The gates open at dawn and Terri Irwin is already moving between the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital and a giraffe about to give birth. Her children Bindi and Robert have grown up on television, and now they front this Animal Planet series that tracks 1,200 animals across 700 bushland acres outside Beerwah, Queensland. One episode finds Robert, aged fourteen, swimming a twelve-foot reticulated python across the Crocoseum pool while Bindi bottle-feeds orphaned kangaroo joeys backstage. The schedule is relentless: emergency surgery on a koala with chlamydia, relocating Bosco the saltwater crocodile for the third time, releasing three sea turtles by helicopter over the Great Barrier Reef.
COVID-19 closes the zoo gates in 2020, leaving a skeleton crew to keep lions fed and the hospital running while wildfire survivors flood in. Cameras keep rolling for the lockdown special, capturing Chandler Powell’s proposal to Bindi among empty walkways and later the birth of their daughter Grace, the first Irwin grandchild, in March 2021. Ratings spike whenever the family leaves the property: Robert photographing Africa’s big five, Bindi freediving with whale sharks, Terri darting a leopard for release in South Africa.
The series ran four seasons between 2018 and 2022, delivering forty-nine hour-long episodes that never question whether conservation work is worth the risk of letting a teenager hand-feed forty-four alligators at once. By the final episode, Robert has taken charge of his first wild crocodile capture on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, Bindi is raising a orphaned ringtail possum in her own kitchen, and the hospital has treated its 90,000th patient. The cameras switch off without ceremony; the zoo opens again at seven the next morning.
Production Details
Animal Planet / 4 Seasons / 45 Episodes / 2018
Showrunner(s): Paul Franklin, Erin Wanner, Rod Parker
Producer(s): Sarah Russell, Andrew Strouthos
Cinematography: Trevor Smith
Main Cast
Chandler Powell as Self
Bindi Irwin as Self
Terri Irwin as Self
Robert Irwin as Self
