Look at this little fluff ball!
Oh my goodness, there he is.
G'day everyone and welcome to the heart and soul of Australia Zoo.
Behind me is the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital.
The busiest of its kind in the world,
and I thought that today I'd take you all on a journey through the hospital to see the amazing work being done
to treat sick injured and orphaned native wildlife.
Let's go check it out.
See you inside!
Well here we are. Welcome into the hospital.
It's always absolutely so bustling, 24/7 here.
This is the immediate little triage area, treatment rooms here,
to do these initial check-ups on animals that come in.
This is pretty interesting here though, this is what the hospital used to look like.
It actually had very small and humble beginnings, it was an old avocado packing shed.
We first got in about 60 animals in the first year which wasn't very many at all
and now we're taking in over 8,000 a year and we quickly realized that we needed to upgrade
and this amazing purpose-built hospital was created.
let's go have a look.
So, in here these are the main- OH!
Something very very cute on the table,
this is the main check-up area.
Look at these little guys, these little Wood Ducks? Dr Ludo: Little Wood Ducks
Hello little Wood d uck, how you doing mate?
Dr Ludo here is one of the amazing team members taking care of all the animals that we get in
and sometimes it could be a massive hundred kilo Sea turtle one day or a tiny little Wood duck.
The hospital's so important, being here and taking care of all of these gorgeous animals.
Look at this little fluff ball. This is Dash and he's a tiny little swan.
Hey mate.
This guy was actually attacked by an eel, of all things.
So we've taken him in here to give him a nice recovery.
Let's head in.
Oh he's just adorable isn't he? You are so cute.
So this is only a temporary little spot for him just so he can find his footing again.
Once he's got all of his adult plumages and he's of that age where he can actually function well,
he's going to go straight back out into the wild and he's not quite ready to fend for himself.
See how he's doing that with his beak? He's going real fast up and down and kind of sifting through the water.
That's how swans pick up little bits and bobs to eat.
He's so cute.
Robert: Hey Rosie. How's it going? Dr Rosie: Hey. Yeah, good.
Robert: Oh, what have we got? Dr Rosie: Are you here to help me with this?
Robert: Yes, absolutely.
Dr Rosie: This little egg was struggling to hatch by itself.
Robert: Wow And I just need someone to slowly peel off that little shell.
That is unbelievable.
Look at that, you can see his little beak there, and his little feathers starting to form.
That's remarkable.
So I'm just giving him a helping hand, helping to just tease away that eggshell,
really slowly, really gently.
And he needs this helping hand,
so that he's got the best chance of survival, to get back out there.
So this is something that you definitely don't do every day and it's...
Something where it requires very specialized care.
Robert: Okay, oh! Dr Rosie: Oh wow.
Robert: Here he goes here he goes... Dr Rosie: Does he look like a little pigeon, or a dove?
Robert: He does, doesn't he? Here he goes! Oh my goodness there he is, oh my goodness.
There he is. Hello little one. Hello little baby.
Dr Rosie: That's spectacular.
All right, now this here is often the busiest part of the hospital. This is our mammal intensive care unit.
We always keep our voices down a little bit, because the wildlife in here are usually under quite a bit of stress.
We often get animals just like this little possum in here, that are really worse for wear, not doing well.
But we're able to give them round-the-clock care and then eventually release them back into the wild.
That gives you a little glimpse into the ICU, but I thought we could go around to see my favourite area of the hospital,
the reptile room. Let's go check it out.
Well. Welcome to, in my opinion, the coolest area of the Wildlife Hospital.
Reptiles have always been my very favourites and it's always so incredible
to see the animals that come in here.
Oh, holy moly.
Come around check it- check this guy out.
This is a Varanus Panoptes, or Yellow Spotted Monitor.
Now, unfortunately this guy, I believe he had a run-in with a dog.
The dog grabbed him, gave him some pretty good injuries unfortunately.
But he managed to get away, and someone was kind enough to get a hold of him
and actually take him back to the hospital to receive treatment.
Wow. what an incredible lizard, aren't they just gorgeous.
I can't spend all day in here. Let's head off to the next spot.
And then this here is our x-ray room.
So right in here is where we can get the great insights into what's going on.
Because animals are the best at masking their injuries. So the x-ray room is a very well used part of the hospital.
But, last but not least I wanted to show you one room around this corner,
where all of the real magic happens. Come check this out.
All right follow me. Quarantine room in here.
And last but not least, we'll do one little pass around and we'll check out...
The big surgery room.
And we won't go in, because this is actually a completely sterile area.
It's exactly the same as a human surgery, so if you guys come around here and have a look at this.
In here we've operated on everything from Koalas to Lace monitors to Sea turtles,
and it is really incredible to see the work that gets done.
We can perform these massive complicated surgeries because we've got the best gear and the best team on the planet.
And that's what the hospital is all about. Getting animals in often on the brink of survival,
rehabilitating them, giving them all of the treatment that they need
and then at the end of it we get them straight back out there, back into the wild.
It is the most rewarding work ever,
and it's just an incredible part of the Zoo.
But I hope you've enjoyed having a little look at what goes on and I reckon...
Who do we have over here?
Oh, I reckon this is a good note to end on. A very cute little koala.
Look at you. Hello little one.
Dr Ludo: Grace!
Hi Grace. How you doing?
Dr Ludo: She's good. Robert: Oh I love her name.
Dr Ludo: She's about to go out into the plantation.
Oh that's so exciting, good on ya.
That's so good, we'll leave you to it. Have a good rest of your day, thanks very much.
Thanks for joining us guys see ya.