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☆ Legacy of Flaco, Escaped Zoo Owl, to Live at Museum in His Neighborhood
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-28 | by ( Ed Shanahan | More About Ed Shanahan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The legacy of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl whose escape from the Central Park Zoo and year on the loose enthralled New York City before his death in February, will live on in physical form near where he spent most of his life, zoo officials said on Tuesday. Flaco’s wings and tissue samples have been transferred to the American Museum of Natural History, where they will become part of its scientific collections, according to a statement from the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the Central Park Zoo. A spokeswoman for the museum declined further comment. Flaco’s tissue samples will be kept in the museum’s frozen tissue specimen collection, the society said. The rest of Flaco’s remains have been archived at the Bronx Zoo’s Wildlife Health Center.

Organizations: Central Park Zoo, American Museum of, Wildlife Conservation Society, Zoo, Wildlife Health Locations: New York City, Wildlife, Flaco’s, Bronx

☆ Flaco, Central Park Owl, Died With High Levels of Rat Poison in System
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Ed Shanahan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl whose escape from the Central Park Zoo and life on the loose captivated New York, had potentially lethal amounts of rodenticide in his system as well as a severe pigeon virus when he died last month after striking an Upper West Side building. The findings, from a necropsy conducted by Bronx Zoo pathologists after Flaco’s death on Feb. 23, validated widespread concerns about the hazards he faced living as a free bird in Manhattan for just over a year. He would have turned 14 this month. “Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors — infectious disease, toxin exposures and traumatic injuries — that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting,” the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the Central Park and Bronx Zoos, said in a statement. Initial necropsy findings released the day after Flaco died suggested he had sustained an acute traumatic injury to his body, with signs of substantial hemorrhage under his sternum and in his back near his liver.

Persons: “, Flaco Organizations: Central Park Zoo, Bronx Zoo, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx Zoos Locations: New York, Manhattan, Wildlife

☆ What Flaco the Owl Can Teach Us About Risk - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Carl Safina | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Flaco the owl is gone, but his life had all the elements of a classic hero’s story, not soon forgotten. Born in captivity, he lived a dozen years in a comfortable cage in the Central Park Zoo where little happened and less was needed. Then, a little over a year ago, someone released him. Flaco’s liberation from his comfortable confinement came at a cost — he spent the final year of his life free, but threatened from all sides by a booming city. Almost from the moment he was released, Flaco became a symbol of hope for many of the people who followed his story and recognized parts of themselves in him.

Persons: Flaco Organizations: Zoo Locations: Manhattan

☆ Flaco’s Death Calls Attention to Bird Strikes and How to Prevent Them
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Tracey Tully | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Memorials sprang up in New York City over the weekend in honor of Flaco, a Eurasian eagle-owl who died on Friday after apparently striking a building on the Upper West Side. His ability to thrive for a year in Manhattan after escaping from the Central Park Zoo last February captivated much of the city, offering an enchanting object lesson about the power of instinct and the beauty of urban wildlife. His death may prove equally instructive. Flaco is among the estimated one billion birds that will die this year in the United States after striking buildings. Building strikes are one of the main causes of death for birds — and one of the easiest threats to solve, according to Christine Sheppard, director of the glass collisions program at the American Bird Conservancy.

Persons: Christine Sheppard Organizations: Central, Zoo, Bird Conservancy Locations: New York City, Manhattan, United States

☆ Flaco, the owl that escaped from Central Park Zoo, is dead after hitting a building
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-24 | by ( Dalia Faheid | Rob Frehse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Just over a year ago, Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl captivated the hearts of New Yorkers when he fled from a Central Park Zoo enclosure after it was vandalized. Flaco became an attraction in Central Park with birders and others regularly posting updates on X about his whereabouts and eating habits. Despite efforts from members of the Wild Bird Fund who responded quickly to Friday’s collision scene, the bird was declared dead, the WCS said. The Wild Bird Fund notified zoo staff who picked up the bird and transported him to the Bronx Zoo for a necropsy. Flaco had frequently been seen in and near Central Park and other locations across Manhattan since then, according to the society.

Persons: Eric Adams, Flaco Organizations: CNN, Yorkers, New York City, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bird Fund, Fund, Bronx Zoo, NYPD, Zoo, Conservation Society Locations: New, Manhattan, Wildlife, Central, birders, Central Park

☆ Flaco’s Crash Might Have Been More Than Bad Luck. Here’s Why.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-24 | by ( Catrin Einhorn | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Flaco spent a year defying expectations, an owl born into captivity who quickly learned to hunt and fend for himself in the wilds of New York City. Did he hit a window that he failed to perceive as glass, like hundreds of millions of birds across the United States each year? Or was he compromised in some way that impeded his ability to navigate New York’s concrete canyons? His initial examination, performed Friday by the Wild Bird Fund, a rescue group, showed a contusion on his chest and an impact to his right eye. He may have been dead by the time he hit the ground, said Rita McMahon, the group’s director.

Persons: Flaco, Rita McMahon, Ms, McMahon Organizations: Wildlife Conservation Society, Bird Fund Locations: New York City, Central, United States

☆ The Ballad of Flaco, the Outlaw Who Learned to Fly
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Michiko Kakutani | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The Times’s longtime literary critic says that like all great outlaw-heroes, the escaped Eurasian eagle-owl tapped into our desire to see an underdog claim his freedom. “The Ballad of Flaco” began with a tear in the fence of a small Central Park Zoo enclosure the size of a bathroom, and then, after nearly 13 years in captivity, in the memorable words of the late-night host Seth Meyers, “Flaco shawshanked out of that cage.”As Flaco embraced his new freedom, New Yorkers marveled at the ability of this bird — whose entire existence had been scripted since he hatched at an avian breeding center in 2010 — to achieve that very American feat of writing a second act to his life. Flaco’s jailbreak and new life on the lam cast him in the role of outlaw — a beloved figure in American movies from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” to “The Fugitive” and “The Shawshank Redemption.”

Persons: Flaco ”, Seth Meyers, “ Flaco, Flaco, —, Flaco’s, Butch Cassidy, ” Organizations: Sundance

Under cover of darkness a year ago Friday, someone breached a waist-high fence and slipped into the Central Park Zoo. The break-in happened steps from the shared headquarters of the New York City Parks Department and the Central Park Zoo, in the vicinity of at least one surveillance camera. Since the zoo suspended efforts to re-capture Flaco in February 2023, there has been no public information about the crime. In 2021, another beloved Central Park owl, Barry, was fatally struck by a truck after ingesting a lethal dose of rat poison that may have impaired her flying. He’s also lucky.”Flaco spent his initial months of freedom mostly in Central Park, which is loaded with wildlife, but has lately preferred more urban sections of Manhattan.

Persons: Flaco, hadn't, ”, Jacqueline Emery, “, Max Pulsinelli, Nicole Barrantes, Jerry Vlasak, we’re, Barry, Suzanne Shoemaker, “ He’s, He’s, ” Flaco, David Barrett, Barrett, “ It’s, “ We’re Organizations: Central, Zoo, Fifth, New York City Parks Department, Central Park Zoo, Parks Department, North American Animal Liberation Press Office, Wildlife Conservation Society, Manhattan Locations: York, Maryland, Central Park, Manhattan, North America

☆ Everyone Loves Flaco the Escaped Owl. But Why, Exactly?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Michiko Kakutani | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Once upon a time, there was an owl named Flaco who lived in a small zoo in the middle of a big park in America’s largest city. As CNN, The Guardian and The Daily Mail joined New York-based media in recounting Flaco’s adventures, concern about the owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo spread beyond his hometown. Early headlines like “Central Park Zoo Owl Still on the Loose” suggested that Flaco’s escape was a variation on the plot of the animated movie “Madagascar,” in which a discontented zebra abandons the comforts of the Central Park Zoo and goes on the lam. When a vandal cut the wire mesh on his enclosure on Feb. 2, the only world Flaco knew was forcibly ruptured — a trauma that could have proven fatal. From his micro-apartment (furnished only with some tree branches, fake rocks and a painted mural of a mountain landscape), Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl was suddenly free in Central Park and exposed to all the real-life perils and thrills of Gotham.

Persons: Flaco, —, Flaco — Organizations: CNN, Guardian, The Daily Mail, Central, Central Park Zoo Locations: America’s, New York, Yorkers, Madagascar, Central Park, Gotham

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