:45but when this snail male arrived back in sydney the breeding didn't go as well as hoped
16:57of course when we started we really didn't know anything about them we spoke to lots of different
17:03snail programs around the world we got a lot of good advice but unfortunately comparing one species
17:09of snail with another species of snail it's pretty much like comparing the care for a fish versus a
17:14bird they're all so very different and these particular snails proved to be very very different
17:22that was quite a stressful period while the original adult snails were breeding none of their babies were
17:28going on to breed themselves but every day we checked those tanks and there were no babies it was
17:33it was always a bit of a punch in the guts keeper taran is very invested in keeping these slimy little
17:40snails alive they are really remarkable animals their eyes are actually at the end of those two long
17:48tentacles that come out the top of their head they also have two other tentacles that sit lower than
17:54the eye stalks they're actually used for olfactory orientation so more or less it's a sense of smell
18:00which is really important it's how they find their way to food sources we believe it's also how for the
18:07most part they find their mates as well but for whatever reason there wasn't much mate finding going on
18:15every single day we would go into those tanks hoping hoping to see a baby born i remember very
18:21very clearly that first day of peeling back the glad wrap and seeing that very first bub born from
18:26adults that had been born in the program here was a really significant moment and probably one of the
18:30most exciting moments of my career today and just how those babies arrived well that's the miraculous bit
18:39but we'll get to that later we're just having a look to see if there's any obvious reason for this
18:46funny chewing that we've been seeing at taronga wildlife hospital in dubbo it's a nervous wait for the
18:54carnivore keepers if we don't see an obvious cause we'll probably pack him up and take him up to the
19:00hospital cheetah inness has a sore mouth so taronga's vet team have sedated him to try and work out why
19:09could be that he might have something stuck in the back of his mouth or he might have a dental problem
19:15yeah and i think he's probably going to need to go back nothing obvious in the mouth so we're going to
19:20take him up to the hospital and see what we need to do um take some x-rays etc all right well let's get
19:27him tubed and then we can get him on the gas at the moment we're just going to put a tube down his
19:32throat so we intubate so we can put him onto anesthetic gas while we're transporting him
19:36and then we'll be able to transition straight onto the gas in the hospital once we get up there
19:41good job inness has just turned 11 that is considered an older age for our cheetah three
19:51but his mother lived till she was 17 so we do hope for a lot longer
19:55one thing two three given inness's advanced age the vet team will want to keep the cheetah sedated
20:04for the shortest time possible yep okay if you guys are out to slide him yep one two three
20:14all right just watch that pulse ox yeah so i'm just going to pop him on some fluids we've just
20:19connected up a drip okay he's on thank you he's on yep we want to just make sure what particularly being an
20:25older cat that we're protecting his kidneys we're also just going to run some electrolytes and just
20:29make sure that the potassium is staying normal it can be a complication for these guys if they're
20:35under anesthetic for a long time cool they can have um some effects on their heart with their heart
20:43rhythm so we just want to make sure that if those levels are getting high we we know that and we can
20:48the things that we can put in place to prevent any problems vet yelena is back at the pointy end
20:56he's got a little pocket um do you want to come and have a look so see that oh yeah yeah but this time
21:05she'll hopefully be able to get to the root of the problem that's pretty confronting hey
21:10back at taronga in sydney it's game day i'm so nervous you're gonna be okay trainee keeper kayla
21:22is joining reptile keeper chris for a python feeding lesson but next time she'll be in charge you are
21:30nervous look how sweaty your palms are i'm sweaty because i'm energy on fire and whole rabbit is the
21:37one and only dish of the day we've brought it up to room temperature yeah cool you okay with that
21:44yeah yeah i'm a bit nervous but i'm good let's go so i think it's been about a month or so since
21:52she's been fed yeah cool so we should expect a decent response today it's actually been six weeks
21:59three days and a couple of hours since this python had a meal so a decent response is pretty likely
22:09rachel she's classified here as a dangerous animal that means that we have to be very careful with how
22:14we interact with her so we'll bring this acrylic shield in with us too kayla it's a bit of a sturdy
22:20little barrier for us to protect ourselves from the snake in case the the snake comes towards us
22:25do you want to take that sure bring that in with us come on in
22:32this is kayla's first time up so close to the five meter snake oh it looks like she's sitting
22:38right at the end there so we can come and approach her and the hungry python knows they're coming
22:49she looks like she's in a pretty good little ambush position there reticulated pythons as a species
22:55can be very very snappy so she can sit in the same patch of forest for months on end waiting for prey to
23:01come to her and when it does she'll bite lightning fast we could put some food in front and probably
23:07draw her a little closer towards us i expect she'll grab it quite quickly yeah she'll still try to apprehend
23:14it as if it's live prey being a python she's totally non-venomous um but her ability to constrict prey
23:22is probably our biggest danger at the moment the species has certainly been known to kill people
23:28before she's just over five meters in length probably up around 60 kilos she has a lot of muscular power
23:36she wouldn't bite and let go and that's the danger to us yeah uh so we'll just grab the bunny
23:41we'll offer it to the snake hole in one piece head first
23:49do you want me to get ahead of you with this shield yeah um
23:55the snake will ideally grab the head wrap it up and won't take long to do the rest yeah push up a
24:01little kayla and just protect yourself with that hey yeah yeah and she'll be smelling it now she's
24:10going to strike out quite quickly i think she's just going to shoot from that position she's tongue
24:17flicking a little
24:18there she goes back up kayla
24:29every habitat at taronga is lovingly cared for just as much as the animals themselves
24:36can you pop up for me that that's yours thank you like the western plains savannah roughly half in
24:43each just porting yeah yep or the great southern oceans but not every habitat is quite so obvious
24:53i'm obviously surrounded by different palms here and taronga we're very lucky to have this kind of
24:59habitat here and yet here i am on the ground with an old decaying palm frontier but that's exactly what
25:05we're looking for these palm fronds are soon to be homes for taronga's clutch of critically endangered
25:12norfolk island snails so these come from a mature palm as they get old this palm base will really kind
25:19of fold in on itself and that's where we will find the adults out in the wild but there are actually
25:25very few adults left on norfolk island to find and that's why taronga is trying to breed them
25:33so even though this is just one big old palm frond this is actually a number of habitats in one
25:39so this is perfect once the fronds are collected keeper taron carefully positions them into the snail's
25:46tanks now okay okay think of the fronds like the snail's home and the tanks kind of like their local
25:54neighborhood we have some challenges here in sydney because we are in a quarantine situation so we
25:59sterilize everything that goes into the tanks we have to make up our own food for them it's a lot
26:07of work for an animal most of us would call a pest i suppose a lot of people question why we should
26:13care about the snails snails are a really important part of the ecosystem so they're our decomposers so
26:21they hang out on the forest floor breaking down that ecosystem so that gets nutrients back into the cycle
26:26and that's really where the whole ecosystem starts that's why it's really important that
26:30this breeding program is successful but to begin with it wasn't successful a couple of years into
26:38the breeding program and well not much breeding of course when we started we only had eight to keep
26:44track of and that population grew to just 14. a sluggish start when you're trying to save an entire
26:52species so we made some adjustments to our husbandry we went from counting every day to counting once a
26:58week and really leaving those adults to their own devices to do what they do making any changes into a
27:05species like this that is so fragile you know it's a scary thing to make any change to their husbandry
27:11because you don't know one small change could have a drastic effect on the whole population
27:16in this situation it did luckily it was a positive drastic effect at our most recent count we now
27:23have over 400 snails 75 of which are adults giving birth to a new baby snail every four days our numbers
27:33are increasing exponentially we've almost got more snails than we know what to do with now and that
27:38wasn't the only surprise yes yes we are finally getting to the miraculous bit i mentioned earlier
27:46you know the birth bit it was pretty crazy the first time i saw the norfolk island snails being born
27:53which now i think about it was probably quite a lucky moment babies are born out of their neck
28:00it wasn't what i was expecting either there is a genital pore on the side of their neck
28:06and the whole baby shell and all pretty much just crawls on out which looks pretty crazy
28:13it was pretty amazing to witness the genital pore is basically the snail's reproductive organ
28:20which just happens to sit on its neck now to have so many that we're actually looking at reintroducing
28:27them back home where they belong i mean these opportunities to work in a conservation program
28:31like this don't always well they don't come up readily so it's a pretty special opportunity to
28:36be able to work with the species like this no i guess it's not that often that you come across a
28:43previously extinct live baby neck birthing snail from a tiny island in the pacific now is it
28:48oh here you go do you want to come and have a look so see that oh yeah yeah yeah yeah it's pretty confronting hey
29:02at taronga wildlife hospital in dubbo vet yelena has identified a problem in cheetah innis's mouth
29:11yeah so he's actually got a little hole there so i wonder if he's got a little tooth root infection
29:16i found a pocket behind his carnassial tooth just on the top right
29:23yucky basically a little hole there that was packed with uh grass and other foreign materials
29:30so we've just given that a clean out there's something in there that's kind of mobile
29:37i think he might have a dental infection or a tooth root abscess so we're going to do some dental
29:42x-rays to to investigate that all right ready and x-ray because anesthetics are quite risky for older
29:51cats the vet team are moving quickly to keep today's procedure as brief as possible oh that root yeah
29:59it's that one yeah what we've just found on this dental x-ray is a big shearing tooth in the top jaw on
30:06that right side has got a tooth root infection so basically the root of the tooth we can see
30:12that the bone has sort of dissolved away which is an indication of infection so that's telling us where
30:17the problem is it's the biggest tooth in the cat's mouth this tooth has actually got three roots it's
30:22one two three sure are so the fix for that is to extract the whole tooth and allow that gum to heal and
30:29that should hopefully resolve his problem and that's his little papilla yeah so there was a little bit
30:34of fluid that came out of it cool okay it'll take two seconds all right okay this is a bit of a job
30:42to get it out just to keep the anesthetic time down at the moment that's going to be causing him a fair
30:46bit of pain and just protect yourself with that hey down at taronga's reptile house she's just
30:58going to shoot from that position trainee keeper kayla is learning how to feed a python a five meter
31:06long hungry deadly python so do you want to back up kayla yeah okay rather than the rabbit the snake
31:20has lunged at kayla's shield instead i feel like every single time we do a first feed with me they
31:25always come at my feet i'm like am i a bad omen let's hope not senior keeper chris still has to give
31:33it another go she's coming at it she's sniffing it she's keen dinner is served nice
31:46so kayla i just generally try to give it a bit of a wiggle yeah this will tell the snake that the
31:55prey is still alive it just elicits a far better feeding response you can see that she's
32:01wrapped with a little bit more intent
32:05you know a good bite from one of these a well-placed constriction can certainly
32:10uh kill prey far quicker than some venom once it's satisfied the prey's dead she'll let go reposition
32:20her head um over the prey's face and start to consume it whole and head first
32:27she can certainly eat something four times this size yeah wow that's impressive
32:30that rabbit's probably enough for her to eat for the next six or eight weeks the python's passed
32:38with flying colors but what about the trainee keeper kayla went really well she hung around me
32:46with the shield she didn't go in overly confident too which is always a bit of a red flag
32:52so we'll we'll get her in for the next feed i think and she can maybe conduct that herself
32:56you comfortable repeating that process next time yeah i feel pretty good i'll be nervous
33:02but yeah i think it's always a bit of a thrill when we do it definitely a first time for me
33:07we just don't want to see a bite on anything other than a rabbit
33:16over at the wildlife hospital in dubbo and x-ray
33:20the vet team have spotted a deep infection in cheetah innis's tooth so the tooth and its root
33:30have to come out so what you've got is a big root at the back that's like probably like that and then
33:36at the front there's kind of two small ones here and here the difficulty is this particular tooth has
33:43three roots and they all have to be removed so it's it's a big job to take out and he'll end up with
33:53a gap going on so you're going to do a maxillary block so we're just doing a nerve block now
34:02a nerve block is a local anesthetic that will help keep innis pain-free during and after the tooth
34:09extraction problem is given innis's advanced age it's not a quick procedure just having a look at
34:16the next lot of blood so we're running a blood test every hour just to check the electrolytes one
34:21we're particularly worried about with cats is potassium um we don't want to see it rising to
34:26the point where it could affect his heart rhythm but at the moment it's perfect this is one of the
34:33biggest teeth in the mouth so it's going to take quite a bit of maneuvering to get it out because
34:41this is a oral surgery the best way to take this tooth out is actually to section it i'm just making
34:49a gum flap the gum flap will be used to cover up the hole left by the missing tooth
34:55it's going to get very bloody just so you know
35:02i call zoo vetting it's like the ultimate gp because not only do you have every type of
35:09illness injury disease you have every type of animal there's root one so that's the back
35:17back half of the tooth there you go so with one root out of the way there are two more to go
35:23so she's made a cut through here to remove that root and now we've got to split those
35:28two in half because we don't want the tooth to break
35:33all right wait one more to go we've got one more to go so he's going to have stitches in his mouth
35:40after this neat little stitches there won't be like a hole where the tooth was so for the next two weeks
35:47we'll take all his bones out of his diet and we'll just have just meat on its own
35:52the final root has been removed but rather than plugging that hole straight away vet yelena
35:59still has some concerns i've taken the tooth out now i need to take a dental x-ray
36:05i'm not convinced that there's not a problem with the tooth in front
36:08at taronga's reptile house in sydney there's a real sense of anticipation in the air
36:22krista kayla can i meet you down at food prep for this retic feed
36:27this morning we're going to get another feed into our reticulated python what makes today a little bit
36:32different is kayla i'm sweaty it's been six weeks since the reticulated python affectionately known as
36:41rachel has been fed and today kayla gets the honors today will be her first day feeding this snake
36:50which is a good little milestone in her career it's all part of kayla's traineeship
36:56if she passes this she's one step closer to becoming a fully qualified zookeeper this is my
37:03first time feeding the reticulated python it is a little bit of a nerve-wracking experience
37:09obviously because she's such a large snake yeah she is our biggest snake so she's up over 60 kilograms
37:13five and a half meters or so the reach is further the the bite's harder it's just putting yourself in
37:20the right position and making sure it's behind the food you could technically fail this if you aren't
37:26confident or if you come out of it more scared or more nervous than when you started yeah nah as far
37:32as exams go i would much prefer any other exam on any other day they're pretty dangerous
37:40the risk is being bitten and constricted when chris fed her all those weeks ago the python lunged
37:47at kayla so i have to be really cautious with a snake of her size and i will be luring her over
37:53with the rabbit on the end of the tongs we're on okay
38:01so when i go in she's obviously going to be quite interested in the rabbit
38:05so i just have to watch her behavior how she's approaching me and making sure that i keep a safe
38:10enough distance it's definitely become very serious that i'm doing it now you never know how the
38:20animal's going to react
38:29might have to just razz her a little in that leaf litter
38:31has she seen it yeah just come in a little a little higher just so she can see it
38:47there you go there you go so just stay behind the shield yeah let her keep coming to you
38:54that's it that's it that's it come on god you want this you see it i know you do
39:10should i move around
39:15nice bullseye it's good that she got it straight on the head so now it should go down nice and easy
39:24my mom's gonna love hearing about this my mom definitely thinks that i'm a little bit of an
39:32adrenaline junkie or a thrill seeker look at her muscles working it's so impressive hey yeah
39:38i think that if my mom was to ever see what i was doing in real life she would probably
39:42faint oh down the hatch yeah it's no kind of great response she followed the cues
39:50straight away that kayla was putting out definitely very exciting and a milestone
39:55in my career and giving me a lot more confidence to work with this species did i pass you passed
40:02so yeah kayla nailed it perfect feed maybe the apprentice becomes the master maybe call me grass
40:09hop off back at taronga's wildlife hospital in dubbo i've taken the tooth out vet yelena has found
40:22and extracted an infected tooth and its three roots from cheetah innes's mouth i'm not convinced that
40:29there's not a problem with the tooth in front now there's concern the 11 year old cheetah may need a
40:36second tooth extraction because the tooth roots are quite close together yeah we just want to
40:43make sure that the next tooth along hasn't been affected so we don't want to leave anything
40:47behind that might cause a problem x-ray
40:49well i think i've taken it out right yeah all right i'll close it close it all up yep with the
41:06neighboring tooth all clear it's finally time to sew cheetah in us up so we've made a flap of gum and
41:14bone that means that we can actually close that completely mouths do heal really quickly usually
41:18a couple of weeks the stitches will dissolve we don't have to take those out and next time we look
41:23in his mouth we'll probably find that that's all completely healed and he'll just have a
41:27nice healed gum there which is welcome news for innes and his keepers ready one two three
41:38you've got your ketamine yep got him yep one one two three three
41:46he's going to be feeling way better by the time he wakes up so very grateful
41:50yep all right that reversal is born he's starting to read his little tongue
42:00he's starting to blink um and we're going to leave him in peace to just recover quietly
42:11the next day and keepers geordie and caitlin are keen to check on his recovery
42:17hi innis hello now innis um unfortunately for him he will just be on a no bone diet for the next two
42:26weeks hey hello which is just going to ensure that that stitch site and that pocket that's
42:32been created from the tooth being removed um stays nice and healthy don't seem too worried about your
42:39missing tooth he looks great you wouldn't have guessed that he had surgery yesterday he's eating
42:43really great which is wonderful it would be quite painful so we're making making sure he's got pain
42:48meds on board and really monitoring him um but really happy with how he's looking and all the proof
42:54you need is in ines's purrrr of approval
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