Hand-raising lions, re-population and Instagram fame: a conversation with @zookeeper_chad

Chad, known to his more than 400,000 Instagram followers as ZooKeeper_Chad, is director at Featherdale, Mogo and Hunter Valley Wildlife Parks.

His followers know Chad for his feed full of videos playing with lion cubs, being licked by giraffes, or selfies with tigers.

For the boy who grew up loving animals, every day is exciting, full of laughter and moments that blow his mind and remind him just how much he loves his job.

He was five when he saw his first red panda at the zoo and the moment is etched in his memory.

"It was just something so different and foreign and interesting and cute," he said. His fascination continues - an adult living in child-like wonder.

Chad said he was never the "Steve Irwin-like child out there catching snakes," but developed a love for animals and a fascination which would leave him sitting watching any type of animal for hours on end.

"I've always loved animals," he said.

When he was 17, Chad talked his way into becoming a zookeeper at Featherdale Wildlife Park, and has never looked back.

"I enjoy the company, the immersion, the challenge of always putting them first," he said.

"It's impossible for your days to ever be the same."

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His phone is constantly buzzing, calling him from one cage to another to treat an injured gibbon, or help feed a recovering giraffe. The needs of the animals, so it seems, never end, yet Chad meets each with a tenderness and patient love.

The highlight of his career was hand raising lion cub Maji - a job he was thrust into within her first hour of life.

"It changed me forever," he said.

"The good parts of the job are amazing."

While that all may sound dreamy, Chad wants people to know the reality of living amongst animals. The unfiltered, un-shareable moments.

"The greatest time is babies - little cute animals running around and being playful," he said.

"What's just as important is that last day. That's a tough day as a zookeeper.

"We outlive almost everything in our care.

"These animals become your family, and being there on the last day is so hard. There's a responsibility to make those final days good. You don't showcase that stuff. It's hard to talk about, but I take that part of my job really seriously.

"Having literally put my life on the line for the animals that live here, they hold a special place in your heart forever."

Such moments never make the Instagram feed.

Chad wants adults to fall as in love with animals as the kids he so often sees gob-smacked when they set eyes upon a tiger for the first time, or hear a lion roar.

He sees his role as "promoting the enjoyment both animals and people can have together," he said.

A major part of his raising awareness comes through posting on social media.

Chad started posting animal content on Instagram frequently while working as educator at Featherdale.

He never expected to gain such an Instagram following, nor sought it out, but he sees the enormous value it has on education around animals.

Now he considers the job a "huge responsibility" and "massive privilege".

"The popularity on social media has nothing to do with me," he said. "It's that access I have to the animals. People put themselves in my shoes."

He avoids "cutesy" music which he thinks detracts from the beauty of the animals, and aims to remove himself as much as possible.

"I try to let the animals showcase themselves - to make the animals the hero," he said.

Slowly his following grew, and he has done multiple live TV interviews, even reaching international fame for his heroic efforts to protect the animals during the Black Summer bushfires.

Chad has become a mouthpiece for animal conservation, but more, for the positive and joyful role animals can have in human lives.

"If we ever want to conserve something, first you need people to fall in love with it before they'll make choices in their life to protect something," he said.

"We want that up close personal encounter because that's how people really appreciate the grandeur of these animals and I certainly hope that may change behavior somehow."

Ultimately it is Chad's love for animals that wants humans to change their behaviour.

Wildlife parks such as Mogo aren't enough for endangered species to thrive.

"True conservation is about habitat," Chad said.

Mogo Wildlife Park breeds animals and ensures strong intra-species genetics, however Chad hopes habitat destruction can stop so the wild places these animals need to live naturally remain and flourish.

"There's no repopulating if there's no where to put them back to," he said.