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.

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