The creature features about to drive you wild
WE’RE going to the zoo, zoo, zoo – and you can come too, too, too!
Yep, it’s time for another series of life behind the scenes at the worldfamous Chester Zoo, with its 21,000 adorable animals, including lovely lemurs, garrulous gorillas and perky penguins.
The zoo is also home to a thousand dedicated staff, as well as pioneering conservation and science programmes, and it all results in some of the cutest, weirdest, most heartbreaking and heartwarming telly, as we follow the exploits of all the animals and
the people who look after them.
There’s an instant emotional punch to the gut in this first episode of the new series, as the elephant team faces a race against time to save the life of two-year-old calf Indali.
Last year the keepers were devastated after losing two calves to a deadly herpes virus.
So when Indali’s blood tests show she has the same virus, they’re desperate to do anything they can to save her, and – in a world first – try a drug regime normally used in human patients with cancer.
Watching Indira’s mum comfort her poorly daughter – staying with her for hours, stroking her with her trunk – inspired more tears than Dumbo.
Over on Penguin Island, love is in the air for newcomers Almond and Walnut, who get busy searching for a love nest and trying to start a family. And in the aquarium, a remarkable pair of Cardinal fish, are set to become parents – if fierce Hyacinth can keep the cannibal neighbours away from her babies.