From the New York Observer: BYE BYE BIRDIES
So you have your Cipro, your gas mask, your canned water and your crank-powered radio. You have a bike locked on the other side of the East River and your escape route is all planned out. You'll be fine. Unless, of course, you're in the shower alone in your apartment when it happens, the radio and TV happen to be off, and whatever it is that's supposed to kill you doesn't smell like anything.
"I have a plan for that," said Jen Lee of Brooklyn. "I am getting a canary."
Ms. Lee isn't the only one. An informal survey of shoppers and employees in pet stores around the city reveals that dozens--maybe even hundreds--of New Yorkers have been snapping up canaries since Sept. 11, with the idea of using their birds as an early-detection system in the event of a terrorist gas attack.
Ms. Lee was ogling birds on a recent afternoon at the Petco pet store near Union Square. She said she'd decided to purchase a canary a few days previously, when she was walking down the street and ran into her eighth-grade social-studies teacher. During the encounter, Ms. Lee, who is in her 20's, remembered something she'd learned in class.
"Back during, you know--West Virginia--when the coal miners had to go down those deep tunnels or whatnot, and they were like, 'Um, are we dying down here or not?' because there were like all these poison gases," Ms. Lee said. "The miners all got canaries. And if the canaries died, it meant get the hell out of there."
A saleswoman came over to help.
"I want a canary," Ms. Lee said.
"Red or yellow?" the saleswoman asked.
"It doesn't matter which one," Ms. Lee said, and then she changed her mind. "Which is cheaper?"
"The yellow ones. They're $90," the saleswoman said.
"Good," Ms. Lee said. "'Cause I think the yellow ones work better anyway."
The saleswoman asked her if she wanted a male or female.
"Ummm, I don't really care," Ms. Lee said.
The saleswoman boxed up a bird. Ms. Lee touted her purchase.
"O.K., so I'm in the apartment, and suddenly the canary stops singing," she said. "It's dead. Then I either go outside right away, or if that doesn't look safe, then stay inside."
Ms. Lee glanced at her new pet. "Such a good idea," she said. "My friends are all going to get these things."
Maybe they already have. Finding someone at a local Petco to talk on the record was difficult, but privately, employees at several of the pet chain's locations in the city said that they've noticed a surge in demand for canaries. One staffer at the Petco on 86th Street, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said "I don't want to seem unpatriotic or anything, but [canary] business has been great ever since Sept. 11!"
Other stores have noted similar increases. The Bird House, an aviary on the Upper West Side, ran out of canary cages for the first time that anyone there could remember. And Pierre Brooks, the owner of 33rd & Bird in midtown, said he's been amazed by "the influx of people buying canaries." Breeders have noticed a spike in demand, he said; they can hardly keep up.
Still, Mr. Brooks warbled a note of caution.
"Ever since Sept. 11, 50 percent of our customers are buying these birds for the wrong reasons," he said. Canaries, he added, require special nutrients, ample space, toys to play with and plenty of attention from their owners. "We're very concerned they're not going to take good care of the birds."
It was early afternoon, and Mr. Brooks, a professorial-looking man in a warm sweater, was flanked by screeching parrots, finches, macaws and parakeets. He pointed to a pair of white-bellied canaries perched next to a frill canary.
"The frill, which is $199, these people will go for, no questions asked," he said. By "these people," it was pretty clear what Mr. Brooks meant canary-buyers-come-lately.
"People are coming in, they're asking, 'Give me a canary, I don't care if it's male or female. But I want one,'" Mr. Brooks said. That seemed to make him even madder. "The female doesn't sing. So that's an indication to us that they're buying them for you-know-what."
A parrot stuck its talon into Mr. Brooks' sweater, and he plucked it out. "We're very concerned. If they think they can walk in and walk out with a bird--well, they weren't expecting to run into me," he said. "We put people through a little grill."
He said he's told canary customers "'I understand you're in here to buy it because of the state of affairs. But I want to know that you'll care for it. Is this just a trophy that's going to be tarnished at some given time, and in the meantime you're not polishing it?'
"I turn a lot of people away," Mr. Brooks said.
But if a worried customer still insists--begs, even--Mr. Brooks said he'll try to persuade him or her that canaries don't save lives.
"I tell them, without being a biologist, that I don't think a canary is the answer," he said. "I don't think the canary dying is enough of a sign of what's going to come."
Dr. Michael Garvey, director of the E. & M. Bobst Hospital of the Animal Medical Center on the Upper East Side, generally agreed with Mr. Brooks. For the most part, people who buy canaries to warn them of gas attacks are "very silly," he said.
But Dr. Garvey admitted there was at least a chance that a canary could help alert a person that something bad was coming.
"It would depend upon the agent," he said. "Small birds are very sensitive to inhalation of all kinds of noxious gases, some of which don't even bother human beings. You can kill a bird just by overheating Teflon on the stove . I can't speak for all noxious gases, but in general, a canary would likely be more sensitive to gases than a human. Technically, they would succumb first. It has to do with their body weight--their body size."
But, Dr. Garvey said, "that's not the point." The real question, he said, is "What would you do after the bird died? Where could you go?"
--Ian Blecher