Flaco the Owl. Rest In Peace

Up to now I haven't had enough words in my head to write about the passing of Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl with the 12 foot wingspan. As anyone who has been following social media and newscasts from New York City knows by now, Flaco, who escaped from his vandalized enclosure at the Central Park Zoo on February 2, 2023, has passed away on February 23, 2024. He met his fate by most likely flying into a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he was often seen.

It was at night, and perhaps his eyesight, his GPS and his radar failed him, but he was found dead as a Dodo in the courtyard of a building at 267 West 89th Street at around 5:00 P.M. There was no indication if he flew into an unforgiving window, or a solid side of building bricks. Did a TV with naked people get his attention? Did just naked people get his attention? It is not known how fast he was going, or from what height his systems failed him. 

He may not have even been flying when he went to his death. Initial findings state that Flaco died of "acute traumatic injury" mainly to the bird's body, but not his head. He may have just fallen from a high perch. Margaret Renki in the NYT outlines even more scenarios that could have caused his death. Full necropsy results will be weeks away. 

The New York Times did not do an obituary, but did of course report  his death. An obituary for a pet, public or private, might have been seen as going too far. It might set a bad precedent. I can never remember reading an obituary in the NYT for an animal.

There have however been animal obituaries from other sources. Ann Wroe in The Economist wrote about a deceased parrot, Alex, an African gray who was the subject of a 30-year psychology study. I had a friend who bought an African Grey for about $600 decades ago. He had heard that the African Greys could be taught to talk a lot. My friend lived in a lobby apartment in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. The bird didn't last too long, catching a cold by being too close to the drafty front door. It's too bad. A bird talking with a Brooklyn accent would have been unique.

The Times and other papers covered the memorial service that New Yorkers held for Flaco by what they thought was his favorite oak tree in Central Park. Poems were read, eulogies flowed, and flowers were placed at the base of the tree. 

Was Flaco just an owl who enjoyed his short-lived freedom flying around Manhattan, or was he something else, like a Chinese or a Russian drone outfitted with surveillance equipment by the perpetrator that set him free?

We all remember a Chinese spy balloon that was eventually shot down. Was Flaco the replacement? Did Flaco check out water supply sites by perching on water towers, of which there are many in Manhattan and report back? Fire escapes were another favorite perch of Flaco's—checking out escape routes for the population in case of an emergency.

Flaco was a living creature, not fiction. Living creatures meet with natural and unnatural ends. Take Superman. He flew all around Metropolis doing good deeds when needed.  Disguised as Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, the Daily Planet, Clark as Superman shed his glasses, shoes and socks and suit in the men's room of the Daily Planet (or a phone booth—look it up if you don't know what that is.) and leaped out of a hallway window, cruising over the city until he got where the help was needed.

His colleague Lois Lane always suspected Clark was Superman, because Clark could never be found when Superman appeared. Why Lois, being a brassy chic with major cojones didn't just check the men's room was something I never understood, even as a kid. 

Superman was vulnerable to Kryptonite. It made him lose his powers and his x-ray vision. Mr. Renki points out that Flaco could have become poisoned by eating rodents infested with the poison meant to kill them. He could have also received lead poisoning from eating the pigeons he was fond of consuming to survive in the wild. If poisoned, he might have just lost his balance by compromised coordination.

When I heard of Flaco's death I thought for sure I was going to read they were going to taxiderm him and display him somewhere in the Central Park Zoo. That doesn't seem to be the case. Or maybe plans are still fluid and they'll create a statue. After all, Central Park has a statue of Balto, one of the lead huskies that traveled 674 miles in 1925 to deliver badly needed medical supplies to fight diphtheria during a blizzard in Alaska.

I miss Flaco, and I miss Superman. They both would have been able to fly over the gantries that hold the cameras that are going to soon impose congestion pricing on New York Manhattan drivers.

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