Flaco died on Friday, February 23rd.
A Eurasian Eagle Owl born in captivity far from his ancestral home, Flaco was set free by an act of vandalism a little over one year ago. The news of his escape was immediate and his name quickly spread as worried eyes kept tail of him. How would an owl who’d never had to hunt before survive? The city was too dangerous, too alien, for the likes of him. Central Park officials were quick and diligent in their attempts to recapture Flaco and bring him home. The closest they ever got, however, was when Flaco’s talon stuck in a baited rodent. The lure set to grab his leg malfunctioned. Flaco seemed destined to be free.
Flaco learned to hunt on his own, chasing after the rats and pigeons who travel through Central Park. How quickly his territory grew–from a favorite tree to nearby construction sites, to people’s window ledges up and down the block–as did his fame. Human well-wishers flocked below to report his every movement to followers across the internet. They delighted in knowing what Flaco did and where he was.
This past December, Flaco traveled south to other parts of Manhattan, exploring new areas in time for breeding season, sending out calls that would never be answered. Little did Flaco know he was the only one of his kind in the city. But Flaco was never alone: the human admiration continued. Reviews poured in: he was “huge,” “magnificent,” a calm and gentle visitor who delighted apartment dwellers with his curious orange eyes peering into windows. To encounter him was a blessing.
All the while, Flaco remained incredibly vulnerable. Alone, inexperienced, wild for the first time in his 13 years, he faced a number of threats. He faced dangers in the form of car traffic and other birds (Would he know how to defend himself?) and, the most insidious danger, rat poison. As an anticoagulant, rat poison causes massive hemorrhaging, leading anything that ingests it to bleed inside and out. In 2021, a Barred Owl indigenous to Central Park named Barry died when she collided with a Parks van. In her system were found “near fatal” levels of blood thinners suggestive of rat poison. Invariably she had ingested prey and the poison had carried through her system to a point where she couldn’t fly, or function as she should. The fear hung over Flaco’s head like a cloud. He was a big owl, but the city’s dangers loomed bigger.
Flaco was cut down in his prime, as nearly every rock star is. An initial necropsy’s result was released a day later, which described Flaco’s injuries as consistent with a building collision. Meanwhile, did rat poison find its way into Flaco? Was he already undergoing a medical emergency when he collided with that window? Or was the window itself to blame: the glass sheets of modern buildings claiming another bird-victim whose eyes can’t differentiate their reflection from the horizon? Legislation is being proposed to cut back on light pollution, too, in hopes that nearly a quarter million annual bird strikes can be prevented. It’s called “Flaco’s Law.” Naturally, a change.org petition for a statue of Flaco, hoping to “commemorate his legacy – and to remind us all to keep a curious, respectful eye out for the myriad wonderful beings with whom we share this space,” has amassed close to three thousand signatures in less than a week. Flaco’s legacy is already being written.
Memorials cropped up overnight; under his favorite tree in the northwest of Central Park, in an alley near the Bowery, on the message boards of the thousands across the world who took the news like a stab to the heart. It didn’t take long for Flaco to become a symbol for freedom: from thankless jobs, from small overpriced apartments, from the problems faced every day by thousands of admirers who wanted to soar above them. His flight returned him to a new kind of nature, one only he could carve out for himself. Along the way, Flaco became a once-in-a-lifetime sensation, a source of admiration and respect and curiosity. Though the only one of his kind for thousands of miles, Flaco was never alone. Little did Flaco know how much he was loved by the residents of the buildings he navigated. Flaco was as New York as it comes. Flaco the Owl was one of us.