Mogo zookeeper Chad Staples hand-reared motherless lion cub Maji

His 294,000 Instagram followers have since December last year watched Chad hand-rear orphaned Maji, whose mother died from complications soon after the cub's birth. They've watched as the celebrity zookeeper gave the cub, whose name means water in Swahili, a firm foothold on life.

What those Instagram fans might not be aware of is how the cub helped her foster dad navigate the tricky shoals of his own heartbreak.

This was the year he planned to marry his longtime, long-distance sweetheart, Svitlana Pace, whom he describes as "an amazing woman". The wedding didn't come to pass.

"That was a death from Covid," he says.

"We'd done a long-distance thing for quite a period of time. We finally found the ability to try to move her out here but due to Covid circumstances and her still having a life in the US with family, without that ability to travel back and forth it just didn't survive.

"Thankfully I had a companion animal in the form of a lion cub which made any breakup very easy."

The affection between Chad and Maji is expressed as they play in the enclosure. The cub takes his hand gently in her fangs. Chad rolls her gently on her back and scratches her tummy. Only stone-hard hearts would not be moved by the interaction.

"It may sound funny but everyone has a love language and mine is definitely touch. The fact that I can get that from a variety of different species is unbelievably rewarding," he says. "My favourite time of the day is after closing when I'll do a lap of the zoo, going to certain individuals that I have a relationship with and spend time in close proximity or with touch."

That kind of daily interaction helped socialise Mogo Wildlife Park's other Instagram star Phoenix, a male lion born after the Black Summer bushfire bore down on the zoo on December 31, 2019, for life in captivity.

"He stayed with his mum the whole time but what I did with him was daily interactions to ensure that he was good with people. A male lion that is either aggressive towards people or frightened of them is dangerous. He'll either hurt himself or somebody else because of that fear."

Phoenix's socialisation took place during last year's Covid lockdown, when the zoo was closed to the public.

"I was able to freely walk the lion around the zoo, take him to see other species, being able to enrich both species that way. It ended up being invaluable because fast-forward a year to our next lot of lion cubs being born and going through the tragedy of the lioness passing during childbirth, it was thrust upon me from day one to actually hand raise one. It certainly wouldn't have been as easy if I hadn't had that year's experience with Phoenix."

Chad and cub Maji were barely separated for six months.

"Every single night she was there with me. Every single meal came from me. It was 100 per cent involvement. It was taxing on me. It was very labour intensive, all-consuming but the most rewarding thing I've done in my life. For something so beautiful to come from such a tragedy was just remarkable."

The director of Mogo Wildlife Park on the NSW South Coast, Chad reveals that while he has always been there for the animals, they have been there for him, helping him stare down the calamity and crisis of the past 18 months.

First, there was the bushfire which on New Year's Eve 2019 arrived at the zoo in all its roaring fury. The heroic effort by zookeepers to save the animals made headlines around the world. It also laid the groundwork for the enormous social media following.

"I'm very lucky in that I draw everything from the animals," Chad says.

"If you just go back to the fires, there was never a Plan B. We had to be successful because the animals needed us. It would not have mattered if I was putting out fires for the next six weeks, I would have done so until they were safe."

The animals helped him get through the Covid crisis as well.

"We went through the fires, closed for two months, for repairs and cleanup to then open for four weeks and then close for another two months with Covid," he says. Had he been locked down in an apartment like so many city-dwellers, he reckons he would have gone mad.

"I still had that absolute luxury of living here on the site, being surrounded by animals and still having staff here who are as passionate as I am, which you do feed off."

As Chad makes his way around the zoo, the animals take notice. At one enclosure, a crowd of giraffes tower over him, straining their necks to get a share of the food pellets he's offering. That in turn draws a crowd of humans, most transfixed by the animals, some by the zookeeper.

Were the tables turned and he was an exhibit, Chad would be classed as a fine specimen. Broad shouldered, well muscled and colourfully inked, yet soft spoken, thoughtful and oozing empathy, he's the zookeepers' pinup boy. A portrait of him by the zoo's resident artist Lord DJ Stief was even entered in last year's Archibald Prize.

On the Primate Island, he rolls around with a pair of Siamang gibbons from South East Asia, large and strong primates equipped with fearsome teeth which they push into his back.

"Oh, it's just play," he says. "If they wanted to, they could do some serious damage."

So what led a young man growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney down this most unusual career path?

"I wasn't that little kid that went catching lizards religiously but I was always fascinated by animals. I loved the zoos, would always ask to go to them whenever I could to be in that proximity to animals."

His mother loved animals but his father didn't so pets were not part of early childhood. Trips to zoos fed Chad's passion.

"One species I vividly remember, and I would have only been six at the time, on a trip to Taronga was the red panda. I'd never seen anything before like it my life."

To this day, the species still holds him in thrall.

"The more I find out about it, it's still so intriguing. If you look at its dentition, it should be a carnivore but it's a herbivore. It has the most stunning colours yet its camouflage is phenomenal. It's so gentle and trusting by nature."

Chad attended an agricultural high school but left early - "it was just not doing it for me." After a year working in various jobs he made up his mind: he wanted to be a zookeeper. He talked his way into an interview at Mogo's sister zoo, Featherdale, in Blacktown, even though there was no position available at the time.

A short time later, he was interviewed a second time, got some casual shifts and was then taken on full-time. He has never looked back, the animal attraction is simply too strong.

Being a zookeeper, of course, also involves interacting with the humans who come to see the animals, which can present its own challenges especially those visitors try to provoke a reaction from the exhibits.

"It is a balancing act," says Chad.

"When I see a young kid, like I imagine I was, who runs up to an exhibit and is just blown away because they have now just seen a gorilla in the flesh still floors me. I get so much from seeing that.

"But it is hard to suffer fools. There is unfortunately a lot in our culture where everything is needed instantly. There's no time to sit and enjoy and watch what's unfolding in front of you. There's too much temptation to try to cause a reaction, to see a performance. That's not OK."

He recalls having to euthanise a wombat that had been hand fed plastic by a visitor.

"This was an animal that came in as an orphan, I raised it on the bottle for months. It was living in the wildlife park, had reached adulthood, was paired up with another wombat and to be there that moment when we had to euthanise it was tragic."

Chad says zoos with positive environments rather than bars and wire tend to promote better behaviour in visitors. Education also plays an important role.

"Without us holding that as obligation to society, it wouldn't happen. Even though you're doing the same job every day the fact you've got a different child in front of you and a different emotional response is very rewarding."

After almost 25 years as a zookeeper, Chad is keen to pave the way for the next generation. He's teamed up with TAFE at nearby Moruya to offer the practical component to its Certificate III in Captive Animals course.

"When I was approached and told this could be broadened on the South Coast, I was in before they finished the question.

"TAFE has always been very practical. To become a plumber you do both on the job and theoretical; it's the same with zookeeping. The difference between the keeper who only does the practical and the keeper who does both is enormous. It builds into them a sense of wanting to do better, of wanting to learn more about the animals they look after and sets them up for a lifelong career of learning."

That learning has never stopped for Chad, who says he is always surprised by the species in his care.

"We have two amazing rhinos here. The qualities you see in them, they have fun, they enjoy touch. You'll go down and talk with them and sit with them and they lean into it and crave that.

"They're very playful and that shows intelligence, the fact they can choose to interact with something for enjoyment. You can give a rhino a strong ball or a truck tyre and they will chase it, roll it, flip it, run around it like a dog and it will keep them occupied for an enormous amount of time."

Providing the rhinos with the means to play enriches their lives. Watching them play enriches the humans who care for them and those who pay to see them.