1News presenter Melissa Stokes looks back at the legendary story of New Zealand's woolly superstar Shrek the sheep.
If I was to tell you it is claimed that 1.2 billion people tuned in to watch a sheep being shorn on live TV, would you believe it?
Such is the phenomenon of a merino sheep called Shrek.
In 2004, a renegade sheep that had avoided muster for five years was found in Central Otago, on Bendigo Station near Tarras. He was, as his owner John Perriam remembers, completely wool blind and "the most useless worthless creature."
But he would go on to be worth an estimated $100 million to the New Zealand economy and raise thousands of dollars for the Cure Kids Charity.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
That was how Otago Daily Times photographer Stephen Jaquiery summed up Shrek’s life. We have him to thank for this image of Shrek as he was found after years in the wilderness.
The photo that started the extraordinary story.
"He pushed a button and that photo went to all corners of the world within 24 hours, so it was an incredible start to the journey. It seemed to capture people’s imaginations and you can see why because I didn’t quite believe it myself," John Perriam explained.
Perriam will never forget the first time he laid eyes on the sheep.
"I saw him standing on this bluff, just a massive ball of wool, 27 kilograms of wool."
I’m told that this can be a bit embarrassing for a farmer to find a sheep that's hidden from you for five years, but Shrek was thrown in a ute and taken back down to the station.
Visiting kids from a pony club nicked named him Shrek after the ogre in the 2001 film. A heavily guarded brand and a box office smash, and yes, early on there were lawyers called in and meetings with DreamWorks.
Meanwhile, Shrek was bumping into walls and plans needed to be made to shear the merino.
Thanks to Stephen Jacquiery’s photo, Shrek was already famous, but he was about to become a New Zealand icon. Paul Holmes was coming to Bendigo.
Holmes was the biggest name in broadcasting at the time and his eponymous show Holmes secured the deal to shear Shrek live on TV.
Perriam was nervous.
"Everything was going on around us, this was live around the world. Holmes has got the TV crew down and they had some magnificent shots of Queenstown, Central Otago and the high country that all beams to all of the world, you were holding your breath alright."
Worries over Shrek’s skin meant plans to have world champion shearer David Fagan use his sheep clippers on him were scuppered, and another world champion using blade shears Peter Cassidy was called in.
"If you shear a sheep in front of the world you take one huge risk if it was cut badly or something."
Twenty minutes later, Shrek was relieved of 27 kilograms of wool. A red coat with the name Icebreaker was thrown on him to keep him warm.
Perriam said he had asked the brand to make it and pay $10,000 to go straight to the charity Cure Kids.
He thought this was a one off chance to raise some money for charity.
He was wrong.
"He’d gone from this useless wool eye, wool blind thing, to having this red cover on, but I still thought that would be the end of the journey. But the phone starting ringing the next morning... and that’s when the bizarre stuff started to happen."
Shrek was a big deal.
He went on to travel in planes and helicopters, commanding thousands for corporate events but visiting schools, hospitals and rest homes for free, even meeting then Prime Minister Helen Clark.
He was welcomed everywhere and anywhere, Perriam said.
People marvelled over how placid the sheep was, preferring human company to animal and dutifully following Perriam all over the country.
"We got pretty close," the farmer says.
"We’d go into each [hospital] room and go up to the bed, and he’d put his nose up there to you know so hello to people. People would cry you know that’s how much he meant to people."
Around two years after his first shearing, Perriam’s phone started to ring.
"I started getting phone calls from animal welfare, people saying 'you’re sending a bad message to all the lifestyle blocks in New Zealand, why aren’t you shearing the sheep?' The reason was everybody wanted Shrek to be woolly."
Perriam got the Shrek team back together to plan another fundraising opportunity, but then something caught his eye.
"I heard about these ice bergs floating up from Antarctica going past New Zealand."
And so it was that Shrek was flown in a helicopter for, in hindsight, a hair raising adventure.
Perriam said all hell broke loose once they had touched down on the massive iceberg with huge cracking and shuddering coming from below.
"I could just see the headlines and the papers, 'Shrek perishing on this iceberg' and the names of the people will be published at a later date."
The shearing on the ice story kickstarted Shrek’s legend all over again and the fundraising money kept pouring in.
In 2011, Shrek, believed to be 17 years of age, was euthanised, immortalised in a bronze statue in Tarras where his story began.
His owner and the so-called father of Shrek said the story came at a time when everybody in the world was looking for something good.
"There was something really special about that sheep that New Zealand loved.
"He just loved everybody."
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