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