- 06/06/2024
This week we look at Koala's and Tigers with experienced zoo keepers Eleanor Ballantyne and Helen Martin.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 (mumbling)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to our mini-series about Edinburgh Zoo.
00:08 In each episode, we'll meet a different species
00:11 and speak to their keepers about what a typical
00:13 working day is like for them.
00:15 Later on in the episode, we'll be heading over
00:18 to the tiger enclosure.
00:20 But our first stop is the Koala Territory,
00:22 where the UK's only Queensland koalas are housed,
00:26 including two female joeys, Talara and Myri,
00:29 who were both born at Edinburgh Zoo in the summer of 2022.
00:33 With the two joeys, even though they're similar ages,
00:37 completely different personalities.
00:39 So Talara, I like to say she knows what she wants.
00:43 She's a big foodie.
00:44 She'll usually be out eating quite a lot of the day.
00:48 She's also a lot more active,
00:49 and I feel like a bit more kind of confident
00:51 compared to the other two.
00:53 So you'll usually see her out in the public view a lot more.
00:57 Myri, our other joey, is kind of the polar opposite.
01:01 She's a lot more quiet, spends a lot more time to herself,
01:04 likes to sit up really high in the trees.
01:06 So if you see one right at the top of a very high tree,
01:09 that's gonna be Myri.
01:10 And then you've got Clary, who's kind of a mix of the both.
01:13 So sometimes she's down a bit more in view,
01:16 but also likes to spend time up in the trees as well.
01:20 Each day begins by preparing the koala's favorite snack,
01:25 eucalyptus, with the zoo receiving between seven to 15
01:28 different species of the plant each week.
01:31 The very first thing we do before we even head to the koalas,
01:35 anything like that, is we will go to our eucalyptus store
01:38 and we'll pick our species for the day.
01:41 And so we like to give them a mixture
01:43 of different type of eucalyptus to eat,
01:46 just so they're getting a variety.
01:48 In the morning, staff renew the eucalyptus,
01:52 assessing which species of the plant
01:53 have been popular with the koalas,
01:55 and logging the data on a spreadsheet
01:57 to monitor what the marsupials are eating.
02:00 With excess eucalyptus, going to chimpanzees for bedding,
02:03 and also as food for other animals,
02:05 with wallabies and galahs known to be partial
02:08 to the pungent snack.
02:10 With the eucalyptus, you'll notice that they like to eat
02:14 the little buds at the top.
02:15 The fresher the leaf, the nicer it's gonna taste
02:19 and the less toxic the eucalyptus leaves
02:21 are gonna be for them.
02:22 So you'll notice on this piece here,
02:24 they have stripped the top
02:26 and they've ate quite far down,
02:28 but you'll notice the further down the stems you go,
02:30 there's still some leaves there.
02:32 And basically the older the leaf
02:34 and the further down on the eucalyptus,
02:36 the more toxic it's going to be for them.
02:39 So we try to only eat the newer and kind of budding leaves,
02:43 just 'cause the toxicity is less potent there
02:46 and it's easier for them to digest.
02:47 And I think it also has a better taste for them as well,
02:49 'cause again, the stronger the eucalyptus,
02:51 the kind of harder the taste is for them.
02:54 - After the eucalyptus has been replenished,
02:58 the heating checked and the UV light turned on,
03:01 it's time for the dirty work to begin.
03:03 - It's then the fun job of cleaning the enclosure.
03:07 So we'll start cleaning up on the floor.
03:10 We'll start picking up all the kind of old leaves
03:12 that have maybe fallen from us changing eucalyptus over.
03:16 We'll also pick up all the little poops
03:18 that the koalas have created over the previous day.
03:22 And then we finish off by giving the enclosure
03:25 a good kind of dig over as they've got bark on the floor,
03:28 just to make sure that we're giving that a good movement.
03:31 And then we also hose and mist the enclosure down
03:35 as they have a lot of live plants in there.
03:37 Also the humidity helps keep the eucalyptus fresher
03:41 for longer as well to stop it drying out for the koalas.
03:44 - Eleanor has been working with the koalas
03:47 for the last six months.
03:48 And in that time has noticed the different characters
03:51 of each of the koalas,
03:52 with some being more thrill-seeking than others.
03:55 - The lad is a bit more adventurous.
03:57 And I think sometimes she forgets that she's a koala
04:01 and you'll sometimes see her.
04:03 She'll try and climb the fig tree.
04:06 So you'll be in doing your cleaning, doing your pickup,
04:08 and you just hear all this rustling going on.
04:11 And you look up and you see,
04:12 instead of her trying to use the branching
04:14 we've created for her to get from A to B,
04:16 she'll instead launch herself, land on the fig tree,
04:20 which is a much thinner branch.
04:22 And due to the weight of her, it'll bend and move for her.
04:26 So she gets to her branch by basically holding
04:29 onto this tiny little fig branch.
04:30 It's almost like a cartoon.
04:31 You just see her moving and then getting across.
04:34 And she just looks ridiculous every time we do it.
04:37 Like she's got all these branches to choose,
04:39 but instead, no, she'd rather pick the fig tree
04:42 and just allow that to do the movement for her.
04:46 So yeah, she's definitely a bit more of a character
04:48 when it comes to the koala team compared to the other two.
04:52 - Talara's adventurous streak may have come
04:54 from her jet settee mum, Inala,
04:56 who last year boarded a Ryanair flight to Belgium
04:59 to join another zoo.
05:01 And despite having an economy seat, had first class service.
05:04 - She had her own ticket.
05:06 She had her own seat in the plane.
05:09 There's a photo on our social media pages
05:11 of one of our koala keepers with her,
05:13 holding her on place on this flight.
05:16 She got through her own security.
05:18 She got to go through customs.
05:20 She had her own little crate for her,
05:21 built with like a special branch.
05:22 So she was able to hold on to that during transport.
05:26 We picked out some of her favourites that we knew
05:28 she was fond of, so it would encourage her to eat.
05:30 So yeah, we had six species of eucalyptus
05:34 for her to go with her.
05:34 So then if she got peckish on the way
05:36 or if she wanted something to eat,
05:38 our koala team was able to feed her during her transit.
05:41 - And Eleanor said, "Working inside the koala enclosure
05:45 and being surrounded by eucalyptus
05:47 brings a unique experience
05:48 not found anywhere else in the zoo."
05:50 - It does have a nice fragrance that comes with it
05:55 compared to working with some of the other animals,
05:57 especially 'cause I work with birds and primates as well
06:00 as part of the section.
06:01 So it's quite refreshing when you're on the koala side
06:04 'cause it's one of those sections you probably go in
06:06 and you smell nicer coming out of it
06:08 than when you went into it,
06:09 just 'cause the fragrance of the eucalyptus is very strong.
06:13 So it's kind of nice for a change,
06:14 working with something that you know
06:16 isn't gonna make you come out smelling of God knows what.
06:19 So yeah, it's sometimes a refreshing change
06:21 when you see you're on the koala section,
06:22 you're like, "Oh, I'll smell of eucalyptus for the week."
06:26 So it is one of those ones that, yeah,
06:28 it's a kind of little added bonus to working with koalas,
06:31 but also you'll smell nice
06:32 when you're working with the koalas as well.
06:34 - After spending time in the koala territory,
06:37 it was now time to meet the tigers,
06:39 the largest of the big cats
06:41 and one of the largest carnivorous animals in the world.
06:44 There, we met zookeeper Helen Martin,
06:46 one of the zoo's longest serving members of staff,
06:49 and Luku, a male tiger who arrived at the zoo in 2020.
06:54 And on our arrival,
06:55 we found him enjoying his afternoon snack.
06:57 - So what we just gave him was little chunks of horse meat.
07:02 That is just a snack.
07:03 His normal feed would be like a big joint of horse
07:07 with the bone and the fur on it.
07:09 And a horse is what they mostly get,
07:11 but we also give them things like deer and calf as well.
07:14 We can present the food in different ways.
07:16 So sometimes we'll hang it up from the tree branches
07:18 or we've got some structures in the enclosure
07:21 where we can hang things from.
07:23 We might put it in a paper sack or a cardboard box.
07:26 So he's got to rip things open to get to it.
07:29 We can hide it under piles of leaves or behind rocks,
07:32 lots of different places within the enclosure
07:34 where we can hide things and he's got to find them.
07:36 So we'll never put it in the same place.
07:39 We'll hide in different places each time we feed them
07:42 and we'll try to vary the times that we feed them as well.
07:44 So he's never expecting a feed at a particular time.
07:47 - So it helps with stimulation.
07:49 - Exactly, yeah, yeah.
07:51 So, yeah.
07:51 So if he doesn't know when the food's coming,
07:53 he's not going to be then pacing
07:55 'cause he's expecting a feed at that time.
07:57 It just keeps him on his toes a little bit
07:59 as part of his enrichment.
08:01 - Want some snacks?
08:02 So I'm just giving him some little chunks of horse meat.
08:06 This is just a snack.
08:07 (footsteps)
08:10 - Feeding times are carefully planned
08:12 with tigers brought to the inside enclosure
08:14 while staff distribute food for their two tigers,
08:17 Luku and Dharma.
08:18 And Helen says this potentially challenging task
08:21 is made easier by Luku's willingness
08:23 to return to his den when asked.
08:26 - We're quite lucky with Luku.
08:27 He's very good at coming in when you call his name
08:31 and he'll just come in, usually anyway,
08:34 he'll come in and when you call him,
08:36 you can just lock him inside the house.
08:38 We're very tight in security,
08:39 so we double check everything
08:40 before we go out into the outside enclosure.
08:44 - It's estimated there are as few as 300 tigers
08:48 remaining in the wild due to the loss of their habitat
08:51 and poaching of tigers for illegal trade.
08:54 In an attempt to safeguard the future
08:56 of the beautiful species,
08:57 staff at the zoo and across
08:59 the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland
09:02 are carrying out research
09:03 to help inform conservation efforts.
09:05 As well as overseeing a breeding program here at Edinburgh Zoo.
09:10 - We do have a female here as well.
09:11 Tigers are part of the European breeding program
09:14 and we are trying to get them together
09:18 as a breeding pair that is recommended that they do breed.
09:20 So we're having a little bit of trouble
09:22 with that at the minute.
09:23 The male has not been very confident in the past
09:26 and we've been putting them together,
09:28 trying to build up his confidence around her.
09:30 And his other problem is he just doesn't know
09:32 what he's supposed to be doing, unfortunately.
09:35 So we're just trying to do as many introductions as we can
09:38 and hopefully at some point he'll get the hang
09:41 of what he's supposed to do.
09:43 - As part of the breeding program,
09:45 staff monitor the pair,
09:46 identifying days when the tigers can be introduced
09:49 in a bid to help the critically endangered species.
09:52 - They can see each other every night.
09:54 They're separated in the house at night
09:56 just by a panel of mesh
09:57 and they can see each other all night long.
09:59 And that gives us a chance to gauge
10:01 whether they're ready to go in with each other
10:03 in the morning.
10:04 And we just try and do introductions as often as we can,
10:07 just when we've got people available to do it
10:10 because we do need to be there to keep an eye on them
10:12 and make sure nothing goes wrong
10:14 and have people around that we can separate them
10:18 if we need to, if anything goes wrong.
10:20 It could be once a week,
10:23 it could be a few times a week,
10:24 depending on who's available.
10:26 - Whilst working with the tigers over the years,
10:30 Helena's noticed visitors misinterpret
10:32 the tigers' behaviors,
10:33 as well as learn about some peculiar bugbears
10:36 the tigers have.
10:37 - I'd say one of the challenges
10:39 is visitor perception of what they're doing.
10:42 So sometimes we'll get people
10:43 assuming they're stressed because they hear,
10:47 Luku, I had this yesterday,
10:49 I had Luku,
10:50 it sounds, when he's calling for the female,
10:53 it sounds quite distressed.
10:55 So a lady was very worried that he was distressed,
10:58 but he was just calling for the female
11:01 and it just happens that his call is quite mournful.
11:04 And also sometimes we'll get people saying
11:09 that they're pacing 'cause they're stressed,
11:10 but it just means usually that
11:13 they've seen a keeper with a bucket
11:16 and they're thinking they're gonna get a feed.
11:17 So either that or their patrolling behavior.
11:19 So we get often foxes around the back of the enclosure
11:23 and they just do a little bit of perimeter patrol,
11:27 bit of spraying,
11:28 just to make sure that they're maintaining
11:30 their territory boundaries.
11:32 Luku is a bit of a people watcher
11:33 and he's just interested in people with buggies.
11:38 We saw him doing that this morning,
11:40 but we do find that big cats have a particular dislike
11:44 for people in bobble hats or kids' buggies.
11:48 Not sure why that is,
11:49 but it's a funny thing that they don't like.
11:53 - Join us next time when we'll be returning to Edinburgh Zoo
11:56 to meet more animals and their keepers.
11:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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