Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped from New York City’s Central Park Zoo and became one of the city’s most beloved celebrities as it flew around Manhattan, has died, zoo officials say.
A little over one year after Flaco was freed from its cage at the zoo in a criminal act that has yet to be solved, the owl appears to have collided with an Upper West Side building, the zoo said in a written statement.
“The vandal who damaged Flaco’s exhibit jeopardized the safety of the bird and is ultimately responsible for his death,” the statement said. “We are still hopeful that the NYPD, which is investigating the vandalism, will ultimately make an arrest.”
Staff from the Wild Bird Fund, a wildlife rehabilitation center, responded to the scene and declared Flaco dead shortly after the collision. The owl was taken to the Bronx Zoo for a necropsy.
The death prompted an outpouring of grief on social media. One of Flaco’s most dedicated observers, David Barrett, suggested establishing a temporary memorial at the bird’s favorite oak tree in Central Park. Birders could then “lay flowers, leave a note or just be with others who loved Flaco,” Barrett said in a post on X for the account Manhattan Bird Alert, which documented the bird’s whereabouts.
Since the zoo suspended efforts to re-capture Flaco in February 2023, there has been no public information about the crime.
Until now, Flaco had defied the odds, thriving in the urban jungle despite a lifetime in captivity. The owl became one of the city’s most beloved characters. By day, it lounged in Manhattan’s courtyards and parks or perches on fire escapes, then spent nights hooting atop water towers and preying on the city’s abundant rats.
Flaco was known for turning up unexpectedly at New Yorkers’ windows and was tracked around the Big Apple by bird-watchers.
“We hoped only to see Flaco hooting wildly from the top of our local water tower, never in the clinic,” the World Bird Fund said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Flaco’s time in the sky began on Feb. 2, 2023, when someone breached a waist-high fence and slipped in to the Central Park Zoo and then cut a hole through a steel mesh cage, freeing the owl that had arrived at the zoo as a fledgling 13 years earlier.
