PBS - Operation Wild (2015) Part 1

Filmed over 18 months, Operation Wild follows vet teams around the world as they undertake groundbreaking operations to try and save animals’ lives.

We find out how pioneering human medicine is transforming the way we can look after animals in some of the most remote places on earth. But it takes more than just high tech medicine to treat the biggest animals on the planet — these are dramatic stories of ingenuity, invention and dedication.

Part 1

In the first episode, we travel to the Wolong Giant Panda Base in southwest China where vets are using high tech animal medicine to try and save the species. We find out about the human neo-natal techniques used to keep baby pandas alive and an ingenious idea that saves rejected cubs.

In West Africa, we meet Shufai, a gorilla who was shot in the arm nine years ago by poachers. His left arm has never fully recovered, and he’s in constant pain and unable to climb trees. Animal lover Rachel Hogan, who saved Shufai after he was shot, finds a team of vets who think they can save his arm with an operation that’s never been tried before on a gorilla. They plan to insert metal plates to hold Shufai’s wrist straight, but just before they operate, they discover Shufai’s arm is in a worse condition than they imagined.

In Japan, we join the vet who’s invented a whole new kind of underwater medicine to look after manta rays. The Churaumi Aquarium is the first place in the world to breed manta rays, which are critically endangered, in captivity, and we see unique footage of a manta ray being born. Now Keiichi wants to find out if another one of the females is pregnant. To do that he’s invented an underwater ultrasound machine.

In India, where an ancient kite festival causes a wildlife crisis, we join the thousands of volunteers at the largest pop-up animal ER on the planet, and in Laos, young British vet Will Thomas makes an extraordinary plan to give his patient — 4-ton elephant Thongkhoon — an X-ray at a human hospital.

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