Entrepreneur uses owl magic to reshape community in Ita Thao village

Entering Lin Yi-bei's 30 square-meter Owl Workshop in the Ita Thao Commercial District one encounters owls of all sorts, put to a wide variety of uses — as coasters, key chains, mobile phone accessories, necklaces, clocks, pillow cushions, wood carvings... It is a veritable owl museum.

Before becoming an enthusiastic promoter of owls, Lin Yi-bei, whose speech follows a logic all her own and is riddled with hip expressions, worked on behalf of the black-faced spoonbill. Armed with a freshly minted degree in interior design from Shu-Te University in Kaohsiung, she headed to her first job at the Black-faced Spoonbill Conservation, Management and Research Center in Cigu, Tainan.

Unfortunately, she never really fell head over heels for these graceful, rare birds, and after a year she went to work at a design firm in Taipei. The crowded, hurried lifestyle of the big city was a shock to her system, as she was accustomed to a slower pace of life. When the company won a bid to work on the Checheng Wood Museum in Nantou, she volunteered to head back to the countryside and oversee the project. For her, “a little less money was fine. I just wanted to go home.”

Lin drove between Checheng and Ita Thao each day. One day after work, driving along the road that rings Sun Moon Lake, she picked up a Formosan mountain scops owl. It was love at first sight with this unusual looking bird, and so began an affair with owls that has burned brightly ever since.

The owl is the spiritual bird of Thao tribal legends. Having grown up in Ita Thao, Lin Yi-bei was no stranger to the stories, but to her they were no more than mythical creatures. However, after encountering owls close-up, she discovered that if you look attentively enough, they are often to be seen around Sun Moon Lake.

“It's a spirit, no longer a bird but an animal that can think, with wings,” relates Lin Yi-bei, pointing to a poster in her shop. She notes that the owl is the only species of bird that makes facial expressions, making it especially endearing.

Throwing herself completely into studying owls, she works with the Wild Bird Rescue Institute of Taichung County, and has published the book The Owls of Taiwan, never letting a chance to absorb more knowledge of owls pass by. Determined to see all 12 of the known species of owls on Taiwan, she still has four to go.

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