A zoo keeper showed an act of bravery after he took wild animals to his house in a bid to save them from fire.
Mogo Zoo houses Australia’s largest collection of primates, along with zebras, rhinos and giraffes.
Yet when it was right in the line of a bushfire, the keepers managed to protect all 200 animals from harm.
While most were sheltered at the site, monkeys, pandas and even a tiger were temporary lodgers at one keeper’s home.
On Tuesday, an evacuation order was made for the New South Wales area where the zoo is located, but staff decided to stay to protect their animals.
'There's a tiger to the back of the house.' ???
Rangers from @mogowildlife, 10 minutes from the #AustralianFires, have had to keep some animals in their homes to keep them safe.
Sara Ang from the wildlife park says all animals and staff are safe.
? Listen via @BBCSounds pic.twitter.com/IWXIvOmMaY
— BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) December 31, 2019
Zoo director Chad Staples said the situation had been “apocalyptic” and that it “felt like Armageddon”.
He said the zoo only survived because there’d been a precise plan in place: first the zoo keepers moved everything flammable from the area and then turned to the animals themselves.
The larger ones like the lions, tigers and orang-utans were moved into secured night enclosures to keep them safe and calm, but the smaller ones needed extra shelter.
So director Staples decided to simply have them taken to his own house.
“Right now in my house there’s animals of all descriptions in all the different rooms, that are there safe and protected… not a single animal lost,” he told the ABC broadcaster.
