Birdman memorial proposed

Press, 24 August 1988, Page 11

Birdman memorial proposed

An animal rights group, the Animal Defenders’ League, has offered to start a public fund for a memorial birdfeeder in Cathedral Square, in memory of Mr Jock Orr, the “Birdman,” who died recently. The group’s founder, Miss Natalie Taylor, said it wanted to start the fund because “not only will the general public be missing the ‘Birdman’ but the birds will be missing him.” The group, the motto of which is “A voice for all creatures,” has yet to decide how much it will put into the fund. Miss Taylor said it had had a sympathetic response from the Christchurch City Council. The chairman of the council’s inner-city working party, Cr John Burn, said costs were being obtained for a memorial bronze plaque. A picture of the “Birdman” could

be sculpted into the plaque, he said. The party did not want many permanent structures in Cathedral Square, but Miss Taylor’s suggestion would not be dismissed, said Cr Burn. “One hesitates to say it publicly but although the ‘Birdman’ was an interesting sort of guy and well known, in a few years the memorial would mean nothing to anybody,” he said. If the memorial cost only a few hundred dollars the party was inclined to spend its own money rather than appeal for public funds, he said. He would need to have some idea of the form of the birdfeeder proposed and how many birds it was likely' to attract, he said. The committee would be looking to have an answer on a memorial by the time of its next meeting, on September 6..