Marvelling at menagerie
13May08
John Spink takes Macca the Macaw for a walk along the street in Upwey.
IF WILDLIFE warrior Steve Irwin was still alive today, and lived in the hills, his name would be John Spink.
The Upwey man, 67, spends hours each day looking after his menagerie of animals, including birds.
His love of animals started when he got his first pet mouse at the age of four when he lived in Caulfield.
But when he moved to Upper Ferntree Gully a couple of years later, that love exploded.
He had what he called a "private zoo" about 500 birds, possums, reptiles ("everything bar a crocodile") and other animals.
But it all went up in smoke when a bushfire raged the area in 1968, when he was 27.
"The fire got in and got the birds, ducks, an owl it was very sad to lose them," Mr Spink said. "If the fire hadn't knocked me about, I had in the back of my mind to do something like that Irwin's Australia Zoo."
But Mr Spink still had his day job as a postie, so he bought a few more birds and got it going again.
Mr Spink has lived in his present house for 20 years.
He still has a variety of pets, including a green-winged macaw named Macca and a blue and gold macaw called Marcus. Mr Spink said he spent a lot of time looking after the macaws.
"They're not a low price to buy, but their life span is 60 years plus they'll probably outlive me," he said.
Mr Spink admits he stops traffic when he takes Macca and Marcus for a walk, sometimes on a leash.
He spends most of his pension on the animals, feeding them a special diet of seeds, fruit and nuts.
Mr Spink also has an african grey parrot, which has a vocabulary of about 650 words, and Chloe, a galah that survived the 1968 bushfires.
His prized animals are all microchipped.
Mr Spink bred birds and other animals up until a few years ago. His partner of two years, Peggy, shares his affinity with animals she works at the RSPCA.
