♪ ♪
WOMAN: Good boy!
KENDALL: We have Scooter, who’s our female, and Zawadi,
who is our male.
Zawadi has decided
what he really wants is to be scratched for the day.
He’s like, “I want you to scratch my belly.”
You want scratches too?
This is one of the things that we get to do with them
that makes us fall in love with them.
Is that the enrichment you actually want?
Your eye’s closing?
Hyena are actually a lot more like cats.
They want that attention, but Scooter sometimes will get to
a point where she’s like, “Okay, I’m done,
I’m gonna go over here.”
Zawadi, you’re the best boy in the world!
(theme music playing).
(squawks)
NARRATOR: In the land of Asia...
COREY (over speaker): Welcome to Feathered Friends in Flight.
My name is Corey.
KATIE (over speaker): And I'm Katie.
ARI: All right Logan, are you ready?
Okay, here we go.
You got this.
NARRATOR: Logan the raven gets ready for his big performance.
ARI: He comes out just opening of the show.
Oh!
And he finds a water bottle
that was accidentally left on the stage.
(laughter)
ARI: Good job.
He’s going straight to the can.
And he brings it over to the recycle bin,
puts it in the bin, recycles it.
Yes, he got it!
Good!
And that starts the show.
(cheering)
ARI: Nicely done! You did so good!
Good job, Logan!
(laughs).
You’re so good!
We really like to feature natural behaviors of birds,
and hopefully inspire the audience for caring conservation action.
They can see birds from all over the world.
(squawks)
Logan definitely thinks he’s the star of the show, um.
You can tell he’s extremely handsome,
and he always gets really great reactions from the crowd.
(squawks)
They’re so smart.
They’ve done some research that shows that ravens actually
plan for the future.
They’re really good at problem solving and tool use,
which is pretty amazing.
NARRATOR: Logan’s intelligence keeps the team on their toes.
ARI: We just need a little more depth in this routine.
NARRATOR: Logan’s always hungry for a challenge,
so they’ve come up with a new one.
He’s going to learn how to untie knots,
starting with trainer Corey’s shoelaces.
KATIE: He’s never done anything with shoes yet?
ARI: No. KATIE: Okay.
ARI: It’s a really fun behavior with a really smart bird,
who I think is gonna get this pretty quick,
but you never know.
Every bird is an individual,
so we’ll have to see how Logan does.
All right, here comes Logan.
(squawks)
KATIE: Okay, I’m gonna spin him around here,
just set him down on the ground.
Ready?
COREY: Yep. KATIE: Okay.
Good!
This is a fun puzzle.
You give ‘em a puzzle and they figure it out immediately.
(squawks)
Good!
ARI: That went great.
NARRATOR: Logan nails it, without breaking a sweat,
thanks to a familiar technique.
ARI: Katie saying, “Good,” he knows that good word has been
paired with food, so that he can know he did the right thing,
and if he comes back to Katie,
he’s gonna get a treat.
KATIE: Good!
ARI: The way you feel that when you learn something new,
and you’re like, “I just did that thing, wow,
how cool was that? I did such a good job.”
That the birds must have that same feeling.
COREY: Out in the wild, they’ve gotta use their intelligence,
and there are crows that have been seen dropping things like
nuts with a really strong shell onto crosswalks,
so that the cars will break them open for them.
So, they’re very, very smart.
It’s how they go through their entire world.
ARI: He did awesome, that as really good.
COREY: Yeah, that was really good.
ARI: That first training session couldn’t have gone better.
It was like he had been doing this his whole life already.
But it doesn’t just stop at the shoelace.
There is a second part to this behavior.
It’s pretty complex.
I hope Logan’s ready.
MORI: All right, let’s see if we can find Olivia.
This animal’s amazing.
Very mysterious.
A lot of people don’t know about this animal.
They are endangered species.
Very rare.
NARRATOR: At Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge,
a cousin of the giraffe keeps a low profile.
MORI: All these markings are to help them camouflage themselves
really well, specifically for the dense rainforest habitat.
They’re known as the ghosts of the forest.
There she is!
Olivia the okapi.
Hi Olivia!
NARRATOR: Native to the Democratic Republic of Congo,
this type of animal was unknown outside of Africa
before the 20th century.
MORI: Okapi tongues are so long,
they can actually lick their eyeballs.
Their tongue’s very handy for them.
It’s just an extensive tool.
Let’s see if she comes.
Olivia! Come on, Olivia!
Come here! Come on!
She’s gonna go actually get that browse from the back of
my vehicle there, which is perfectly fine.
Olivia was born at the barn here at
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Come on, Olivia. Away from the vehicle.
She is eight years old now and I have raised her from
the beginning, all the way through where she is now.
In the beginning, she does not like humans,
so I went in there every single day to say, “Hola!”
Here comes the breakfast.
And then we started building a beautiful relationship.
Yeah.
So, I think,“Hola,” to her, means,
“Here comes the food.”
She loves banana and Japanese blueberry,
which is her favorite.
This is willow, but she hasn’t had it in a while.
NARRATOR: Olivia has good reason for that healthy appetite;
she’s eating for two.
MORI: It’s very exciting for me to see her pregnant,
because it’s coming around full circle.
She’s pretty far along.
It’s a 13 to 15 month gestation period,
over a year where we’re waiting for this baby.
I’m gonna be with her every step throughout this pregnancy.
I’m gonna be watching with binoculars and
making her go, go, go, go!
NARRATOR: At The Seas with Nemo & Friends, at Epcot,
a sassy new arrival waits backstage for a check-up.
DR. NATALIE: Alika came from an aquarium in Florida.
She’s a 12-year-old blacktip reef shark.
The first blacktip reef shark here at The Seas.
NARRATOR: Found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans,
blacktip reef sharks are exceptionally active
and curious.
DR. NATALIE: I actually love working with sharks and rays.
Sharks look a little ominous sometimes,
because their teeth are kind of out here,
but for the most part, if you really look at them,
they’re really cool animals,
and they’re really important to the ecosystem.
NARRATOR: Alika will join an open environment with over 50 other species,
so the team needs to make sure she’s healthy.
But first, they need to bring her in to sedate her.
DEE: We are putting a blow-up pool into this side of
the habitat, and they’re gonna fill it up with water.
We will bring the shark into that smaller volume of water,
and that way we can do the anesthesia.
It, it certainly is a large operation.
She’s a smaller shark, but she’s certainly a feisty shark.
They’re just gonna slowly herd her.
Start walking in, Tina.
Good job, guys.
Take your time.
There you go. Nice.
MAN: Good job! WOMAN: Beautiful.
DEE: Beautiful!
NARRATOR: Before Alika’s check-up starts,
the team mixes a sedative into the water.
DEE: So, she’s starting to slow down a little bit,
so we feel comfortable moving her.
Yep, I think y’all are ready.
Nice. Good job, guys.
WOMAN: Yep, yep, she’s in, she’s good.
DR. NATALIE: So far so good.
I’m feeling like we’re in a good place.
DR. HALL: She’s so pretty. She’s a very pretty shark.
NARRATOR: First up, checking the gills with an endoscope.
DR. HALL: All of her gills look good...
DR. NATALIE: Yay! Good job!
DR. HALL: Which is wonderful news.
NARRATOR: Next, a look at internal organs
with an ultrasound.
DR. NATALIE: So far so good.
The liver health, that’s really important in sharks and rays.
And so, I get, kind of, a general idea of how big that liver is.
It lets me know how healthy or how fit she is.
She’s in really good condition.
MAN: Right?
DR. NATALIE: Yeah, we’re just about done.
All right guys, you can get ready to wake her up.
She’s awesome.
NARRATOR: The pump flushes Alika’s gills with unmedicated
salt water, to eliminate the anesthesia from her body.
DEE: So, right now she’s starting to move a lot more.
DR. NATALIE: It’s just whether or not she can swim off without falling
to the bottom and taking a break.
DEE: Yeah.
It’s kind of equivalent to, like,
an animal waking up and they’re stumbling around trying
to get their bearings.
DR. NATALIE: If I intervene, I could make it worse.
She’s kind of in a dangerous phase too.
She’ll bite somebody right now.
MAN: Yeah. WOMAN: Yeah.
(overlapping chatter).
DR. NATALIE: Ooh.
She’s stalling again.
DEE: You ready for some ventilation?
Seems like it’s gonna be a slow process today.
NARRATOR: The longer Alika stops swimming,
the lower her oxygen levels will fall.
If she stays still for too long, it’s dangerous.
DR. NATALIE: She’s been off anesthesia for a while now,
she should have recovered by now.
I’m trying to figure it out.
DR. NATALIE: She’s not quite recovering in a way that
I want for her too, so we’re just, kind of,
waiting it out.
NARRATOR: At The Seas,
the team gives Alika more oxygenated water,
to help her wake up from anesthesia.
DR. NATALIE: Maybe the handling is causing her to not wanna go.
I wonder if we should just let her go and see what she does.
DEE: Let’s set her down on the bottom,
back up a little bit, and we’ll, um,
maybe nudge her from behind and see if she’ll move on her own.
DR. NATALIE: That’s what we wanna see;
we wanna see her off the wall, continuously swimming.
She’s like, “Okay, when you stop handling me, I’ll go.”
She wasn’t ready to go until we said, “Let’s let her be.”
NARRATOR: Alika moves to another stage on her journey,
from a smaller local aquarium to a nearly
six million gallon new home.
DR. NATALIE: Alika’s made great progress today.
Before she goes to the main environment,
she’s gonna really have to learn how to interact with
the other sharks and learn how to eat cooperatively.
I can tell she’s a fast learner.
ARI: Don’t you love it when the birds are smarter than you?
KATIE: They’re way smarter than we are.
ARI: Okay, ready?
NARRATOR: Logan the raven prepares for the second part
of his new behavior;
pickpocketing trainer Corey’s mic wire,
as part of the show.
ARI: Let’s do a easy one.
Good.
NARRATOR: But first, a warm-up with an activity he knows well.
ARI: No? This not your thing this morning?
Going into the crate is absolutely the most important behavior
that any of our birds know.
(squawks)
But today, he is choosing to do just about anything else.
And just because he went in the crate yesterday,
does not mean that he’s good at going in the crate today.
(squawks)
I cannot speak bird, as far as I don’t know what Logan says
when he makes any kind of vocalization sounds.
(squawks)
But I can read his behavior,
so in a way I speak bird a little bit.
(squawks)
NARRATOR: He’s in, eventually.
But before he goes home, the team tries another tactic.
COREY: Repetition builds confidence,
so the behavior of going in the window he used to do, he’s done that a lot.
He’s done it for months and months and months,
so it’s a nice easy behavior for him.
ARI: We’re gonna try to keep this simple for Logan and
set him up for success.
We’re just gonna try basic behavior of him coming out of
his crate and going right into the window.
Corey is taking the crate in the blue room,
and we’re trying it in a window that he’s super familiar with.
Okay, so whenever you’re ready.
COREY: All right, ready?
ARI: Ready.
COREY: Door’s open.
Hop back in the crate. Here he comes.
ARI: He’s on top of the crate, in the blue room.
COREY: All right, come down here.
ARI: I think that is the end of our training session.
COREY: Yep, Logan is secure. Logan is secure.
ARI: Well, it’s always good when we end up with
the same amount of birds that we started with.
And he’s saying, like,
“None of this is working for me right now,” we can just say,
“That’s fine.
Let’s maybe revisit this training session this afternoon.”
(laughs).
SHELLEY: This is exciting.
(laughs).
NARRATOR: Olivia’s in for an ultrasound.
SHELLEY: Let’s do this.
KIM: See if she’s ready to come out.
Good morning, sunshine.
We wanna see that little nugget of yours.
NARRATOR: If all goes to plan,
it will be the first baby okapi scan at the Lodge.
MORI: Today is a big deal.
We actually wanna see if the baby is moving,
how it’s doing, before the big exit.
SHELLEY: Touching. MORI: Olivia, touching.
SHELLEY: I’m gonna start the ultrasound exam.
MORI: Okay.
SHELLEY: See what you have in there, huh?
MORI: Good girl!
Good girl, Liv.
SHELLEY: This is baby.
So, I’m gonna try to see if I can find a heartbeat.
Okay.
Heartbeat.
JENNIFER: Ooh, right there. SHELLEY: Yep.
We’re gonna record that.
Good job, Olivia.
Yep.
So, I’m seeing ribs.
JENNIFER: Mm-hmm. SHELLEY: Lots of movement.
JENNIFER: Oh yeah.
MORI: Ooh, yeah, you can see it moving around in there.
SHELLEY: Very active. MORI: Yes.
JENNIFER: Can you tell which way it’s facing?
SHELLEY: Not yet. I haven’t been able to see the head.
I’m just applying a little bit more pressure, Mori.
MORI: No problem.
I am monitoring her behavior,
and so far she is enjoying her buffet.
JENNIFER: Oh, happy as a clam right now.
MORI: She’s very focused on me, which is a good thing.
JENNIFER: That looks like a foot.
MORI: Yeah, too bad you can’t tell a gender.
(laughter)
SHELLEY: Wouldn’t that be nice? MORI: Yeah.
SHELLEY: We’re happy, because we’ve seen a heart rate,
we’ve seen ribs, we’ve seen a hoof, and lots of movement.
MORI: Awesome. We’re almost at the end.
She’s still focused on the browse, which is good.
SHELLEY: The fact that we’re only seeing a head at a time
or a leg at a time just shows how big she is.
MORI: It’s an amazing experience to see the images.
Gestation period of an okapi is around 15 months,
and she’s pretty far along.
NARRATOR: Olivia’s baby will be a welcome addition
to this endangered species.
MORI: Since she is a first-time mom,
we actually don’t know if we’re gonna have any signs that
we normally would have with a seasoned mother,
so we have to closely monitor her at all times.
NARRATOR: In the land of Asia...
ARI: I’m ready. COREY: Ready?
All right, door’s open.
NARRATOR: Logan tries again.
ARI: What’s in there?
Is it cool? Yay!
That’s the Logan that I like to see.
Good. Cool. Love that.
Good, good. Yeah!
COREY: Good! Yeah! Beautiful. Beautiful.
KATIE: There it is. Nice job.
ARI: So good!
Lots of treats for that one.
COREY: Yes.
ARI: All right, so, so far it looks like, yes...
COREY: There we goo. ARI: Good job!
Good!
Logan is doing way better.
He’s definitely into playing the game.
And just like us, you know, some days you’re ready to get
out of bed and go to work and do your job,
and some days you just really wanna stay in bed and
drink some hot tea and listen to the rainfall outside.
You can do it.
COREY: Get it.
ARI: Good, good! Yeah! COREY: Good! Yeah, beautiful!
NARRATOR: With the warm-up knocked out,
Logan’s big moment awaits.
COREY: That was a great session.
We got the whole thing together.
I think we’re pretty much ready for shows is my opinion.
What do you guys think?
ARI: I agree. That was great.
KATIE: Yeah, you wanna try him in show?
COREY: Try him in show. ARI: Let’s do it!
KATIE: Big debut!
(squawks)
All right Logan, are you ready for your show?
NARRATOR: At the Feathered Friends in Flight show,
Logan prepares to perform his new behavior on stage,
in front of a live audience.
ARI: There’s always a risk when we do this the first time
in show that it’s gonna go wrong.
I sometimes get stage fright.
I think maybe the birds do too.
Okay, are you guys ready for the show?
ALL: Yeah!
ARI: Cool.
COREY: The first show is always the most exciting.
You never know what exactly is gonna happen.
KATIE: All right, ready to go, on the way to stage.
COREY: The audience is there, the lights are there,
the music’s there, the microphones.
KATIE: All right, here we go.
ARI: I don't know what Logan’s gonna do.
There’s always some excitement around putting a bird in show.
COREY (over speaker): Good morning everyone!
KATIE (over speaker): Hello there!
COREY (over speaker): Welcome to Feathered Friends in Flight.
My name is Corey.
KATIE (over speaker): And I’m Katie.
ARI: All right Logan, are you ready?
Okay, here we go.
KATIE (over speaker): So, I thought it’d be fun to take a moment,
mix things up, and maybe invite Logan the raven to come out here,
and I could teach him a brand-new behavior.
Do you wanna see a training session?
(applause).
COREY (over speaker): Logan. Okay, Logan, yeah, this is not in show,
so I guess, yeah, completely new behavior.
This is gonna be great.
KATIE (over speaker): Yeah, and then you could interpret what we’re working on.
COREY (over speaker): Absolutely. So, this is a raven, Logan, right here.
Very smart bird. But here’s the thing.
It doesn’t matter how smart they are.
We train them all the same way.
Positive reinforcements.
That means these birds can fly, hey, let go of my laces!
ARI: Nice, nice.
COREY (over speaker): Did you just give him a treat for untying my shoe?
ARI: That was awesome! Good job, Logan!
COREY (over speaker): Keep him over there. ‘Cause here’s the thing.
When they get those treats, they tend to think,
“What did I just do? Can I do that again?
Can I get more of those treats?”
So, that’s how we train every...
(laughter)
COREY (over speaker): Behavior. KATIE (over speaker): Logan!
ARI: Oh my gosh, look how good he is.
So good.
COREY (over speaker): Katie, what’s going on?
KATIE (over speaker): Logan, no. Yeah, you wanna see it again?
COREY (over speaker): No, I don’t wanna see it again.
Logan, we should probably just stop...
KATIE (over speaker): This is hilarious.
COREY (over speaker): Can you just get him out of here, please?
This is not what we’re talking about.
(laughter).
KATIE (over speaker): What was that?
ARI: Yes, that bird knows his job!
COREY: That was my microphone cable!
ARI: That was awesome! Logan did so good!
Yeah, good job, you did it!
Nicely done! You did so good!
Good job, Logan! Good job!
You’re so good!
Woo, you did it!
KATIE: Logan was great! ARI: That was so good!
KATIE: It was so good! ARI: You guys did awesome.
KATIE: Thank you. ARI: What a good show.
(squawks)
Bird behavior changes on a daily basis.
It’s what makes this show so fun.
You never know what’s gonna happen out there.
(squawks)
MAN: High five. COREY: High fives all around.
KATIE: High five! Yeah! Thanks guys.
(squawks)
JARROD: Today is a very exciting day for us.
We are commissioning our brand-new glass pulverizes.
(shattering)
We’re gonna turn on the power, we’re gonna start the trommel.
All right, we can hear it rolling around.
We’re gonna start the pulverizer,
the swinging hammers in there.
And then we’re gonna fire up our conveyor.
NARRATOR: Each year, over 2,000 tons of glass are used
at Walt Disney World Resort.
(rattling)
JARROD: So, you can hear the glass rattling around in there.
You can even see it over here, going up and dropping down.
NARRATOR: That’s a lot of bottles.
But Disney has a clever second use for them.
JARROD: All right, we’re gonna shut that completely down.
NARRATOR: Turn it into something useful for some of
the park’s favorite residents.
JARROD: 30 seconds ago, this was a solid bottle,
and now it’s this beautiful soft sand mix.
So, that’s the sand.
On the other side, over here, this is a little bigger,
so this is more of our gravel-like material.
The glass pulverizer processes the glass in such a way that
it doesn’t have sharp edges anymore,
so that makes it very safe for our animals to walk on.
Here at Disney’s Fort Wilderness resort,
it helps the horse by using a regenerative item that comes
from right here on Walt Disney World property,
but it actually creates less dust on the trails,
so our horses are kicking up and breathing in less dust as
they walk every day.
You can use the glass cullet in pretty much any way that
you would use normal sand or gravel.
It can be used in beach renourishment,
filtration systems, and horticultural solar amendments.
It’s a win for everyone.
This unit that we have here can actually process up to
2,000 pounds per hour, so a full ton per hour can go through this machine.
It’s, it's a lot of fun to see this start out as something,
a simple item that a guest threw away,
and use it in our animal areas here at Walt Disney World.
(growls)
NARRATOR: As night falls,
Olivia the okapi grows restless.
Her baby is on its way.
♪ ♪
(licking)
NARRATOR: As night becomes morning,
the wonderful news spreads.
MORI: It’s just an amazing thing.
We’ve all been waiting for it the whole time, all the keepers.
Yeah, this is a complete circle of life moment, coming around.
This baby is super cute, super tiny.
I’m so proud of Olivia.
She’s alert, she’s focused, and now we’re gonna see how
she’s bonding with the baby.
She cleaned it, she has that long tongue,
so she can do a lot of surface coverage.
And that’s how she stimulates the calf to stand up.
We’re hoping to see signs of nursing.
It’s very important that she stands for the baby.
We don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet,
so this is the big drama here in the barn,
is it a boy or a girl?
I just wanna make sure that the calf is healthy.
That’s the number one goal.
NARRATOR: Over at The Seas with Nemo & Friends,
the sharks prepare for their breakfast.
AARON: So our sharks here in the main environment
are trained to come on over and eat.
We do it super early in the morning
when not many other lights are on. So when we turn on that spotlight that’s
an indication to our sharks like
“Hey, c'mon over, it’s your dinner bell, time to eat!”
NARRATOR: Sharks are trained to follow the lights for their food,
so it’s safe for other fish to share their environment.
ALLISON: Our system’s six million gallons,
27 feet deep.
We really want that light cue to stand out among the dark.
That beautiful indicator of that breakfast is served.
NARRATOR: Before they can join the other sharks,
Alika and her buddy Beau must learn to feed using
the same light cut system.
ALLISON: Alika is insanely fast, so we wanna give Beau the slower,
docile sand tiger shark,
a little bit more of a head start.
So, we’re waiting for that great opportunity to turn
that light cue on.
Okay, I’m gonna turn on this light.
Good? Come on, buddy.
Let’s see if he wants his favorite food item today.
Well done, Beau. I'm so impressed.
NARRATOR: Now it’s Alika’s turn.
DEE: Oh, I saw you.
Come here.
ALLISON: She’s a very curious, fast little shark,
and so any chance she gets to socialize or come over
and inspect, she does.
All right?
NOEL: Diner is open.
Come on, Alika.
Yeah, good girl, come on.
There you go! Good girl.
Oh, she did great.
I was a little worried at first,
‘cause she kept turning away from me,
and that’s usually a clear indicator with sharks of, like,
“Hey, I’m not interested in what you have to eat.”
This is a great step.
NARRATOR: Alika’s next step is joining
the other 50-plus species in the main environment.
NOEL: All in all, good day. Always a good day with Alika.
DR. NATI: Okapis are super soft, even as adults.
And babies are just extra soft.
WOMAN: Yes. DR. NATI: Soft as velvet.
Oh, he’s so little in that big old stall,
it’s the tiniest little thing.
NARRATOR: Doctor Nati prepares to examine the newest member of
this endangered species.
DR. NATI: In the wild, there would be normal behaviors where
the mothers leaves her baby in a safe place,
and then she departs to go get food or water,
whatever she needs.
So, we try to take advantage of that natural behavior and
examine the baby at a time when it feels okay for Olivia to
depart as she normally would.
NARRATOR: While Olivia eats, the team makes their move.
DR. NATI: Sorry to wake you up little guy.
Let’s make sure we have a healthy okapi calf here.
WOMAN: Little eye balls.
DR. NATI: We definitely have a cute one.
WOMAN: Yes.
DR. NATI: It is very calming to them if they don’t have
a lot of strong visual stimulus during the exam.
Pia, what do you see back there?
Boy, girl? Wanna make a call?
You’re gonna get a better look than we have.
PIA: It’s official, it’s a boy.
ALL: It’s a boy.
WOMAN: We only breed boys here at the Lounge...
DR. NATI: I’m gonna just clean this off.
WOMAN: For the last few years.
DR. NATI: It’s our specialty, right?
WOMAN: Yes. WOMAN 2: Mm-hmm.
DR. NATI: That is the cutest little tongue.
WOMAN: It's so little! WOMAN 2: Oh, my God.
DR. NATI: I’m gonna take a look in these big, beautiful eyes.
WOMAN: Hey, handsome. WOMAN 2: His baby eyes.
DR. NATI: What I’m not seeing is any signs of systemic infection in his eyes,
which in babies that’s one of the first places it
often shows, so that’s a really good sign.
Everything looks normal.
Soft, floppy baby ears.
Okay, let’s listen to his heart.
(heart beats)
I’m not hearing a murmur, which means that his heart has
made the transition from being in a womb to being in the world.
(overlapping chatter).
WOMAN: Welcome to the world.
DR. NATI: Guys, he looks really healthy.
WOMAN: We’re so excited. DR. NATI: Healthy okapi calf.
It doesn’t get better than this.
WOMAN 2: It doesn’t. WOMAN: It really doesn't.
DR. NATI: And hopefully he’ll just grow and grow and
won’t need any help from us.
WOMAN: He won’t. We’re gonna be great.
DR. NATI: I would cuddle him all day if I could,
but he needs to go back with his mommy.
WOMAN: And dropping him down.
(sighs)
What a day.
DR. NATI: It’s a magical moment to get to see this
brand-new healthy baby.
(licking)
This is not a gift that we get every day,
so we cherish every moment.
♪ ♪
BETH: All right, they’re coming.
Slowly.
NARRATOR: A unique group of elderly female mandrills spend
their glory years at Animal Kingdom.
BETH: Disney has one of the best mandrill retirement homes.
We may actually have the only mandrill retirement home.
With this group, we have one female, Eebi,
who is most decidedly the dominant female.
Tammy is an animal that gets along with everyone.
She does a really good job of socializing and
is definitely very socially savvy.
Cleo is a little bit more skittish.
She and Tammy do groom each other.
They’re always interacting and hanging out together.
NARRATOR: These are ladies who love to lunch.
JONATHAN: This might bring back some memories for people.
Good old ants on a log.
I’m good with the peanut butter.
Maybe not so much the celery part.
NARRATOR: Mandrills eat everything,
from tree bark to birds.
So, even celery should go down well.
BETH: Oh, someone’s coming for the ant on a log.
She is scraping the peanut butter and raisins off
of the celery and leaving the celery.
She has the same sense that we do,
that the celery is not the fun part in the ants on a log.
NARRATOR: What this trio doesn’t know is a new golden girl is in town,
and she hopes to join the gang.
BETH: We are going to be bringing in a new female.
Her name is appropriately Princess,
which makes me really, really excited,
and it just seems like it’s her destiny to come here.
JONATHAN: Yeah, perfect fit, nice.
WOMAN: We're gonna put a (inaudible).
JONATHAN: Ready? One...
BETH: Yep. JONATHAN: Two, three.
BETH: Hi Princess. JONATHAN: Come on, Princess.
BETH: Come on out lady.
Yeah, good girl, good girl.
That’s okay, baby. That’s okay.
NARRATOR: Princess is 31, over 90 in human years,
and recently lost her long-term male partner.
But mandrills love company, and this is her only chance to
find a new social group.
BETH: Her partner did die, and so she is in need of a family.
We are happy to provide that for her.
I love brining in new mandrills, and there’s a joke on my team
that I'm the mandrill hoarder, so I’m the one that’s out
looking for these single older females to bring in,
because I wanna provide them with that opportunity for socialization.
JONATHAN: Let’s throw some of this good stuff.
BETH: Let’s give her what she wants.
JONATHAN: Kiwi. BETH: Nice. Kiwi’s the winner.
JONATHAN: She likes some kiwi.
BETH: Princess so far is actually looking really, really comfortable.
She’s been willing to take food form us by hand,
which is something that can take several days for some other animals.
We’re thinking she’s pretty confident so far.
JONATHAN: Good girl. BETH: What a nice job.
NARRATOR: Princess will be introduced to the other
elderly mandrills, but she may not be welcome.
BETH: When you put several old ladies together,
you really don’t know what the dynamic is going to be.
There’s a lot of drama and there’s a lot of vocalization.
It will be amazing if they welcome her and
she fits into the group, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
WOMAN: Yeah, we’re good over here.
Amy, are you good?
AMY: I’m good.
NARRATOR: Princess waits to see if she’ll be welcomed by
Disney’s other elderly mandrills.
AMY: I’m gonna open two.
BETH: We’re going to introduce Princess to the group.
We’re hoping it goes well, but if not,
she may have to wait a little bit before she joins them.
We’re doing the introduction inside,
just in case we need to separate them.
We don’t know how much experience she had in her,
her early life with other females.
I really hope they get along.
After losing her partner, it would be great for her to
be part of a family again.
NARRATOR: Luckily, the team knows that a few light nibbles
are the key to the golden girls’ hearts.
AMANDA: We always put a lot of different things in there,
so that they can forage, look for new things.
You know, it keeps them busy,
but while interacting with one another.
Tammy loves to snack, so she usually likes an intro.
(laughs).
NARRATOR: The lunch table is set.
Time to mingle.
WOMAN: All right, I’m gonna open three hydraulic.
BETH: They will decide very quickly.
They size each other up within seconds.
WOMAN: Opening manual.
That’s Princess.
BETH: The subtle teeth bearing is actually a good sign.
They’re smiling at each other.
She’s just wandering all around.
Looks good.
WOMAN: They’re not displaying any negative social behaviors
towards her.
WOMAN 2: Calm body posture, the smiling, presenting,
greeting each other, but in a positive way.
NARRATOR: And there are encouraging signs that these
old mandrill ladies like the look of each other.
AMANDA: They’ve been together just for a few minutes,
so they’re just trying to say,
“Hey, I’m your friend. How are you doing?”
And so they actually shown the most interaction
during the howdy, so they were just doing
a little lip smacking chatter to each other,
sniffing each other, just getting to know each other,
and it was all very positive.
BETH: So, it’s going really well right now.
All the initial signs are good.
Now we just need to wait to see how she settles in with the group.
ALLISON: We are so excited, ‘cause we’re getting ready to
guide Alika for her move out into our main environment.
It’s a super big day for her.
She’s been out here during her quarantine process,
so I think she’s ready to join the main environment.
MAN: Okay, we’re gonna start guiding her.
ALLISON: Nice and easy.
MAN: Beautiful. ALLISON: All right.
NARRATOR: Alika’s sedated for her own safety.
This time only lightly.
ALLISON: She’s a very zippy, high-energy shark, so we wanna
knock that edge off just a little bit,
and then we’ll recover her, so that she’s fully awake
before she goes into her new home.
NARRATOR: Alika’s first stop is a holding area
which connects to The Seas.
ALLISON: This is kind of like our guest bedroom for
our main environment, where she can, kind of, settle in,
get used to her surroundings and the new animals out there.
We’re just watching her right now and see her explore.
We’re also watching to make sure that she’s swimming
and navigating really well, which she is.
NARRATOR: With the see-through screen,
it’s like a viewing platform for her new home.
ALLISON: Kinda watching the other side of the screen,
to see if anyone comes and visits.
The main goal of this sea pen for her specifically is to not
just give her the ability to check out her new home,
but to also allow the other animals to know she’s here,
so it’s not like this big surprise party on anyone.
However they communicate, chemically, electrically,
it’s kind of like a nice little howdy for everyone to, kind of,
know who the new resident is.
It’s our first blacktip reef shark that we’ve had here at The Seas,
so it’s really exciting for us to learn about her and
see what makes her tick, and it’s always fun to get
a new animal, and she’s pretty special.
She’s super smart, super curious, and super-fast.
When she is ready to go and nice and comfortable,
we’ll be able to release her out into our main environment.
What do you think of your new home, Alika?
Welcome to The Seas, Alika.
NARRATOR: It’s less than a week since Princess arrived,
looking for a new family,
after her long-term partner died,
and she was left all alone.
BETH: At first she was very reserved.
Now that she is a little bit more comfortable,
we’re starting to see she can be pretty spunky and pretty sassy.
Princess is really awesome.
She fits in really great.
She’s really, really friendly with the keepers and
she is a great addition to this group socially.
Tammy has found a brand-new BFF.
She is very good friends with Princess and they are together
all the time, and they are grooming and
they are foraging together,
which is a great sign.
In addition to breeding animals and contributing to
the population in the future,
we are helping the population right now,
by taking in these older animals and providing them with
an excellent quality of life.
This cause is near and dear to my heart,
because I don’t want anyone to be alone at the end of their life,
and I couldn’t be happier for them.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.