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00:00South Africa has some of the world's biggest national parks and game reserves,
00:06home to an incredibly diverse range of animals.
00:10Seeing them in their own habitats, there's nothing more beautiful.
00:13Some of which are critically endangered.
00:16I do 100% believe that we will win this fight.
00:19We will save the rhino.
00:21We're following vets and volunteers.
00:23Trying to steal your hat.
00:24What do you want with my hat?
00:25It's just so special to be able to see them like this.
00:27All trying to save some of the animals that live here.
00:32Come on.
00:33We've watched the highs.
00:34Now he's rehabilitated. It's a fantastic feeling. It really is.
00:37And the lows.
00:38Hold on, guys. Hold on. Jump.
00:42With the people who are trying to save our planet.
00:45You can get these animals back out there and doing what they're meant to be doing.
00:57Go on, guys.
00:59It's a big day for Anna.
01:29who works for Rhino Revolution.
01:32They have to carry out a huge procedure
01:34on two extremely endangered animals.
01:38Today we're going to dehorn two of our black rhino.
01:41We've got a female and a calf that's never been dehorned before.
01:45So we're also going to collect some DNA from him
01:47and notch his ears and also microchip him for identification.
01:54The black rhino can be distinguished from the African white rhino
01:57by its hooked upper lip.
02:02Between 1960 and 1995, numbers of black rhinos fell
02:06by a staggering 98% to just 2,000 in the world.
02:11Today, there are still only around 5,000 in the world.
02:15Anna and the team will be dehorning a female who was released in 2017
02:31and has not been dehorned since.
02:33Her calf will undergo the procedure for the very first time.
02:38The reason that we dehorn is that a poacher will go after a rhino
02:41based on the monetary value that he will get.
02:44And by dehorning, we're reducing the value of horn that he stands to gain.
02:49And so the risk of him entering a reserve is much, much less if we dehorn
02:53because the value of horn that he potentially will walk away with is much lower.
02:57The black rhino are important to rhino revolution
03:01because they've been introduced to the reserve as part of a black rhino breeding project.
03:05The female actually arrived pregnant and she since gave birth to her calf
03:11and that's one step towards having a successful black rhino breeding project.
03:17The two rhinos now roam on reserve land of over 14,000 acres.
03:21It's getting warmer now.
03:23It's getting quite warm and it's getting warm quite quickly.
03:25So I said to Pete, one hour.
03:29Cool.
03:30Great stuff.
03:31These temperatures have risen already today, so we do have to be very, very careful.
03:35When the temperatures rise and especially as the black rhino run,
03:38we definitely have to carry water and be very, very aware
03:42that we can't leave them under anaesthetic and sedation for too long.
03:48Anna and the team are well practised.
03:50They recently dehorned five white rhinos.
03:53However, the black rhino is known to be more aggressive than the white rhino.
04:10Jock's the male that was released at the same time as the female.
04:13We actually dehorned him earlier because he caused quite a lot of damage to our cruiser.
04:18And he is at the moment in the same area as the female.
04:22So again, we've been monitoring his tracks, but we've really, again,
04:26got to make sure that he's not in the area when we dart both the female and the calf,
04:29because he could cause some issues.
04:32Then you're going to have to be very, very careful, okay?
04:35Because if you get off and there's another rhino on the round,
04:38you don't want to be around when a black rhino comes charging through, okay?
04:42The other thing is, we've got seven lions on the property.
04:46So, you're going to have to be very, very wary, okay?
04:51So, if you're going to get off the vehicle, you stay close to the vehicle, huh?
04:55Because, seriously, the last thing we want is somebody being eaten by some lions for breakfast, okay?
05:01Alright, thanks guys.
05:03They do tend to hide themselves deep into the bush.
05:16We do keep tabs on them.
05:19They do have a specific area that they like to frequent.
05:22But aside from tracks, we haven't actually had visible sightings of them for a couple of days now.
05:28So, it's up to the veterinarian.
05:30Once he's up in the sky in the helicopter and has visual on that first rhino,
05:34then that's when it all starts.
05:36We only picked up two tracks going across the road.
05:41So, that is definitely the bomb.
05:44Are we scratching around looking for the baby tracks?
05:47The hunt is on for two big needles in a very big haystack.
05:53Emma moved to South Africa ten years ago.
06:03After volunteering for various charities, she now runs her own rehabilitation centre, Umoya Kaluma.
06:14Every day at the centre, we start with coffee.
06:17It's always very busy working with the animals, and we're up a lot of the night with the nocturnals,
06:24all the small ones, so we definitely live off coffee in this place.
06:28It's a big week, as after months of rehabilitation, one resident is ready to be released back into her natural environment.
06:35Finya, the black-backed jackal.
06:38When we first got Finya into the centre, she was in pretty bad condition.
06:42She had been raised as a pet, so she was ripped off her mother, she was bottle-fed, she got humanised,
06:48then she was ripped off humans, and then she was put in a cage in this other centre for people just to stare at.
06:54Um, tiny, tiny cage, uh, not the best, um, hygiene, you know, she didn't have the best food.
07:01We come along, and then she goes through the strict protocol of the rehab.
07:05So, everything that she's known with humans, we're stopping and we're trying to change her back to the wild.
07:11The native jackal is widely disliked by farmers, mainly because it attacks livestock.
07:17Not on the endangered list means the species is not top of the pile to be saved.
07:22If people could just realise what these animals, and her especially, what she's had to go through to get her back out into the wild,
07:29because she deserves a free life like everything else.
07:32She loves hiding under grass or dead wood.
07:37Okay, so I think we can see her in the back here, I think she's going to come around.
07:41She is not tame at all, she's, um, very, very scared of us.
07:53So, this is what we want for in the wild, um, that she's not going to go up to humans, she's not going to cause a problem.
07:59So, this is perfect for us. She's going to keep herself to herself, she's going to find a male company,
08:04and then she's going to be able to hunt and forage.
08:06As you can see now, she's ready to go.
08:08We found that she's been hunting for herself, found a cane rat in here, which was brilliant news for us.
08:13So, we know she's going to sustain herself in the wild.
08:16The plan now is to get Finja into a transportation cage, ready for her trip to the release site.
08:22It's easier said than done.
08:25Okay, so we're just picking up the meat here.
08:27We're going to put this in a cage so she'll go in and freely, and then we can take her up to the release site in it.
08:36So, on the other side here, we have another jackal, and she's giving us a warning sign, and she's trying to call her mate.
08:43These guys will be released together, um, but are not quite ready to go.
08:48So, we're just going to put the meat on the other side here, so she has to go all the way at the back,
08:56and then we prop this door up, and then when she comes and stands on it, it will fall down,
09:01and she'll be trapped in there, and we can take her safely to the release site.
09:05Knowing Finja was previously kept as a pet in a small cage, Emma's worried whether her plan will work.
09:11It's early morning at the Vervette Monkey Foundation, and Josie has a huge task on her hands.
09:26We're going to need to bread it.
09:28Yeah, they can be fussy here.
09:30Today, it's deworming time, but only for some of the monkeys, which means recognising them is vital.
09:37We've got 20 monkeys within a group of, say, 50 or 60 monkeys to give deworming medicine to.
09:42So, it's Camelot troop today, um, which is one of our largest troops,
09:46and we're just picking out the individuals that are perhaps a little bit thinner or scruffier.
09:49Okay.
09:50Josie and volunteer Ed will be administering the medication hidden within a pap ball,
09:55a traditional South African porridge made of maize.
09:58You have to use something that it absorbs because it's a lot of liquid,
10:01so you just have to squish it up. It becomes very messy.
10:05You want to make sure it's all in there.
10:07So, this is a pap ball.
10:10Most of the monkeys will have a ball a day for three days to complete the course,
10:15but some are not so easy to please.
10:17This is a fussy one, which is why she's getting a one-day deworming tablet.
10:21This one-dose tablet is more expensive, so we don't give it to all, say, 50 monkeys in the group.
10:29So, crushing the tablet doesn't taste very nice at all.
10:32And we're going to put bread and jam, so that it's something nice and sweet.
10:36We don't normally give them things like jam or bread, because it's not healthy for them,
10:40but for the sake of a dewormer and for them to eat it quickly, it's a one-off dose,
10:44so we don't mind doing that at all.
10:47Some of our monkeys, we have special orders.
10:49A monkey called Highbrow, we used to have to actually toast him a hot cross bun.
10:53We put margarine on it, and it was the only way he would take his dewormer,
10:57which was insane.
10:58People were just like, really? You go that far?
11:01Fully armed, Josie and Ed start their mission.
11:04It's just whether the monkeys will play ball.
11:07Fingers crossed.
11:08OK.
11:09All right, let's go.
11:11Emma's hoping that she'll find black-backed jackal Finya safely in her transportation cage, ready for her release.
11:21It's a lot of effort for one animal of a species considered by many as vermin.
11:27In South Africa, if you talk to any farmers, you know they don't have the highest opinion of jackals whatsoever.
11:34The jackals come, they take the young, that's profit for these guys, so they do become a nuisance.
11:39But what we need to understand is these animals have a place like every other animal in this world.
11:45We need them in our ecosystem, especially on these game farms that don't have the bigger predators on anymore.
11:51They're the ones killing off all the weak animals.
11:54They're the ones cleaning up the carcasses so parasites and diseases don't spread.
11:59So, you know, if all these animals are wiped out, we are really going to see the repercussions of that
12:04going into the other game, the other wildlife.
12:09The plan is to move Finya to a release site an hour away. That's if she's ready to go.
12:15So, we've had the trapping cage out for nearly a week now because it does take a little bit of time for them to get used to it.
12:23For the past few nights, she's not gone into this cage and we've been feeding her dinner in there every night.
12:30So, actually, she hasn't eaten in a few days because she's refusing to go in it.
12:35So, she must be quite hungry now. So, I really hope that she will just go into that cage so we can take her up safely to the release site.
12:41So, let's go to the release site.
12:43Let's go.
12:44Let's go.
12:45Let's go.
12:46Let's go.
12:47Let's go.
12:48Let's go.
12:49Let's go.
12:50Let's go.
12:51Let's go.
12:52Let's go.
12:53Let's go.
12:56Let's go.
12:59Let's go.
13:02So, no jekyll.
13:17Unfortunately, she's not taking the bait and as you can see, no jackal in the trapping cage,
13:25which is a little bit annoying. You know, this is the nicest way we can possibly catch an animal,
13:29so we prefer to do it this way. But you know what? We're going to give it another go. So let's try
13:35a different tactic and let's maybe camouflage just a little bit, get some nice meat, make a
13:41meat trail and hopefully then this will tempt her in. So we do find that when we're doing this with
13:53a few different animals, if they've already been trapped in a cage before they come to us,
13:57they're clever. They're very wary of cages. So this does happen from time to time. So we do have to
14:04think about different methods and different techniques. Let's have a little look from the
14:08inside and see. It's definitely a little bit more closed and hidden, so hopefully she'll feel a little
14:16bit safer. Okay, so what Bainan is doing now is he's getting nice fresh meat and you can see that
14:22that's a lovely impala leg there. With this rest of the blood here, she always sleeps down at the
14:29back, so we're going to do a little bit of a trail. Pull a little bit out here.
14:35Okay, so if this doesn't tempt her into that bait cage, then I don't think anything will. So this
14:42is last chance tonight for her to go in there, otherwise darting tomorrow. So we'll just keep our
14:47fingers crossed.
14:56Anna and a huge team of vets and volunteers are playing the waiting game. The air team are searching
15:02for a female black rhino and her calf, who need to be de-horned to make them less attractive to poachers.
15:08The chopper's in the air, chewing up helicopter time, it's very expensive, and we might not find
15:18this black rhino. It's getting hotter and hotter now. The animal will hide in the shade, and even
15:22though it's a big animal, it's surprising, you sometimes just can't find it. It's all put on hold,
15:27though.
15:34As the air team have found the rhino, and it's all systems go.
15:47You're running it through in your head the whole time, but the minute that the animal's down and
15:51everyone's racing to that site, you just go onto autopilot. I don't think you're really thinking it
15:56through. So luckily in the bush, we don't have speed limits. The guys on the ground team and the
16:02veterinarians, they get to that animal as quickly as possible. It doesn't matter what the condition of
16:07the roads are like. With the female anaesthetized by the dart gun from the air, the ground team
16:14carefully approach.
16:18They cover its eyes with a blindfold so that it doesn't get stressed with all the movement and the
16:23light. They don't have great eyesight, so they rely a lot on their sense of hearing, and plugging their
16:28ears also just helps them to stay a little bit calmer.
16:37When the chainsaw comes in to have to hear that noise and watch this horn be cut off,
16:42it can be a little bit disheartening, but it's the quickest, most efficient way of doing the job,
16:48and time is of the essence. So whatever needs to be done.
17:03The horns are taken away to be safely kept in an undisclosed location.
17:09So the female actually positioned herself in the middle of two trees, but facing the fence line.
17:15And these black rhinos, they tend to, when they wake up, they can just run in a straight line
17:20or trash the area around them. So what we had to do was position her in such a way that she
17:25wouldn't run straight into the fence line.
17:28One, two, three.
17:30We get everybody on the vehicle.
17:33You've really got to think quickly and be on your feet and pick up whatever you've got to pick up and
17:38get back on that vehicle. Because if you're in the way, then you can get seriously hurt.
17:45As soon as they're safely on the truck, there's news from the air team that the
17:48calf has been darted a couple of miles away.
17:53And the helicopter's sitting on him from above at the moment.
17:56So we're going to go and find him and hopefully dehorn him and get all the information we need.
18:00Jenna moved to South Africa after falling in love with husband Sean.
18:15She's now also totally in love with her new home.
18:17Africa really gets into your soul and under your skin. And I think once you come to Africa and
18:22experience it, everyone agrees that there's something about Africa that you can't sum up
18:26into words. The people are amazing. The wildlife is amazing.
18:32And it's one of the mighty big five,
18:34the elephant, that Jenna and Sean are actively researching so the world can understand them
18:39better.
18:40They give, give, give. It's amazing. And they're teaching us on a daily basis.
18:44Today, the team are carrying out some experiments that aim to help with the ongoing problem of human
18:49and elephant conflict.
18:52We're heading out into the bush now. We're going to look at another research project
18:56from elephant communication underground. It's a seismic research with a gentleman called Mike Shaw.
19:02The thinking is elephants communicate in a frequency so low that we can't hear it,
19:07but they can hear each other from miles away. Michael is a research professor of geological sciences
19:13at the University of North Carolina. We're putting out 18 seismic and infrasound instruments. The
19:22seismic focus is on recording the footsteps of the elephants and the infrasound is sound below 20 hertz.
19:30Elephants, because they're larger animals, can emit sounds below what humans can emit,
19:36and they have large ears to help hear those sounds. And that's how they communicate over long distances.
19:43Jenna and Sean's aim is to try and improve the situation of human and elephant conflict in South
19:48Africa. By learning how fast sensors can pick up elephant sounds, there's potential of setting early
19:54warning systems for small villages. The problem where, for example, with elephants, they come in,
19:59they raid the crops, that's all their food, they have nothing else to rely on. So with the communities,
20:05then it becomes a thing where they'll start to kill the elephants if they come near the villages.
20:10People die, elephants die, so it's such a horrible situation.
20:14Philip is from Zimbabwe. He has direct problems with human-elephant conflict.
20:18So the elephants come to where your sister lives? Yes. And eat all her crops? Yes. And has she got
20:30anything else if the elephants eat the crops? Does she have nothing else? His sister, she loses
20:37everything. She has to provide for her family and, you know, there's literally no money. That's all they
20:44have to survive. Don't have anything to eat. People look at Africa and they think there's so much space
20:51here that animals can just live and people can live and they must just get on with it. Sadly,
20:55it's just not the case. The space for wildlife is getting smaller and smaller and the human population
21:01is getting bigger and bigger. And as that happens, communities expand into animal and wildlife areas
21:06and the human elephant and animal conflict with communities is just getting bigger and bigger
21:10on a daily basis. As Michael and the team finish laying sensors, there's another research project
21:17on the go that also aims to help calm the situation between communities and the elephants. So one thing
21:24we know about elephants is they have very sensitive feet. They don't like anything uncomfortable or sharp
21:29on their feet and they'll go around an area that's really filled with jagged rocks or anything like
21:34that. So we designed this pyramid structure which uses four identical flat pieces like this that are
21:41easy to ship, easy to transport, and they fit together and they're then secured together and then
21:46they go on the mat over here in the pattern that you see. These simple cheap plastic pyramids could
21:53really help villagers deter elephants from raiding their crops by placing them around the perimeters.
21:58It's male bull Toshiru who will test whether the system could work.
22:10OK, so you can see him starting. He's realised that's a lot bigger already. He tried to push them over.
22:19So he's literally trying to figure out this puzzle now. It's really interesting. And that's quite sharp
22:28for him. He's putting his foot down like that at an angle. He's totally just moved that one out of
22:33the way to make perfect space for his foot there. Amazing to watch him make a plan with this puzzle. He
22:41wants to get to that orange. So now he's trying to cheat and go round. He realises he can't get across
22:54this easily. So he's trying to now just go round the poles to get to the orange.
23:02He really struggled with that one. He couldn't get across that mat. And by the end he absolutely
23:08decided he didn't want to go across that mat. So that was a successful experiment on that one,
23:13which is great. So I feel this has a lot of scope to be used in the wild to prevent human elephant
23:17conflict, to try and stop elephants entering into communities and to crops. And one of the great
23:24things about this design is that it allows other animals to be able to walk through this. So if you
23:29look at a zebra or antelope, anything, they'll be able to get their hooves in between this so they can
23:35still get to the watering holes, things like that, or move around. So it just stops the elephants coming
23:42in, which is great. I think it could be a really low cost efficient solution. Success for the team
23:51and the elephants are almost ready for the big test of the day. How do they speak to each other? It's
23:56sort of the rumbles they make. You can almost feel it from your feet right the way through and you get
24:01butterflies, you know, you get goosebumps. It's, it's phenomenal.
24:10Josie and Ed are in the process of deworming 20 monkeys in a 60 strong troop.
24:17Let's have a look. Don't need you. The task is to identify the right 20. So seed is spread to bring
24:24the monkeys all out for a lineup. Very interested in the seeds.
24:31It's Pie Face. He, uh, he's well known for eating a lot of food, hence the name Pie Face.
24:42One down, 19 to go. Luckily, Josie's 14 years experience here helps.
24:48Thinking about it, I think I know around 500 out of 600 monkeys by, by face. However,
24:56they do have different markings to look out for. They might be more golden. Some might have black
25:00socks and gloves, what we call, so black hands and black feet. Obviously injuries and scars we can,
25:07we can cheat as well. Here's Colonel Mustard. He's got grey socks and gloves, so his hands and feet
25:13are more dark grey. They're not really black like some of the others.
25:20Skinny girl. She still needs hers. I don't know her real name, so we call her skinny girl.
25:25I've got a lot of skinnies. It's alright giving medicine, but if you don't see them eat it,
25:30then you may as well not giving it, so.
25:34It's monkey jerry again. He's already had one as well. So it's important to know the monkeys
25:39individually because if we end up giving a monkey, you know, three doses, it can be detrimental to
25:44them. Come on. Further into the enclosure, Ed has spotted Skinny Junior, the fussy eater who will only
25:52take her medication if it's covered in bread and jam. She's not stupid. She's eating. She's slow.
25:59She's enjoying it. Now we have to make sure she eats the whole thing. More success for Josie too.
26:05Okay, so you check. Took it straight from my head. Joshua. He's not confident yet,
26:13because he just got chased. Yep, this is Joshua. Okay. You've already had one.
26:23Joshua's done. Plague of stripes is done. Jerry's done. Great, fantastic. And old,
26:28skinny, small face. Okay, sure. Now more than ever, we need to actually do something
26:34for the planet and the wildlife because you're not going to get it back once it's gone.
26:48It's the morning after Emma's final attempt to try and bait black bat jackal,
26:52Finya, into a cage ready for the journey to her new release site.
26:57So this is D-Day for Finya, the jackal. So we're going to have a look. Now we're hoping everything
27:03that we did yesterday to disguise the trapping cage is going to work and that she's gone in there for her
27:10tasting now. Check if the meat is still in there. Yeah. Nothing.
27:27So as we can see, we have not outsmarted the jackal. With our best efforts, it still hasn't worked.
27:37To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed. This is the way I would prefer to trap her. You know,
27:42it's the kind of safest, you know, less stressful way on her.
27:50Finya is ready to forage for herself and no longer is falling for Emma's tricks.
27:54So Emma's left with no choice but to dart Finya.
27:57Darting any animal is never the first option we want to go to and there's always a danger when
28:04giving any medication to an animal. A low-level dose of anaesthetic will be used to sedate Finya.
28:11Just enough time to safely carry her to the truck to take her to her new home.
28:14You are ready to go. It's really something that we don't like to do if we don't have to,
28:19but in this case, unfortunately, you know, we've tried everything else with her and it's time for her
28:24to go. So if it's the only way, we do have to do it.
28:35Missed. She's just so fast.
28:38Yeah, it's not easy because it's a small animal, the bones are soft, so you have to place the shot
28:45perfectly, otherwise you're going to hurt some of the bones or something. So you have to look for a
28:50nice big part with lots of muscle.
28:56Get it?
28:57The second dart bounces off and Emma's getting increasingly concerned as Finya looks for a way out.
29:02The one thing I do want to make sure though, I see she's starting to look up at the fences to see
29:09escape routes. If she gets out on this side, I won't cry, but if she gets out on this side,
29:15we're going to have huge trouble with the jackal next door.
29:29Well done, Mr. Maynard.
29:47This is when you wish you can just explain to them. It's for a good reason. If we could pick any
29:52super power and be talking to animals, that's for sure. So they've always sometimes got a little
30:00bit of fight left in them. So I'm just going to move her into the shade. You can see it might not
30:04look nice, but I'm holding the scruff of her collar here just in case that she does want to
30:09turn around and bite me. So if we do have the opportunity when they are sedated like this,
30:15it's always nice to do a last check over, you know, have a look that there is, there's nothing wrong
30:20that we might not have been able to see. So yes, we're just checking her teeth. Beautiful teeth here,
30:25you can see, in very good condition. Okay, so we've taken the dart out. It's hollow, so it doesn't
30:31hurt so much. And now we're just going to put her into the box so we can get on our way.
30:39The release site's about an hour and 10 minutes away on a lovely, lovely game farm there. So we're
30:46going to head on up there and then once we get there, put her in her release enclosure.
30:55This enclosure is for Finja to get used to the sights and smells of her new surroundings
31:00before the final release.
31:03So we have the enclosure here that we put up a few days ago. In the back, we've got a nice little den,
31:11so it's somewhere where she can hide. She's got her water and that's all she needs.
31:21She's doing well. She's still just very sleepy, so you'll see I'm doing this just to stimulate her a
31:26little bit to get her to come out of that sleepy stage. All right. We go through so many range of
31:33emotions with these animals. We're sad, we're excited, we're nervous, we're scared, you know of the
31:39possibilities. At the moment, I feel a bit of relief. You know, we've got her here, the darting went well,
31:45so now she's here, and then the nerves will kick back when we open on release day.
31:50It's rescued elephants that Jenna and Sean use to further research into one of the world's most iconic creatures.
32:15Today, the team's preparing an important experiment, measuring the sounds elephants make
32:19when on the move. Ideally, what we'd like to have happen is to split the herd in half,
32:25and then have them come back together at roughly this point, somewhere in this area,
32:30because it'll be right off the end of this array of sensors. The herd here will be divided into two
32:36and separated to see if they communicate to each other to meet back up. Sensors placed underground will
32:43monitor the movement of the herd, while sensors on the surface will hopefully pick up the low
32:47frequency calls of the elephants. I'm going to park here, because the elephants have been instructed
32:53one bunch up any tree, and the other group are just down there in that side of the road,
32:58and then they'll join up here somewhere. That's the hope, anyway.
33:03Are they going in the right direction? Yeah. Perfect. So we're still taking the females off separately?
33:10So we've moved the females up to the one big tree, and they're going to just feed there for 10 minutes.
33:16The boys are down at the bottom, feeding at the moment in the bush down there. We'll let them just
33:20sit for about 15 minutes, and then get them to join up here in this bush.
33:24With the recording equipment activated, it's just a matter of waiting.
33:42It's just a matter of waiting.
33:54Unheard by human ears, the elephants had communicated and found each other 15 minutes later.
34:02Steady.
34:12There's a huge hublub. They all, like, run around and like, oh, what have you been up to?
34:20They haven't been each other for the whole life.
34:21Yeah, it's nice to see that they have that relationship with each other.
34:27Okay, Elise can go to bed, guys. Thank you very much, eh?
34:33And the good news is, the sensors were successful and picked up on the elephants' long distance communication.
34:39As the meet-up evolved, we got really good signals as the elephants were rumbling at each other.
34:45We're going to be able to detect those elephants out maybe five kilometres.
34:50Which means early warning systems could work for local communities.
34:55So we can put sensors around a building or a village, put sensors around a farm,
35:00and be able to detect those elephants coming in in the middle of the night when everybody is sleeping.
35:05And then that community knows that those elephants are extremely close to their crops or to their community.
35:11So they can start to make a plan to be able to get out of the village or protect their crops.
35:15So it really is just a really super early warning system for people
35:20who struggle with human-elephant conflict to be able to prepare for it.
35:23Having successfully dehorned an extremely rare female black rhino,
35:45Anna and her team are hot-footing it to the mother's calf,
35:48who's been darted with anaesthetic but has fallen into deep bush.
35:52The baby rhino's bid to escape has taken him a couple of miles away from his mum.
36:10It also means the team have a long way to carry all the equipment.
36:13Running in the midday sun has left the baby rhino critically overheating.
36:24As the vets make him comfortable by blindfolding him and plugging his ears for the dehorning,
36:29he's also bathed in cold water to bring his body temperature down.
36:33Once he's stable, the dehorning can begin.
36:39It's like cutting your fingernails. It's a completely painless procedure.
36:44We do it with a chainsaw initially to remove the top of the horn,
36:49and then we grind down using an angle grinder to make it smooth.
36:52It's just like filing your nail after you've cut them with the clippers.
36:57We don't want any sharp edges or anything that can splinter.
37:03Because it was his first dehorning, we also took DNA and ear notched him for identification,
37:10and then we microchipped him as well behind the ear and in the neck,
37:13so that we'll be able to identify him in the future.
37:24You want the rhino to be out for as short a period as possible because of the
37:28stress and the pressure it puts on the organs and the animal.
37:32So we usually dehorne within 15 to 20 minutes without complications,
37:36and that's from the minute the animal goes down to the minute that it is back up after being given the reversal.
37:43Because they're in thick bush,
37:47most of the team retreat to the safety of the truck before the reversal drug is given.
37:52The rhino will then be monitored by helicopter.
38:00It's been a huge success for Anna, and a short while later, the rhino was spotted together again.
38:06Thanks so much team, that was awesome.
38:09So, that was a success, so we are so chuffed.
38:21In a world where they're few and far between,
38:23these two black rhinos have a far better chance of staying alive now they've been dehorned.
38:29A hour away from Umoya Kalula,
38:41Finya the Jackal was supposed to spend a couple of days in the soft release enclosure to get used to her new surroundings.
38:47But in the middle of the night, in the first 24 hours, Emma has received an emergency call.
38:53But she's not coping very well. My team were checking on her today, and she's quite frantic and stressed.
39:00So, we've bumped it up a little bit, the release to tonight, because I feel like if I keep her another day,
39:09it's going to stress her out so much that she might injure herself,
39:12and then I'll have to bring her back to the centre and start all over, which would just be heartbreaking.
39:28This is not the way I wanted to go at all.
39:31And I have my apprehensions, and I, yeah, I'm very worried.
39:37So, as you can see, Finya is very stressed. She's jumping up high, she wants out, she's not eaten,
39:58she's just not happy with the situation. So, it was meant to be tomorrow night, but to be honest,
40:04she wants out. So, let's get her out quickly. We haven't had an animal that's done this before,
40:10and we have to adapt to each animal. So, in her case, it's just this cage, the soft release was not her thing.
40:17So, I'm going to go up to the enclosure now and open the doors. She hasn't eaten for a few days,
40:32because she's so stressed, she's not eating the food that we've given her. So, I am going to scatter
40:36some meat around in this area, so that she has that opportunity to feed.
40:44Once it's open, we're all just going to back off a little bit and see if she'll exit this way.
40:50Now, she's still just going around the enclosure, and she just needs a bit of time to get a bit of
40:55confidence to get out. Come on, baby, you can do this.
41:06She's crying a little bit. I'm normally not an emotional person. You know, this is the bit we work
41:18for. This is what we slog away for. You know, we're always nervous. That never goes away. We're
41:27always excited. We're always apprehensive. All of those emotions, but never get tired of seeing this bit.
41:36So, I'm going to get tired of seeing this bit.
41:40I'm going to get tired of seeing this bit.
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