The Zoo

Brendan Walsh will soon be swapping his uniform for a tuxedo after signing up to be the first ever Zookeeper escort in the Rose of Tralee. In this episode he meets the press and introduces the Dublin and Cavan Roses to some of his animal friends, including some particularly friendly ring tailed lemurs.

On his morning rounds Zookeeper James Creigthon notices that Mayani the gorilla seems to be in a lot of pain and on closer inspection it turns out she’s got a major problem with her teeth. It looks like someone might need a little visit from the dentist.

It’s a big day in the African Plains. Last summer, the birth of a white rhino calf at the Zoo was the first event of its kind in fourteen years. Team leader, Helen Clarke Bennett has been hoping for a repeat performance ever since. A specialist team from Germany, headed up by vet Robert Hermes has arrived to assess the rhinos’ potential as a breeding group.

Dublin Zoo’s large troop of Sulawesi Crested Macaques has been a single sex colony for quite some time, and the females are getting restless. But the Zoo thinks it may have found the perfect male to join their troop. The only problem is he’s all the way over in Somerset in England.

Sometimes love hurts, and, in the case of zookeeper and life-long lover of reptiles Gareth de Jong, sometimes it hurts a lot. Gareth takes us on an up close and personal tour of Dublin Zoo’s reptile house as he feeds and introduces some of the Zoo’s reptiles, including the Burmese pythons, Nile crocodiles and newly born baby chameleons.

Plans are in place to move the Gorillas from their old habitat to a new one on the other side of the Zoo, but for now, the old place is going to get one last radical overhaul. While zookeeper James prepares their food and gets their indoor habitat ready, curator of horticulture Stephen Butler has grand plans to move an enormous poplar tree into the habitat for the Gorillas’ enjoyment.