Brandon Troy Gifford

Growing up on my grandparents’ cattle farm in Casino, NSW, my dad, George, mum, Adele, and two older sisters, Candice, then 14, and Kirby, 12, were terrified of snakes. But I wanted to save animals – like my hero, Steve Irwin. I quickly became known around our tiny town as the ‘snake catching kid’ despite being only 10. Five years later, aged 15, I signed up as a volunteer at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in Queensland. My parents drove me the two-hour trip and I spent every school holiday and weekend volunteering. Shadowing the keepers, when I wasn’t cleaning animal enclosures, I was getting hands-on training with birds, cuddling koalas and feeding Tasmanian devils. Studying animal sciences and captive animal studies at TAFE, I then landed my first paid job in 2016 at Australia Zoo as a roving entertainer, taking animals out to meet guests, before quickly transitioning to mammal keeping. Today I work under the operations manager at the Australian Reptile Park.