Jane Healy , Auckland Zoo
Starts Saturday 8 October, 7pm on Three
Auckland Zoo is coming to your screens from Saturday 8 October (7pm on Three and streaming on threenow.co.nz) in an exciting new wildlife conservation series, ‘Wild Heroes’.
Produced with our partners, Magnetic Pictures, this nine-episode series takes you behind-the-scenes here at the Zoo, and out into the wild across Aotearoa New Zealand to discover the vital roles a modern progressive zoo like Auckland plays in 2022 – our 100th year!
From Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf islands to the forests of the Coromandel and on the South Island’s west coast, you can follow our specialist staff and the mahi they do with our conservation partners to help protect and conserve some of our most extraordinary and threatened taonga.
Onsite at the Zoo (now home to more than 2,200 animals and 137 different species) our keeping and veterinary staff and many other specialists share daily life with you – in a way you’ve never experienced before. From the arrival and births/hatches of giraffe, orangutan, rhino, kiwi, and the mighty wētāpunga to caring for wild patients like kākāpō and sea turtles at the Zoo’s vet hospital and introducing you to incredible new habitats like our new swamp forest for Sunda gharial crocodiles, ‘Wild Heroes’ is essential viewing!
It's been over a decade since Auckland Zoo has featured in a television series (some of you may remember The Zoo show) and the Zoo has evolved and transformed dramatically in this time.
This exciting series starts Saturday 8 October, 7pm on Three
“Wild Heroes is not your average zoo programme,” says Auckland Zoo’s head of animal care and conservation,” Richard Gibson.
“Over the last 10 years, we’ve worked on more than 50 conservation projects around New Zealand with Department of Conservation (DOC), universities, and other NGOs and community groups. These projects see our staff working out in the field utilising the intensive wildlife management skills they’ve learnt here at the Zoo, and we really wanted to showcase this in Wild Heroes, along with connecting viewers with all the action at the Zoo.
“Viewers will also get to see just how much the Zoo has transformed physically, and our latest development – our South East Asia Jungle Track - is an incredible example of this. From 25-metre-high aerial pathways for our primates, to a state-of-the-art swamp forest habitat for crocodiles and fish that we’ve created within a climate-controlled tropical dome, these latest habitats are ground-breaking – for both animals and our visitors,” says Richard.
In the very first episode of Wild Heroes (8 October): The Zoo’s primate team welcomes the birth of Bornean orangutan baby Bahmi. Some of our ectotherm specialists head into the Pureora Forest to conduct vital survey work on Aotearoa’s endemic Archey’s frog – the world’s most evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered amphibian. And at the Zoo, bird keeper Sarah introduces you to the world’s only alpine parrot, and Monica (our head of zoo environment, design, and construction) to our South East Asia Jungle Track – the biggest development in our history.
Excitingly, 8 October brings you a special full hour (double episode) of Wild Heroes. Episode two sees an update on baby orangutan Bahmi, the arrival of Sumatran tiger Sali, and an incredible story of the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of marine sea turtles!
