Episode 2 Nature's Miracle Babies

'All across the world an extraordinary group of people

'are on a mission to save some of our most critically endangered animals.

'We're going to meet those people and the animals they love.'

Good, be fierce. That's what you need to be.

'I'm Martin Hughes-Games. I trained as a zoologist and I've spent the last 30 years

'making wildlife films.'

You've eaten my microphone again!

'And over that time I've seen with my own eyes the challenges facing our natural world.'

I'm going to take you on a journey around the world to discover the courage, the commitment,

the sheer blood, sweat and tears that it takes to drag a species

back from the edge of extinction, to create Nature's Miracle Babies.

For me, these have to be the most beautiful big cats on Earth.

This is an Amur leopard,

but wouldn't it be better if he was running around in the wild, free?

I'm going to be controversial now,

because I'm actually very glad that he is here in a zoo in captivity.

Now, that may sound very weird,

but I think, when you hear the whole story, you'll come to agree with me.

In this programme, we'll also be meeting three lonely ladies looking for love.

I'll be with orphaned baby elephants getting ready for a life back in the wild.

And Lily the lion cub, a very special, very rare baby

whose first breath could easily have been her last.

My first stop is way off the beaten track,

it's on the border between Russia and Korea,

and if I get very, very lucky I may get to see one of these in the wild.

So what exactly is an Amur leopard? Where do they live?

Perhaps not where you might expect.

There are actually nine different types of leopard worldwide

and Amur leopards live in Russia, in the vast frozen forests

on the Korean/Russian border.

Next question - how many of them are there actually in the wild?

And, by the way, aren't they breathtaking animals?

So how many? Well, no-one can be absolutely sure,

but, when these individuals were filmed in 2004,

it was thought there might be about 30 individuals left in the wild.

Yep, that's it. 30.

The Amur leopard is the rarest big cat on Earth.

Kedrovaya Pad is a National Park, and scientist Linda Kerley knows it intimately.

She's been on the trail of the Amur here in Russia for 14 years.

How many wild Amur leopards have you actually seen yourself?

-Just one.

-What a minute, one?

-Just one.

-In 14 years?

Yeah, in 14 years.

That's a fairly elusive animal, right?

They only know for sure that the big cats are here from the signs they leave behind,

things like paw prints.

Linda, what's that?

-I'm not kidding you.

-My gosh!

I'm not kidding you. And look at that!

I can see the individual pads here, and it's kind of refrozen,

so it's quite solid in there. I can feel each one of the pads.

That's really clear.

Genuine Amur leopard footprint.

-And quite recent as well, Linda, don't you reckon?

-Yeah, it's sometime in the evening,

last night, or the night before, when the snow was still soft.

-As recent as that?

-Yeah.

So this is about...a little bit more than five and a half, so that's the size of a female.

But this is an adult female... has walked right where we are now?

-Yeah.

-'Footprints aren't the only proof

'that big cats roam this forest.'

Check out this tree, see how it's leaning?

And there's a little bit of dark,

-and there's some hair.

-Oh, there is!

Let's see if we can get a smell.

-Ah, yeah.

-Can you?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is a sort of message post for cats in the area.

And they've not only urinated, but they've also rubbed their cheeks.

It's a little bit unnerving...

but amazing at the same time!

'If they never see them,

'how do they know how many Amur leopards there are?

'Well, they use these - remote cameras, triggered by the animal's movement.'

Wouldn't it be fantastic if we got lucky?

Spot on, right. One more little test.

Unfortunately, the only image my camera detected was me.

But look at these.

Real pictures of real wild Amurs.

Each individual can be identified by their unique pattern of spots

so none is counted twice.

They're like ghosts, they're shadows,

they're just SO elusive.

There are so many threats facing the Amur leopard. I mean,

you've got the long-term things, but very short-term things, things like

a little bit more poaching, or even a really, really harsh winter,

that could be the end.

So, what can we do?

Breeding in captivity could be the answer.

Colchester Zoo in the UK is just starting to try to breed the Amur

and all hopes are pinned on this very special lady.

Another critically endangered animal was the western lowland gorilla.

At London Zoo, a family drama worthy of a soap opera is being played out.

Think EastEnders, with a twist!

Meet the primate version of the Slater sisters...

..Effie, Zaire

and the baby of the group, Mjukuu.

Dan Simmonds and Iona Stewart know the girls better than anyone

and have an intimate understanding of their very different characters.

It's always nice, to keep us entertained, to have scenarios

of what the animals would drink. Zaire wouldn't be the classiest bird in the bar.

She's a big girl so she'd definitely be first all in, in leopard skin.

If you think sort of Pat Butcher... The drink would have to be tacky, but strong and of big volume,

so we're thinking a pint of creme de menthe.

Effie's a bit of a bruiser so we reckon 15 to 20 pints of Stella,

but she loves food so it'll be pies and peanuts,

literally all the pies and the peanuts, or she'd create havoc in the bar.

-Mjukuu, something an irresponsible adolescent would drink.

-Alcopops.

Whoever's next to her at the time and most influential, she'd drink what they drink.

Family is as important to gorillas as it is to us.

But here in London, there's a problem -

three gorillas, three FEMALE gorillas, no bloke.

But the worldwide gorilla stud book - no, it does exist -

the animal equivalent of online dating, has found a solution.

Across the Channel at La Boissiere Zoo in France

is a big, strong and, importantly, available young male.

He's called Yeboah.

Yeboah's got all the right genes which are vital in captive breeding,

and he's rather handsome, too.

To prepare the girls for Yeboah's arrival,

Dan and Iona have had a brilliant idea.

'I love this.'

Well, we thought a nice trick to introduce them, if you like, before he actually arrives

is some laminated photos. There's one each so there's no squabbling,

and they'll have a chance to just pick them up and meet their new man.

You really can look at gorillas and say some are

a bit on the ugly side and some are really good looking, and actually Yeboah's a good-looking boy

so who knows if they do recognise a gorilla from a photograph.

I think they do, and fingers crossed, when he arrives,

they'll remember that, "Oh, you're the one from the photos."

Iona's on her way to France

to bring 12-year-old Yeboah back to London.

Sebastien has been Yeboah's keeper for nine years and he knows

it's time for him to go to become part of a proper family,

but even then saying goodbye isn't easy.

Oh, I'm sure he will be perfect.

He's so intelligent, so social, and I think he has...

almost nothing to learn.

I need to go.

I need to go, Yeboah!

He's lovely, brilliant.

Bon, les gars? Yeboah?

See you, see you later.

This is going to be a journey into the unknown for Yeboah.

He's been surrounded by males for the last few years

so girls are an unknown quantity.

He was absolutely brilliant, which was really lovely because

it's very stressful when they travel, and you can't help but get a bit tense about it,

so it was such a relief, so nice to see how great he was.

I almost could have had him in the cab next to me he was so good!

Yeboah may be genetically ideal, but that's no guarantee that he'll be welcomed

by these three feisty females. But if he is, and all goes well,

he could father the first baby gorilla London Zoo has bred for over 20 years.

If endangered animals are to survive they have to breed,

in captivity or in the wild, which brings us back

-to the Amur leopard. The closest

-I

-came to a wild Amur

in its home territory was a footprint.

Now it's time to come home.

This is Colchester Zoo,

thousands of miles away from those frozen Russian forests.

And yet it's places like this that hold the key to the survival of the Amur leopard.

Although there's only 30, 35 left in the wild,

there's around 300 Amur leopards in places like this

so there's a worldwide effort to establish a successful breeding programme.

But just think about it, Amur leopard,

maybe 60 kilograms of muscle, claws, teeth, lightning reflexes.

When you put them together to try and breed, when boy meets girl,

if they don't get on things could go catastrophically wrong.

This is Vicky Ledbrook,

sometimes known as Cat Vicky.

To say that she's obsessed with these animals is an understatement.

Oh, Sayan!

He moves fast, doesn't he?

Vicky knows the cats better than anyone else,

and we're going backstage to meet someone very special.

When we go in here, you are just going to have a mesh window

between you and her, so obviously be cautious.

Melina!

Come on, Melina!

Melina! Come on, girl!

'Chicken drumstick, anyone?'

Come on, Melina. Good girl. We use the stick for safety.

They're so quick, they can quite easily chomp fingers.

Hello, come up here, then!

-Look at that!

-Good girl. CAT PURRS

Now, what's that noise she's making?

It's just a purring noise. All leopards to my experience do it.

It's not an aggressive noise at all, it's like a contact noise.

Is it?

Gosh!

Inches away from an Amur leopard.

Hello, you. Good girl.

Melina has never bred before.

So she's four and a half. She came to us when she was just one year old.

-Do you want to have a go?

-Yeah, I'd love to, please.

'Vicky uses a red ball to train Melina.

'If she touches it with her nose, she gets a food reward.

'The training gives Vicky a little control.

'Melina is absolutely beautiful, but...slight bad breath issues.'

Melina! Good girl.

Yes, good girl.

Oops, she's sorry, sorry.

That's all right. It's not the first cane to have ever got chomped!

That far! Oh, I'm Sorry. Sorry, Vicky,

it's quite a new experience for me.

'Melina is prime breeding age

'and Vicky hopes she can get her pregnant as soon as possible.'

-Good girl.

-That takes two!

'Next door is her potential mate, Sayan.

'He's an ideal genetic match, he's unrelated, and, with so few Amur leopards left in the wild,

'it's important to avoid inbreeding. Like Melina, he's a virgin,

'and at three years old he's only just sexually mature.'

What we're going to do, we'll try and get Sayan into here now.

This is our setup here. We've got a mesh door and a tunnel that links the two enclosures.

So they can see each other and they can actually sniff each other literally through there,

-they're nose to nose.

-Sayan! Hello!

He's a good boy, he's a good boy!

He's having a good peer around now.

He can smell her, she uses this quite a lot, and also what

I've done in the past as well, I've given them bedding from each other.

So you're gradually getting them used to each other.

Yeah, so they can smell each other's smell.

In the wild, leopards only come together to mate.

Melina is only in season for a few days each month

so timing is everything.

So Vicky, what might happen if you got the timing wrong?

If we mixed them and she wasn't in season any more,

-the hormonal attraction wouldn't be there and he could possibly kill her.

-He could attack her?

-Yeah.

-Or her him, even.

-You have to be absolutely right, then, you've got to know it exactly.

Yes, indeed. It's exciting, but still very scary at the same time.

We have to do it, they're so endangered, we can't not breed them. You worry what'll happen.

You've got to do it so it's just getting it right.

But will they get it right? And if not,

what's going to happen?

Most big cats live alone, but lions are the exception,

and these are even more exceptional lions, they're Barbary lions,

quite different from their African plains cousins.

Barbary lions are the heraldic symbol of England -

they're the ones guarding Trafalgar Square.

Once they roamed wild in North Africa,

but the last one was shot nearly a century ago,

which makes the 80 or so in captivity a lifeline for the species.

Have you ever had that awful experience with your own pet cat

when, for no apparent reason, they kill and eat their own kittens?

Well, it happens with big cats, too, and that is what happened here.

A male cub was found dead and the female, Lily, was being mauled by her mum,

but Belfast zookeeper Linda Frew saved her life.

And she actually dropped Lily just where Kate is standing here.

We had three lions in the paddock. What happened is we threw some food over.

The lions stand there out of her way and we were able

with a brush just to push it through and kind of scoop Lily

under the very small gap under the door.

Returning Lily to her own family wasn't an option - she wouldn't be accepted and might even be killed.

So Linda took her home, where she became just a regular member of the Frew family.

We never really left her alone during the first few weeks of life because she was obviously so small and tiny.

Sometimes I do feel like a mother, but I think I have this bit in the back of my head telling me,

you know, she's a lion.

My children, they all mucked in. Even my sons were very aware that this was a very special lion,

these are Barbary lions, these are extinct in the wild. There's not

even that many left in zoos so this was a very precious baby.

As loving as Linda and her family are,

Lily couldn't get TOO dependent on them.

She's a lion, she had to get used to a bit of rough and tumble.

She couldn't go back to her family, so what to do?

She was given a playmate,

a Japanese Akita dog called, appropriately enough, "Keeper".

His job basically was to recognise behavioural differences,

to teach Lily how to behave like an animal,

and it went very well because basically, no matter what animal it is,

babies like to play, and so there was quite a lot of play started happening, which is what we wanted.

Lily's human family gave her a fantastic start in life,

but she was in danger of thinking she was human,

and she was also getting big.

It was time to break the bonds.

Every healthy Barbary lion gives hope,

and Lily could play a part in securing the future of her species,

but only if she could breed, and that couldn't happen in Belfast.

Last year she moved to Olomouc Zoo in the Czech Republic

for what was hoped to be a love match with resident male Simon.

So we'd seen pictures of Simon and everything and he looked a very handsome fellow,

but you worry about the introductions

because she hadn't been with another lion and you worry - "Will she accept him, will he accept her?"

But she surprised everyone -

just three months after meeting Simon, she gave birth to twins.

With the start she had, it's amazing she's taken to motherhood so effortlessly.

She's a natural.

All the love and care given to a tiny traumatised cub has paid off.

Linda hasn't been to the Czech Republic so she was thrilled to see

OUR footage of the proud new mum.

She is, I have to say, absolutely fantastic looking, and this is going

to sound very stupid, but actually, you know, looking like a real lion.

I always have a wee picture of her as just a cub and a wee bit bigger now,

but certainly looking like something now that you wouldn't mess with.

And here's her with her cubs, this is the first I've seen her together with the cubs now

and that is fantastic.

They're big, fat cubs,

looking really well and really healthy.

Absolutely beautiful.

Look at that, the cub's just lying beside her and...

attacking her, and it's biting her!

She is so good. You're a good girl, Lily, yes.

You just do want to go over and squeeze them.

It does me good to see her so well, and her cubs,

and she must be so proud of them, because I am.

But to actually see something that you played a major part in,

you know, coming full circle, it's...lovely.

And at London Zoo, they're hoping to hear the patter of tiny feet.

Keepers Dan and Iona are trying to breed

their western lowland gorillas. French hunk Yeboah has just arrived

and it's time to meet the girls.

How will Zaire, Effie and Mjukuu take to the new arrival?

Yeboah needs time to settle in and meet his new family.

They're all in the night quarters, away from prying eyes.

Dan and Iona are rigged with helmet cameras

to make a record of those first important meetings.

How would it go?

Right, he's been with them for probably about two hours now.

It's going well, we couldn't have dreamed for any better.

He's just done his first mating warble towards Mjukuu,

our youngest female, this is exactly what we predicted.

He's also just been chilling out, lying on his back, playing, eating loads, drinking loads.

He's really happy, Mjukuu's obsessed with him.

I think he's already got his eye on her and she's likewise,

so I think there's a bit of love in the air.

So far, so brilliant.

Yeboah's settling into his new home and it looks like

teenage temptress Mjukuu has convinced him to leave his bachelor days behind.

Away from the public gaze, things are warming up.

Iona's mobile phone is awash with...

Well, a picture's worth a thousand words.

The first time that she approached him in his nest area,

which is a huge thing for both of them, but especially for him, it was a massive step.

He was like the sort of teenage boy in his bedroom

with his girlfriend who's just taken her bra off. He knows it's what he wants,

but he's kind of not exactly sure, "What do I do now?"

Gorillas are naturally quite self-conscious in general.

These two clearly are not shy.

The actual moment when Yeboah lost his virginity

was him lying on his back with Mjukuu on top of him,

and Yeboah just going like this, crazy, like the most exciting thing he's ever done in his whole life!

Iona can't wait to see if the mating was a success, so how do you find out if a gorilla is pregnant?

Simple. They're so like us, Iona can use a HUMAN pregnancy test.

Here we go. With a name and a date on it,

and a little line there that shows...

that it's positive.

Mjukuu is pregnant. Best to be sure, though.

There's another one, there's another one, another Jookie one,

there's another one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight so far, that might be it!

I think we can safely say there's a baby on the way!

It's a perfect beginning for this new gorilla family.

And a new family is what they're hoping for at Colchester Zoo.

Keeper Vicky is waiting for the moment when female Amur leopard Melina

shows that she's ready to be introduced to Sayan, the male.

If there's a successful mating, it will be a first for Melina,

AND for Colchester Zoo.

They're not the only zoo trying to breed Amurs,

and I've crossed the Channel to visit one of the others.

I'm here in France, very close to Paris,

and I'm glad to say romance has blossomed

and there's been a result.

Parc des Felins is heaven for captive cats -

they have the biggest enclosures I've ever seen, huge, and this year

they've struck gold, because their female Amur leopard

has given birth to her first litter - not one, not two, but three gorgeous cubs!

Curator Gregory Breton has been keeping a close eye on them

from the day they were born, using cameras placed in the den.

These cats can be super sensitive with a new litter.

Ki-La is a first-time mum, so for the first few weeks

they were left as undisturbed as possible.

And was she a good mother, was she looking after them as well?

Yep, yep.

She was licking them with dedication, you know,

and very protective, yeah.

Is that normal, would you expect her to be that good first time?

You never know with cats, but in this case she got three cubs,

so it was very positive for her, and she adapt very well, yeah.

Now, the cubs were born about two months ago, and since then

Gregory and the team have kept contact to an absolute minimum,

just left them with the mum, but today we've got to pick 'em up, and that's for a very good reason -

it's time for their vaccinations, a really important health check.

But it's a little bit tense, little bit nervous,

because they've had such little contact with humans

we're not quite sure how they'll react, but we'll see.

Quite nervous now.

This'll be a first, absolute first.

-And they try to hide.

-Look at that,

they're smaller than...

Ah, look, look, look, look!

Fantastic!

But they're quite nervous, which is good - look at him snarling -

because they're not used to humans at all, which is the way you want it to be, yeah?

'They need to be handled correctly.

'This is the way Mum would hold them, it doesn't hurt them at all.'

There you go, that's a fairly miraculous handful.

Two Amur leopards,

three, that's 10% of the wild population in our hands.

Right, here we go.

'First, Gregory wants to weigh them.

'Now, how's that going to work?'

Use your hand to open the bag.

OK. Head first?

-Try head first.

-Any which way.

LION SNARLS

C'est bien.

-Never easy!

-OK, back.

-Back.

Look at her, little snarly thing.

Good, good, good, good.

-She's not happy, yeah?

-She's not happy,

but I think that's a good thing, yeah?

There we go, well done.

OK, I just had a thought, Gregory - putting her in is one thing,

how am I going to get her out?!

-Look.

-OK, are you ready?

-250.

-Two and a half, 250 kilos, is that good?

-Yeah.

-She's coming on nicely?

-Yeah.

First blood to Amur leopard.

Little bit of bleeding, but it's in a good cause!

'This is the front line of saving species from extinction

'because, without places like this and people like Gregory,

'these beautiful creatures WILL disappear, forever.'

You don't like this much, do you, you poor old thing? But it has to be done.

'While I'm here with these feisty cubs, in Colchester hopes are high.

'If all goes to plan, they too could have an Amur family.

'Vicky is excited, but a bundle of nerves.'

We've been watching Melina closely now for a few months to try and gauge her seasons.

We're quite sure she's in season, We're mixing them today.

Absolutely anything could happen, so it was always going to be a risk,

but I'm quite nervous, actually.

Melina and Sayan are powerful predators.

Amurs only come together to mate, and if the timing is wrong it could be disastrous.

But what can they actually do if one cat attacks the other?

If they don't get on, we've got things in place like hoses,

fire extinguishers. We can't go in to split them up so we're just going to be squirting things

and shouting through the bars. It's the best we can do.

If the worst comes to the worst, they bring out the big guns, literally.

This is our darting rifle.

It's not something that we like to use when you're putting cats together

but it's just in case we have a situation where we feel things are getting completely out of control.

Sometimes you put two cats together and they fight like cat and dog.

'Everyone is in position, everyone's ready.'

Let's just hope it all goes well today.

Hey, baby. Hey, baby!

Good girl!

OK, I'm just letting Sayan out.

The trap's opening.

OK, Sayan's gone.

The moment of truth.

(Oh, my God, it's so nerve racking!)

Here we go.

Will they get along, or will it end in tragedy?

(God, I can't believe they're in together.)

Has Vicky got the timing right?

Will these two virgins even know what to do?

No.

Melina's quick to see Sayan off.

No damage is done, but it can still go horribly wrong.

After a long wait, Melina finally begins to show interest.

She's more or less following him

around the enclosure, checking out his scent.

He's hiding away from her.

Sayan is obviously very nervous.

Even though Melina's starting to show all the right signs,

it's too late, Sayan doesn't want to know.

First she went for him and then tried to cosy up,

he's having none of it. In fact, he just wants to get out of here.

Hello, baby boy, all right?

Aww, I feel sorry for him.

Because he's so stressed out, we're going to let him go through to his own enclosure tonight

and just try again in the morning, but I do feel it lessens our chances.

-Come on, Sayan, all right.

-Vicky's desperately disappointed,

but it's only the first attempt,

and they're both very young and very inexperienced.

I've got him in the tunnel, I'll take him to his enclosure.

Vicky's certainly not going to give up.

Patience is a virtue ALL keepers must share, and hopefully that patience will be rewarded,

because this would be the result.

Now, this is more than just a sweet little cub,

quite fierce little cub.

If you think about it, there's just 30-35 Amur leopards left in the wild

so having three more - her and her two little brothers - is a crucial step forward

in the conservation of these cats,

and only a handful of zoos around the world

have managed to breed these leopards in the last 12 months.

So this is one of the rarest cubs in the world.

But what does the future hold?

Good, be fierce, that's what you need to be!

In truth, these babies will never be released back into the wild.

Growing up in a zoo,

they'll soon be too accustomed and unafraid of humans to even risk it,

but their children or grandchildren might just get that chance.

There's an ambitious plan to take captive bred animals back to Russia

and create a second wild population.

They'll breed in huge semi-wild enclosures with minimal human contact.

Any babies born will grow up in the natural environment,

away from people, making them ready for a life in the wild.

And a life in the wild is the hope for these orphaned baby elephants.

I'm off to Kenya to see if it can be achieved.

And we'll be catching up with the gorillas in London Zoo.

They're having a baby after a 20-year wait.

My next stop - Kenya, 4,500 miles from London

and a world away from captive breeding.

I'm here to meet another animal family,

but a family with a difference.

Just outside Nairobi is the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Orphanage,

and I'm on the milk round.

Yes, you're right, they're babies' bottles,

they're just very big babies' bottles.

'Project Manager Edwin Lusichi wanted to become a priest.

'12 years ago he decided to minister to an entirely different congregation.'

(Look, running for breakfast.)

Somebody's hungry!

-You have to lift the bottle.

-Lift the bottle.

-She's accepted me.

-Yeah, she has.

Now, these are all orphan baby elephants.

Their mothers have all died, they've either been killed or died of natural causes,

so some of them had the most appalling start in life,

but they're safe here.

Most orphans have lost their mums to poachers supplying the ivory trade. It's still a huge problem

and estimates put the numbers of adults killed

as high as 4,000 a year.

But the ambition is not just to keep these elephants alive, it's much greater than that -

the hope is that they can return every single one of these orphans

to the wild.

Recovery from the trauma is a long process,

as Edwin knows only too well.

They saw their mothers being killed,

they saw their families being separated from them,

and, since elephants have got a very strong memory,

they will remember that for the rest of their life.

It's not enough just to provide the physical care these babies need.

Some of them are stressed to an extent that they can die.

-They can die just from so much stress?

-And trauma.

They need protection, they need care, they need love

and this is what we provide to them.

Edwin and his team have to become their family and earn their trust.

In the wild, elephants live in family groups,

and like our families they live, love and learn surrounded by others.

So the keepers become mum, dad, aunty, uncle and most important, friends.

These babies need 24-hour, 365-days-a-year care...

Ow!

..and they return that love in spades, even to a visitor like me.

I know I should've got a hair cut,

but I'd rather you didn't give it to me, please, by pulling!

Mutara and I are establishing...

quite a strong bond.

'Mutara is one of the youngest orphans here, she's just seven months old,

'and, just like human kids, she has her own security blanket,

'which also keeps her warm.' Bliss.

She's gorgeous, but the story of her early life...

is absolutely tragic.

Mutara was found alone by a roadside in northern Kenya.

She was thought to be just seven days old.

Her mother was probably killed for her tusks,

and she was so weak she wasn't expected to survive.

Here she is seven months on, perfectly healthy, loved

and cherished.

Elephants have a similar life expectancy to us, and in the wild

babies aren't weaned until they're around two years old

and until then they rely totally on mother's milk.

But, with no mothers around, finding the right sort of milk

was a massive problem and threatened the whole programme,

as orphanage founder Dame Daphne Sheldrick told me.

I just can't remember how many died in my care.

We tried this milk, we tried that milk, we got the analysis of elephant's milk

from zoos, and it was high in fat.

Then we tried adding butter, cream, but that killed them quicker.

And then I tried giving them just skimmed milk

with no cow's milk fat and they lived longer, but they just wasted away,

so then I knew it was a fat problem, and so then I went round looking

for human baby formulas that had vegetable oils

rather than cow's milk fat, and then we were on the right track.

30 years of research and dedication paid off.

The success rate with orphans has soared

and has paid dividends for Mutara,

who would almost certainly have died but for the success of the substitute milk.

You must feel that it's been worthwhile.

Oh, you know when you go down there and you see them all romping around

and growing up and so happy and normal and you remember how they were when they came in, it is.

Breakfast over, it's playtime.

Team spirit, fantastic.

Basic skills, needs work.

Days are spent learning to be real elephants.

The babies are becoming part of a herd for the first time.

Elephants, you know, are very clever animals, and as they come in

the baby ones will keep on following the big ones

and see what the big ones are doing, and they learn from that.

And if they really can't feed themselves and they don't want

to join the big group, we can cut the leaves and put in the mouth.

And the care continues round the clock. These are babies and babies need a safe place to sleep.

We're behind the scenes now, all the keepers are out with the elephants, but just have a look at this.

This is where all the orphans come at night, this is where they sleep.

Everyone has their own little place to go into, and here it is.

That's the name, when they were born and where they were found, there.

Down here, we've got a carefully cut midnight feast, just in case they get peckish,

and come inside...

..wonderful fresh straw.

Wish you could smell this, it's a really delicious smell.

And up here...

is a bed, what's that all about?

Well, the care goes on night and day. The keeper will sleep up here all night long

and every three hours he'll get up and he'll feed the elephant.

It's not the same keeper every time, they don't want them to get fixated on one particular human,

so they take it in turns. But what a wonderful place to spend the night!

5pm, sun's going down, nearly time for bed,

and I'm about to be given an amazing privilege.

This is something I never dreamt I'd be doing.

Mutara's getting ready for bed

so she needs something to eat,

and now she needs a bit of love.

She's just beginning to get sleepy.

The blanket simulates the side of her mother...

..just to help her feel comfortable and relaxed.

Very sleepy elephant,

but she doesn't want to go to bed.

Just like trying to get my kids off.

'One very happy, contented baby.' Good night.

'But for Mutara, this place is just the start.'

Fantastic!

When she's two, the next part of her adventure will begin,

just as it is for some of her friends.

It's time to move on.

The next stage of their journey is just beginning and we'll be

joining them as they get closer and closer to life in the wild.

At London Zoo, there's some really shocking news.

Yeboah, the young male, has died. Brought from France as a mate

for their three females, he became ill and very quickly slipped away.

It's absolutely heartbreaking for keeper Iona Stuart.

Yeboah had a slight illness,

it didn't seem like anything very important,

but then...then we saw him produce blood in his urine and...

and so it was decided we had to do a proper examination.

Next day, came to check on him early, stuck my head in

and he had clearly not moved from where I'd left him the night before.

Yeboah's heart had slowed right down to six and then four beats a minute

and there was just nothing there, and he was...

Essentially, he'd crashed then and they tried CPR...

probably for about 50 minutes in total,

at which point then he said that we lost him, he'd gone.

It's like a person dying. It's had a huge impact,

not just on me and Dan, who worked very closely with him.

We miss him personally, we can see the response of the females, and that makes us sad as well.

They're obviously incredibly stressed

and unsettled by the whole thing, it's just devastating.

An autopsy reveals that Yeboah died from diabetes.

It's going to be hard for them all to recover from such a loss.

We have to keep going, our job doesn't change, we have to do what we do best,

which is look after the animals and make sure they're happy all the time,

regardless of whether we, as humans, are sad or happy, that is all pretty irrelevant.

We just have to make sure we're here working really hard for the animals.

Yeboah's legacy WILL live on, because Mjukuu is pregnant

with his baby.

No chances are being taken with her health, and hopefully a new life will help to mend the broken hearts.

For zoo gorillas, or for wild gorillas, there's nothing better in terms of enrichment than a youngster.

I think if a young baby comes into the family,

the way that changes the overall dynamic is amazing,

so we're so excited, and it's just counting down the days now.

As D-Day approaches, all is ready for a round-the-clock vigil.

A bank of CCTV cameras will be trained on Mjukuu day and night,

and it's night-time when the baby's expected to arrive.

So Mjukuu Watch has started. Actually, this is night three,

but no obvious signs of labour so we'll just keep watching.

This could be a long wait.

Never conventional, three days AFTER her due date

in the middle of the day, Mjukuu is in labour.

One of nature's true miracles is about to happen.

She's a first-time mum, but she seems calm

and hopefully instinct will get her through,

and help isn't far away if she needs it.

The first gorilla born at this zoo in 23 years.

It's a beautiful baby boy.

Yeboah would be proud...

..and Mjukuu seems to be a natural mother.

You can work with gorillas for years

and avoid any of what we've had here.

We've had deaths, we've had illness,

we've had now finally, fortunately, a baby born.

It feels like it was against all the odds, we've had so much go wrong.

So, yeah, it feels like a huge year, so much has happened, it's...

all exhausting.

The new arrival brings hope to this family.

He'll enrich ALL their lives, not just Mjukuu's.

And there's even more hope for the future.

A new male has arrived - Kesho has come over from Dublin Zoo.

He's being kept apart from Mjukuu for now to protect her and her baby,

but he's getting on just fine with one of the other females, Effie.

Who knows, maybe there'll be another happy event.

Life is also changing for our orphaned baby elephants in Kenya.

Until now, they've been totally dependent on their human family.

Their mums have all been brutally killed, often for the ivory trade,

but they're growing up. They have to learn to be independent

and that means moving away from the nursery.

Now, this is a journey those baby elephants have to take when they're about two or three years old,

to move on to the next stage of their very eventful lives.

It's a long drive for the little elephants, but it's worth it.

Ithumba is perfect elephant country,

a great place to do some more growing up.

Head keeper Benjamin Kyalo

came here with the first orphans nine years ago.

-I can see somebody, yes?

-Yes.

Yeah, here is one of the keepers

-and he is being followed by Makena.

-Fantastic.

Makena, come, come, Makena, Makena, Makena, Makena.

Four years ago, Makena was just like Mutara,

a tiny sad baby being nursed back to life in Nairobi,

but just look at her now.

Something's instantly obvious,

I'm not feeding down by my waist,

but right up in the air - these are much bigger elephants.

Will she keep taking as much milk as we gave her, or...?

-Well, it's only three.

-Only three.

-She's supposed to get three.

Right, and does she know that she...

-Yes, she knows, even she knows how to count.

-Does she?!

So if you give her less than three, then she will stay here

until you produce the last bottle. She's very clever.

All of them are very clever.

That's not a bottle of milk, it's a camera!

So, Ben, some of them stopped for milk and some of the orphans went straight past us.

Yes, some of them went straight past because they do not take milk

and they know this, they have been weaned off.

Things are definitely changing for the young elephants.

So that's two massive changes right away.

This is a much, much bigger orphan, obviously, and many of them here

have stopped having milk, they've moved on to natural food.

No, it's finished, you, there's no more.

It's finished. It's finished.

'These elephants still need to know that there's someone around when they need them.

'But more and more they want to spend time with their friends, doing what elephants do,

'and that's exactly what the keepers want them to do.

'They'll be around, but not nearly so hands-on.

'Adulthood is just around the corner.'

'And I noticed another big change when it came to bedtime.

'The orphans are still kept safe, a secure fenced enclosure

'has replaced the nursery.'

Makena, Makena, Makena, Makena, Makena, come.

Makena, Makena.

So these much bigger orphans have come into the stockade

where they'll be safe tonight, and they've got a lovely snack,

and they're all just growling and grumbling together,

but have a look round here, come round.

See there? Now, those elephants are NOT in the stockade

and they're not going to come into the stockade.

Their journey to becoming wild elephants has begun.

-So, Ben, these ones are about eight to ten years old?

-Yeah.

And they have made the decision themselves to go back to the wild.

-You can't influence that, they just make the decision.

-They decide.

When the right time comes for them, don't worry, they just go.

-They just go.

-Yeah, we don't force them to go.

They just feel that they can take care of themselves.

One teenager who made that decision was an orphaned elephant

filmed six years ago, Emily.

She decided that the time was right to leave.

But, and here's the million-dollar question,

can an orphan really truly make the transition back to the wild?

To find out, I'm heading to another part of Kenya to try to meet Emily.

Voi is the perfect location.

It's got large and healthy wild elephant herds

which the orphans can easily integrate into.

Joseph Sauni is the head keeper here at Voi,

and he's showing me round his patch.

Joseph, that's a fantastic sight.

I hope we can go on seeing that for many years to come.

But these are wild elephants we're looking at now, completely.

So how many wild elephants are there in this area, about?

-Around 3,000.

-3,000, OK.

And how many about have gone back into the wild

that have been in your care?

We have successfully released around 95 now, here in Tsavo East only.

-95?

-Not on the north-hand side, here only in Tsavo East National Park.

They are part of our extended family and we sometimes miss them,

but they belong to the wild and they have to go back there.

So we have a magnificent wild herd here.

Shall we go and look for the orphans?

I think that's the best idea, to go and have a look at them,

because we've not seen them.

We don't see the orphan elephant, my day is not yet complete.

Lovely! OK, no, it's... Yeah.

Joseph is hoping we'll see Emily, but we've been driving for well over an hour now

and still no sign, and then...

So see, Emily.

-Emily, there.

-I don't believe it. They're coming!

That's Emily there coming!

You see this calf behind that second one?

-Yes.

-That's Emily.

-Hello. Emily's bouncing.

-This is Emily here.

By the vehicle, Emily. Hello, Emily.

-Hello, Emily.

-Emily. No Emily.

Emily, look at you.

-Oh, that's my bag, Emily!

-Emily!

And behind is a little baby.

Now who was the father of Emily's baby?

This was a very big wild bull.

-A wild bull.

-Yeah.

-Emily.

-Emily!

-Emily.

Hello.

Hello, Emily. How are you?

She's so special...

..because she has had a calf with a wild bull

and if anything tells you that she's really gone back to the wild,

that's it, she's mated with a wild bull. Fantastic.

I think that's fairly conclusive. That's Emily, who was an orphan.

She's mated with a wild elephant

and her baby now is fully wild.

It works.

Returning endangered animals to the wild is the ultimate dream, but for now

the reality is often a life of safety and breeding in captivity.

The dedication of Vicky, Dan and Iona,

Linda and people like them all over the world

keeps hope alive that the long-term future for all these amazing animals can be wild.

Next time, I'll be looking at some more unusual animals...

like the Tasmanian devil, suddenly on the brink of extinction,

the mysterious aye-aye from Madagascar, and the cuddly toy

that's come to life, the koala, and what a strange animal it turns out to be.

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