Taronga Zoo is home to five Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombats, including the breeding female, Jedda, and her second joey, twelve-month-old female. Minya. These animals are housed in the zoo’s Backyard to Bush precinct in the Wombat Burrow exhibit, which is attached to a tunnel from which visitors view the animals. The time has come for Jedda to be reintegrated with the other adult wombats. It is planned that she will breed again with the zoo’s male, Nugi, who has been the sire of all the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombats born at the zoo in recent years, including Waru, who died in 2019 and suffered from skeletal abnormalities. The keepers decide that they will perform examinations on both Jedda and Minya, to gain samples from the wombats as a baseline of a healthy mother and joey, to be used when treating other wombats in the future. This was a challenge experienced by the vets when treating Waru (featured on Season 1 of the series). The investigations also sought to understand better the relationship between being fed on mother’s milk and bone development in Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat joeys. Therefore, the zoo’s nutritionist collected milk and blood samples from Jedda, and scans were performed on Minya up at the wildlife hospital in order to monitor her bone development as a breastfed joey.
One of the zoo’s Black-Headed Pythons, the male Ink, is used for youth programs at the zoo, although his keeper identified a mass on the snake’s tongue, so was taken from the Taronga Training Institute to the wildlife hospital, for an examination under anaesthetic with Vet Frances. Frances performed X-rays and examined the growth. Ultimately, she makes the decision to remove one fork from Ink’s tongue in order to remove the growth and send off a sample to pathology. This was not an easy decision to make as snakes use their tongues to smell; however, being in a captive environment where the snake will not have to source his own food, meant that it was an appropriate decision for his health. The lump was then taken to the lab so that it could be analysed to determine if further treatment was necessary to save Ink’s life. Thankfully, when the pathology results came back, the python was cleared of any cancerous growth and he was able to be hand-fed again, successfully eating a rat.
At Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, nutrition officers receive a delivery of fresh produce to feed the zoo’s animals. They chop up silverbeet for the zoo’s macropod species and prepare food for the Siamangs, which they take out and throw across the moat to Puteri and Saudara on their island. The siamangs ate cucumber and avocado among other fruits and vegetables, like figs and banana. Another delivery arrived from Sydney, of crickets to feed some of the bird species, as well as the meerkats. The nutrition officer checks the shipments to ensure that they have made the journey safely.
Other animals were fed the following morning- the barbary sheep received hay delivered by forklift, to make up for the lack of grasscover in their exhibit, and Sakti the Sumatran Tiger received two chickens. Eland, hippo and rhino were also fed. At the time of filming, there were 7 male giraffe on the TWPZ savannah.
Keepers provide an update on Taronga’s chimpanzees. At time of filming, the zoo housed 22 chimpanzees across 7 family groups, ranging from four months old to Spitter, aged 61. Two adult males - Shikamoo and Sule - assumed leadership over the troop, rather than a single alpha male, two years on from the passing on the previous alpha mate, Lubutu. The keeper speaking about the troop believed this was due to Lubutu’s leadership style, that he didn’t ‘rule with an iron fist’. He remarks that it is good that the leadership over the troop is now settled for the time being, and this has continued to be the case, with the troop losing Spitter and Cebele, but gaining a female infant recently born to Lisa and another infant born to Ceres since the episode was filmed.
