Episode 5
The western chimpanzees welcome Pia back to the troop, but how will the young female respond to her treatment after her big operation?
Garth gets up close and personal with the West-African crocodiles at feeding time.
Sandra joins a young team from Trinity College for a fascinating study into biodiversity at Dublin Zoo, looking closely at some of its tiniest inhabitants, the invertebrates, from hover-flies and bumblebees to butterflies and moths.
And after bidding farewell to her son Zuko, Ashanti the southern white rhinoceros gives birth to another beautiful new calf.
Series Overview:
Perfect Sunday night viewing for the whole family, The Zoo TV series is returning to RTÉ One, taking viewers behind the scenes at Dublin Zoo with the animals who live there and the dedicated zookeepers who care for them. It’s a milestone year for the long-running series; its 10th season on Irish television, and this season has some incredible animal stories for viewers to enjoy.
It’s been an exciting year for Dublin Zoo’s young troop of western lowland gorillas. We catch up with Asali, the adventurous and independent-minded 6-month old gorilla who has been keeping the whole troop on their toes. There’s even more excitement in store as first-time mother Vana gets ready to give birth to an infant of her own.
At Sea Lion Cove, it’s all hands-on deck when California sea lions Cassie and Sienna give birth to two healthy and very vocal pups.
This year saw the much-anticipated arrival of a very special and very rare animal, the first of its kind to be born at Dublin Zoo; a new okapi calf. It’s a vital birth for the conservation of this beautiful and Critically Endangered Central African forest dwelling species.
And across the season there are many other incredible births to celebrate, including a beautiful new calf born to Maeve the Rothschild’s giraffe and a little southern white rhinoceros’ calf with a great zest for life born to his mother Ashanti, among others.
Garth brings us up close and personal with Dublin Zoo’s crocodiles at feeding time, while Susan and the veterinary team get to the bottom of some health concerns for the white-faced saki. Meanwhile there are dramatic scenes when the vets are called in for a life-saving operation to try to save Cahaya the siamang gibbon and her unborn infant. She needs an emergency blood transfusion, and only one animal at the zoo can help save her life; her partner Luca.
Dublin Zoo is home to a pack of European grey wolves, and when the new Wolves in the Wood habitat is built for them the whole team is excited to see how they will respond to their new home.
As always, conservation is a hugely important theme running throughout the series. This year Brendan travels to the desert landscape of North Africa to visit a conservation project in Tunisia that has an incredible goal; bringing the scimitar-horned oryx, a beautiful species of antelope, back from extinction.
Dublin Zoo’s location at the heart of Phoenix Park makes it a sanctuary for an abundance of native species, including some incredible birds. This series also looks at conservation issues closer to home, as Sandra joins a team of bird ringers down by the lake with the tricky task of ringing a family of swans and their cygnets.
Sandra also joins a young team of researchers from Trinity College for an important task of microscopic proportions. They are studying some of the zoo’s tiniest inhabitants, the invertebrates; from hoverflies and bumblebees to moths and butterflies, to help tackle Ireland’s biodiversity crisis.
Other animals featured in this season include the Bornean orangutans, Goeldi’s monkeys, western chimpanzees, snow leopards and Asian elephants among many others.
This latest season of ‘The Zoo’ is sponsored by renewable energy provider SSE Airtricity.
Produced by Moondance Productions for RTÉ