The Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department will introduce new licensing conditions to ban traders from selling birds from dubious sources.

The new rules will ensure that all birds kept by licensed animal traders are from approved sources. The birds should either be legally imported into Hong Kong accompanied by valid health certificates or acquired from other licensed traders and have documentation, such as invoices and sale receipts, detailing the species, quantity, date of transaction and source.

In case the birds are hatched from eggs laid by birds owned by licensed animal traders, the licensee must seek the department's agreement before hatched birds are put on sale.

Only birds free from infectious disease can be sold. "Trade-in" of birds from clients and display for sale on behalf of clients and people other than licensed animal traders is banned.

Traders must keep an up-to-date detailed record of any transaction relating to any birds acquired, sold, movement and the balance of the bird stock in a register in a prescribed format. Detailed records must also be kept for birds disposed of otherwise than by sale, such as by free gift.

Temporary closure

Meanwhile, all 78 Bird Garden shop owners will be offered a $10,000 one-off ex-gratia payment and a one-month waiver to relieve their plight during the Bird Garden's temporary closure. To improve the garden's sanitary conditions, shop owners must conduct thorough monthly cleaning.

The Bird Garden will remain closed until further notice. The department will closely monitor the birds' health and collect swab samples from shops for tests.

All of the 18 samples collected from the shop where the durian starling had been kept were negative for avian flu after preliminary testing. Of the 137 samples collected from the other shops over the past few days, initial test results also showed that all were negative.