A peek into zookeepers' wild lives at Canberra's National Zoo and Aquarium

Even the volunteer pool at the National Zoo and Aquarium is swarming with animal lovers. Just ask team leader for bears, Siobhan Block.

Once a week, for a year, Ms Block drove three-and-a-half hours from Albury to Canberra to volunteer at the zoo for nine hours.

At the time, she lived in NSW, worked in hospitality and wanted to see if she was meant to be a zookeeper. That's about 16 hours a day dedicated to learning and caring for animals and their environment.

She's now been a keeper for more than a decade and adores her role. She calls it a "love job" which requires her undivided attention.

"It can be quite an emotional job because [zookeepers] work for the love of the animals," Ms Block said. "It's my lifestyle, not just a job."

She sometimes takes work home with her, wondering whether the animals are happy and if they're safe.

Over the eight years she's been at the National Zoo, Ms Block has worked with bears, tigers, cheetahs, red pandas, meerkats, primates and small carnivores like otters.

She loves getting to know their unique personalities and said the zoo residents really appreciated classical music, especially the penguins. A volunteer harpist even holds performances for the animals from time to time.

By the way, the rhinos are absolutely enjoying the rainy weather and playing in the mud, the sun bears and cheetahs not so much.

Zookeeper Jemma Walsh chimed in saying primates at the zoo loved watching David Attenborough.

She started as a zoo barista and her advice for people wanting to be zookeepers was to "keep pushing".

Most keepers at the National Zoo have a Certificate III in Captive Animals and about 60 per cent of them started out as volunteers.

Because everyone wants a piece of the zoo life, Ms Walsh deems it a somewhat competitive industry.

"If you really want to be a zookeeper, get into the industry as a barista, or in maintenance and really work out if it's the place for you," she said.

She also said zookeeping had "drastically" changed over the past three or four decades into a trade which included gardening, building, maintenance and conservation work.

"Our job is to inspire the next generation of people to better protect the environment, we want to make sure these beautiful creatures stick around for as long as we can," Ms Walsh said.

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Team leader for birds Brendan Sheean was greeted by a couple of cuddly dingoes going for a walk. He's responsible for 40 animals at the zoo and has wanted this job since he was five. He says he never really grew up.

For Mr Sheean, the best part of spending so much time with the animals is that he gets to witness their major milestones, like becoming parents which gives their species higher chances of survival.

"One of my best memories is breeding tree kangaroos. It took a while ... [but] when we found out that mum had a baby, it was a really exciting moment, especially for such an endangered species," Mr Sheean said.

October 4 was celebrated as International Zookeeper Day at the National Zoo and Aquarium.

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