They had given him a few days to live, but he lived as a free owl for over a year: On February 2, 2023, someone had torn down his cage at the Central Park Zoo and he had glided a short distance down Fifth Avenue, becoming disoriented before taking flight continues. They said that after spending all his thirteen years behind a net, he would not know how to feed himself. And instead the scrawny Flaco had avoided the traps and taken to hunting mice in the park between the North Woods and the Hole, enjoying life and avoiding the risk of rat poison and the thousand dangers of a city like New York.
Uhu
He had become an undisputed celebrity in the way only animals can. And we only now fully understand this as we scroll through the passionate comments and “obituaries” surrounding his sudden death. This eagle owl has captured the imagination of thousands of people. From the avid bird watcher to the simple passerby, from the artists who immortalized him in murals and in songs in Nashville, to the guru of literary critics Michiko Kakutani, who dedicated a cultured and inspired article to him a few days ago. Your newspaper welcomed “the eagle owl of Eurasia” (scientific name Bubo Bubo) on its editorial page yesterday. Il Flaco as Butch Cassidy, incarnation of the “eternal American myth of the outlaw on the run,” a feathered hero of freedom. He, who had done nothing to win it, lived up to the gift (or vandalism) of the person who gave it to him (and for the police he remains a wanted man).
Impossible love with Geraldine
Il Flaco as Gus, the depressed polar bear of the nineties. Or Pale Male, the falcon, who raised about thirty young in his nest on Fifth. New Yorkers followed Twitter alerts from David Barrett, who reported all sightings. They dreamed of an unlikely pairing with Geraldine, a female great horned owl who appeared in the trees of Central Park on the very days that “the outlaw” came out of the cage. An unlikely love. Flaco continued to fly and chatter around Manhattan, making his “calls” to defend his territory (which no one disputed) and looking for an impossible companion, because in nature there are no similar “Eurasians” in America.
The autopsy
An estimated 230,000 birds die from window collisions in New York each year. This happened at Flaco the other night. They found him on the ground on West 89th Street. They will perform a necropsy at the Bronx Zoo. He would have turned 14 next month. We knew it would happen sooner or later, as it does with certain prisoners in certain cells. But at least Flaco died a free owl.