Visitors to Orlando’s Lake Eola can begin feeding the famous swans again after more than a month of bird flu-related restrictions.

“That’s perfect timing,” said Johanna Rosero of Winter Park on Tuesday. She was there with New Yorker Lis Loboa and her family, who fed the swans from their hands while visiting the park for the first time.

The city had banned direct contact with the more than 60 swans in the lake in February after four were found dead. Two tested positive for Avian Influenza, and dozens of other birds also succumbed to the virus.

But with no new deaths since March 1, Lake Eola Park staff have been advised by local veterinarians and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that they can begin reducing precautions around the park, city spokesman Ashley Papagni said Tuesday.

The level of caution surrounding human contact with birds that may be infected took on greater significance in the wake of the Texas health department’s announcement on Monday that a human had been infected with the A/H5N1 Avian Flu in the state, just the second-ever person in the United States to have contracted that strain of bird flu.

Swans have been in Lake Eola for 102 years, according to the city, and the population there features five of the six known species of swans: trumpeter swans, black-necked swans, whooper swans, Royal Mute swans and Australian black swans.

One swan in particular, Queenie, once Eola’s only black-necked swan, became popular in 2019 amid a wide-ranging search for a mate. She eventually was successful and bore three babies.

But two of Queenie’s offspring were among the four who died in February, along with a Royal Mute swan and an Australian black swan.

In addition to avoiding direct contact, park goers were also advised to remove and clean their shoes after returning home. The FWC said at the time that the virus should hopefully dissipate in the bird population after a month, and that prediction turned out to be accurate.

The warning signs were down on Tuesday, and the news that visitors were now free to feed the swans again was a welcome one.

Lori Buchanan of Orlando said feeding the birds “was a huge feature of coming out here. I didn’t realize that you couldn’t recently. But it’s definitely a plus. Part of the draw to the park is the fact that you can interact at that level.”

Garrett and Annette Coffee, visiting from Atlanta, stood on the concrete blocks jutting out into the water under the flagpoles, watching two black swans slowly swim by.

“This is our first time here, and we were just saying how awesome it is that the swans aren’t afraid of you and come right up to you,” Garrett said. “It’s beautiful.”

“We’re glad that we’re able to feed them, and that they’re okay,” Rosero said. “Most importantly, that they can live in their habitat. It’s not ours.”