My Australia: Episode 07 - Part 3

Hi guys, do you mind if is ask you some questions about animals?
Yes, all right.
Do you ...
You want to slide in there?
Oh thank you. Do you guys have a favourite Australian animal?
Um, yeah. I guess it would be the wombat.
The wombat. Why?
Coz um ...
It's like a little bear.
Sorry?
It looks like a little bear.
I think a koala.
A koala?
Yeah, they look very lovely.
And what about you?
Kangaroo.
Platypus I would say.
Platypus.
Okay, why?
It's cute, it's shy.
I really would like to see a kangaroo and a koala.
Yeah, the paddymelon.
What's the paddymelon?
It's a little wallaby.
Koalas I think.
Okay, why?
Oh, I like them because they're very lazy and I would just like to be like them, just
sleep all day and do nothing and just eat and eat and sleep.
So, it looks like everyone's got their personal favourite Aussie animal.
I really like sulphur-crested cockatoos because it looks like they're wearing a yellow rubber
glove on their head. But that's just me.
Priya is about to spend the day volunteering at Sydney's famous Taronga Zoo.
I wonder which animals she'll like best.
Priya grew up in India and Malaysia and describes her childhood as 'a bit chaotic'.
She also spent three years living in the United States when her mother was studying there.
She says she was a quiet child who loved watching TV.
I decided to come to Australia because it's a great country.
I've heard a lot of good things about the country. It's very multicultural.
It's got great universities especially for what I wanted to do which was business.
Where I live now is actually in an apartment.
It's very close to uni as well it's also very close to my work.
So it's extremely convenient.
I've got two wonderful housemates from Norway.
Rif is also living here. We're just in the phase of sort of moving everything in so it
looks a little messy.
I met Rif in Malaysia.
We decided to come to Australia, which is probably one of the best choices we've made.
To relax I like talking to my flatmates, being on the laptop watching movies, TV shows, talking
on the phone.
I work full time at Datacom.
I'm a customer service representative but I would love to join an organisation like
United Nations.
That would be my goal but I don't think that's going to happen.
If I had a choice I would definitely live in Australia.
I like the fact that it's very laid back, it's very tolerant.
You can just sort of be yourself.
I'm going to be a volunteer today. I'm very excited about that.
I get to be up close with the animals and it's a great opportunity.
I'm doing this because I love animals and also it's a great opportunity actually be
behind the scenes.
So Priya, what we'll do first is we'll feed the ducks and a single goose that we have.
We get a lot of birds that can't be released back to the wild.
Okay.
And we look after them here at the Zoo.
But they obviously live a little bit longer in captivity because there's no predators
here and we've got full-time vets that look after them.
And they get room-service twice a day.
On hot day particularly it's very important that we take good care of the animals.
They can get overheated the same as what we can.
And particularly our emu doesn't deal overly well with heat so on a warm day like today
something that she absolutely loves is a nice cold shower.
One of the most important things again that we need to do every day is have a good look
at our animals
and a good way of doing that is to come up and give them a little something to eat.
And that then gives us the opportunity to just get in close and have a good look and
make sure they're all healthy.
It's got very nice fur.
Oh, they're lovely and soft.
And do they like water?
They do actually. They're very good swimmers as well.
On a hot day they love to go for a swim out in the wild.
I just saw the Sumatran tiger.
It was absolutely amazing. It was huge.
It was so beautiful to look at and the tiger actually came towards the window so I got
a very good look at the tiger and he was just walking in front of me.
And it was just spectacular. It was amazing to see.
The meerkats are so cute. They're extremely tiny.
I've tried again and again to get a sort of good shot from my phone but I'm not able to
see anything because they're so small and adorable to look at.
They're just so cute.
So we're just going to feed out Priya. If you want to grab some of these branches ...
Sure.
So we bring them in new food every single day.
Is there any reason why the entire branch is being brought in or?
They're really fussy so they like to pick and choose which of the leaves they want to
eat.
So they're much better at telling apart which ones are good for them and which ones aren't,
so we tend to leave the choices to them.
And they are quite picky.
So there's about eight hundred different kinds of eucalyptus. They only eat about sixty of
those.
And of all the leaves on this, they only really like those nice fresh tips at the top there.
So they're very fussy indeed.
When do they drink?
They actually get all their water from those eucalyptus leaves as well.
So they don't have to come down and drink from a water source on the ground which is
quite handy.
They can stay up in the trees where they're nice and safe and they don't have any predators.
The Aboriginal word for koala means no drink, so we've known that they don't drink for a
long time now.
Okay. I just saw my favourite animal, the red panda and I'm extremely happy that I saw
it.
It's so cute. It's extremely adorable.
It's a lot smaller than I expected.
And I'm really happy I got to see it.
Come on, Target. Come on mate. That's a boy.
This tree kangaroo is the Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo. They're actually from Papua New
Guinea.
They're a kangaroo that has evolved to live up in the trees instead of on the ground.
Wow.
Good. There he goes.
We've got a little bit of avocado as a treat which is his little reward.
Are they rare or endangered in any way?
They are listed as endangered. Basically they have been hunted in their native habitat for
their beautiful coat.
So they've got this lovely red and yellow coat and unfortunately that's a prize possession.
But they would also be hunted for food.
We're going to ... I'm gonna just do a touch for him, see if he'll let me.
Touch, good,
and then when I ask again, get you to put your hand and you can touch him.
Touch, good,
and keep patting him. There you go,
so we're basically wanting him to be able to accept other people to touch him as well.
I've never been this close to an animals before. It's nice.
He's got one of his favourites, which is banana.
Today's trip to the zoo was absolutely wonderful.
I've had so much interaction with the animals and I didn't expect to work so close with
the animals.
I got to pet them. I got to feed them and it was just absolutely amazing.
Coming to Taronga Zoo has just been such a wonderful experience and I'll never forget
it.
That tree kangaroo was so cute. I think I want one as pet.
Thanks for watching My Australia.
Here's what we've got for you next week.
Raymund hits the water in search of dolphins.
Saj experiences the very social sport of lawn bowls
and Selby goes back in time at a Gold Rush theme park.
See you then.