Flaco, we hardly knew you

New York’s resident Eurasian Eagle Owl has hooted his last. After escaping from the Central Park zoo in early 2023, Flaco had settled in to life in the city. He roosted in park trees, and visited different neighborhoods: delighting those who saw him on railings and fire escapes. A massive bird, he was hard to miss. There were early attempts to recapture him, before it was decided to leave him alone, and just monitor his activities. He soon had many fans posting photos online, and looking for him in the treetops.

Most zoo escapees are quickly recaptured or found, making Flaco an entertaining anomaly (just in the last year, we’ve had a red panda wandering down the street in Cornwall, a macaque on the lam in Scotland, and a zebra tasting freedom on the streets of Seoul.) Animals bust out of zoos more often than you’d think.

Flaco didn’t bust out so much as benefit from human intervention. Someone vandalised his cage (they haven’t been caught, so the motive is unclear), allowing him to escape.

Despite being born in captivity, he learned quickly how to evade his captors once he got free. He learned to perch and hunt live prey, his natural instincts kicking in.

He made the city his home, and visited many buildings - even looking in the window of playwright Nan Knighton.

Flaco, photographed by Nan Knighton

Eurasian Eagle Owls are not from the Americas, but nor are many of the birds residing in Central Park. (The mute swans are immigrants too). Flaco was not part of the natural ecosystem: but what, in a city, is? Animals may be native to a region, but nothing is truly native to concrete and steel.

In their natural range, they are not endangered - several hundred thousand of Flaco’s kind swoop around mountains in Europe and Asia, from Spain to Korea. (Their rather comic scientific name is Bubo bubo). But in New York, he was alone.

Flaco was thus doomed to never find a mate, his lonely hoots remaining unanswered (his only hope of breeding would have involved recapture - and either being put back in captivity with a female of his species, or released in a part of the world where Eagle Owls live wild). But he was an owl, and he would never understand that.

He turned the city into his playground, perching on rooftops like Batman, and munching on city rats and pigeons (also invasive species). Some rat-hating residents wouldn’t mind a few more Flacos.

Flaco met his end apparently by flying into a building - a fate unfortunately shared by thousands of birds each year. But he will go down as another quirky New Yorker, who found fame.