🕯️ LEGENDS GARDEN
🦉 Flaco
Eurasian eagle-owl · Forever: Manhattan, 2024
Lives in Legends Garden
Someone cut open his enclosure at Central Park Zoo in February 2023. Everyone assumed a captive-raised owl would starve. Instead he learned to hunt rats, roosted on water towers and fire escapes, and lived wild over Manhattan for a year. He died in February 2024 after striking a building.
What they do
Swivels his head from side-on to staring straight at you with two enormous orange eyes.
Escaped. Adapted. Refused every attempt to recapture him. A whole city's folk hero.
Lore
- ★He had never hunted before escaping, and taught himself on New York City rats
- ★Zoo staff tried to lure him back and eventually gave up - he was thriving
- ★Bird-safe building glass legislation was advanced in his name after his death
- ★New Yorkers tracked his roosts nightly and his death made international news
Helping the real one
💛 Support Flaco via Wild Bird Fund, New York CityNYC's wild bird rehabilitation centre - the closest thing to a route in his name This opens their own official page. Money never touches this site.
Where this comes from
- CBS News New York Flaco, escaped Central Park Zoo owl, dies ↗
- Wildlife Conservation Society (Central Park Zoo) Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle Owl, has died ↗
- Wildlife Conservation Society (Central Park Zoo) Central Park Zoo releases Flaco postmortem results ↗
Every link here was checked twice before it was published. If one is dead or wrong, tell us.