“Ross said I’m going to build a lake. So he got a big digger and made Lake Owlsmere. There’s thousands of plants around here, waterlilies in full bloom, ducks nesting. It’s just beautiful,” says Janette Campbell as she walks around the lake her husband made at Owlcatraz Native Bird and Wildlife Park.
“He is amazing. A lot of guys have really great ideas, but Ross follows it through.”
Two months after hundreds of trees crashed down in a huge winter storm Owlcatraz is back, better and more beautiful than ever, says Janette. It’s a testament to the resourcefulness of this couple who opened their “unique taste of paradise” in 1995
“We bought the property 20 years ago, when Ross was farming locally. I was a bank officer for 21 years, originally in Shannon when it had a bank and then in Levin. In 1995 we decided that we wanted to do something with the property from which we could earn an income
“We built the park around our native owl, the morepork, or ruru. My husband Ross is the owl man – his number plate says Owl Man, mine is Owl Gal.”
Visitors can get up close with Owle MacPherson, Owl Capone, Owlvis Presley and others in the owl house. “There’s a lot of mystic around owls,” says Janette, who says the play on the owl name has been great for attracting attention.
“And of course you’ve got to have a jail at Owlcatraz,” she laughs, walking into the old historic Shannon jail which has been permanently lent to the park. The cell is now home to more than 1500 owls of all shapes and sizes, collected by an owl aficionado in Wellington. “We call him an ‘owlcoholic’, his wife was very keen for us to house his collection!”
Janette stops outside to say hello to Gordy, a hand-reared pukeko. He’s followed closely by Joey the cockatoo. She knows all the animals and they all know her. A couple of ducks follow her down the path towards the Land of Giants. On the way she passes Henry, a rooster who turned up after the storm and made such good friends with Snowflake the chook they’ve now got a brood of chicks.
Big Snow is the star of the Land of the Giants. A giant Romagnolo steer, he stands over six feet at the shoulder and weighs more than 2000kgs. Fellow giant inhabitants are Storm and Windy, a couple of ostriches named prophetically before the big blow.
In a couple of years the tree stumps in the gardens will be covered by all the new native plants, a memorial not only of the force of nature, but to the many people who came from throughout the Nature Coast and beyond to help restore the park.
“They’d turn up with their gumboots, and bins and chainsaws and say ‘we’ve come to help’. It gave us a new lease of life,” says Janette, who like Ross moved to the Nature Coast as a child.
“We love it. The climate’s great, it’s friendly, you can maintain a really good standard of living. We’re not city folk. We’ll go to Wellington for a holiday, but this is really where we want to be.”
Owlcatraz Native Bird and Wildlife Park
Main Road South (SH57), Shannon,
Owners: Ross and Janette Campbell
Phone 06 362 7872
Website www.owlcatraz.co.nz
Email: owlcatraz@xtra.co.nz
Guided Tours to see the New Zealand owls, ostriches, deer, giant steer, and other birds and animals, picnic area, craft shop, miniature train, picnic area, native trees and plants, beautiful lake, Wairuru caves, icecreams, complimentary tea and coffee, catered lunch by appointment.
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