If avian flu does fade away, then Bird Street is likely to grow again. Ironically, just before the bird flu scare of 2004 the city government was making the area more tourist friendly by erecting 14 bird-inspired lampposts and adding sculptures and 2D metal silhouettes of our feathered friends. The aim was to make the area a stop on the city’s tourist map and this could be a reality once again, said Ou Ke-hua (歐可華) of the Shang Jia Bird Garden (上嘉鳥園).
Two years ago she and her brother started their pet shop on Bird Street and they claim business has been steadily improving, especially among the young. Birds are easy to look after, they don’t take up much space and they are good company, she said, while serving two high school students. Asked about the new Communicable Disease Prevention Law, Ou responded that taking precautions was sensible but looking after pet birds was something that people had been doing for millennia and would continue to do.
“I have heard of the new regulations but I don’t think they apply to us really. We are not the problem. Obviously we must be concerned about it [avian flu] because China is so near and the Strait is so narrow. But it hasn’t infected our birds yet, so it shouldn’t affect us in the future.”
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