Ten minutes up the road from Matakana village, Rodney, sits 13 hectares of rolling land flanked by 160 hectares of native bush. Here you’ll find kereru nibbling on the pink flowers and berries of ancient puriri trees, scores of happy hens pecking at their plentiful feed, a one-tonne steer, a donkey and miniature white pony sharing a paddock like the best of friends, and healthy kunekune pigs soaking up the sun’s rays. It’s true these animals live a charmed and peaceful life at the place they now call home, The Animal Sanctuary, but it hasn’t always been that way.
Tortured, abused, neglected and mistreated, these animals all arrived here to be nursed back to health by Shawn Bishop and her husband, Michael Dixon. They bought the property 17 years ago…
