‘It’s a tragic loss’: New Yorkers mourn Flaco, the owl the city took to its heart
“He had an adventurous spirit of curiosity about what lay beyond,” said Jacqueline Emery, remembering Flaco with tears in her voice.
In his short year of freedom after he escaped from a city zoo, the nonnative Eurasian eagle owl with piercing orange eyes captivated many New Yorkers – and fans far and wide.
Flaco’s sudden death last Friday garnered an outpouring of love and stories of how he brought people closer, creating a special connection with nature in the frenetic concrete jungle.
Over the weekend, fans came together in Manhattan’s famous oasis, Central Park, to remember his legacy at a makeshift memorial around the nowbeloved oak tree that he often rested on and hunted from.
At any time, upwards of 50 people arrived to drop off flowers, cards and printed photos of Flaco.
“It’s a tragic loss,” said David Barrett, who runs a popular social media account, Manhattan Bird Alert. Having spent many hours photographing Flaco, Barrett had come to know the owl as a subject and a companion. To him, Flaco’s hoots were among his favorite characteristics.
“They were his way of indicating his territory and possibly connecting with a mate,” said Barrett. “But I think to humans, Flaco’s hoots were comforting. They were melodious and beautiful to hear.”
Flaco managed to thrive in the urban landscape and freezing winter and scorching summer temperatures of New York, perfecting flight and catching rats, having spent his first 12 years in captivity.
He would perch on a branch watching joggers and cyclists in Central
Park. After leaving the park in recent weeks he was seen atop residential air conditioning units, even peeking at New Yorkers through their windows, or hunting from the city’s characteristic rooftop water towers. After escaping from the Central Park zoo last February when a vandal cut open his small enclosure, officials initially attempted to recapture Flaco but gave up as he showed he was learning to hunt for himself.
“I was lucky enough to see him figure things out,” said David Lei, a wildlife photographer specializing in urban owls. Lei was one of the first to spot Flaco post-escape and capture his image as he made an incongruous sight on a busy Upper East Side street, then began adapting to his new environment.
“Just to see him soar from one 20storey building to the next really spoke to me about how far he’d come since he was an owl on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue,” Lei said.
Flaco played a formative role in Lei’s budding relationship with fellow birder Emery. The pair spent a lot of date nights looking for Flaco.
“When Flaco was down on the Lower East Side, David would pick me up at 10.30 at night, and it was just funny to be heading out owling,” Emery recalled.
Apart from his majestic size and demeanor, Flaco’s inquisitiveness was endearing to many, including Emery.
“For me, Flaco’s curiosity was what stood out the most,” Emery said. “Seeing him as an individual, with all of his personality quirks.”
Flaco is believed to have crashed into a building last Friday. His death is bringing fresh focus to the dangers of such bird collisions. New York City has already made efforts to address the issue, its characteristic hundreds of skyscrapers notwithstanding.
In 2019, the city passed a bill requiring builders to use bird-safe materials in all new construction. In 2021, the city adopted a law that during peak migration months between April and mid-May, city-owned buildings turn their lights off at night, ensuring a safer passage for the many thousands of songbirds, shorebirds and birds of prey that whizz through.
Last May, a New York council member, Francisco Moya, introduced a bill that would expand that rule to commercial buildings. And legislation requiring use of more bird-friendly material in government-owned buildings across the state is advancing in Albany. This week that bill was renamed the Flaco Act – “Feathered Lives Also Count”.
“Collisions with windows in particular in New York are all too common,” said Andrew Farnsworth, a researcher at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. In its preliminary report, the Central Park zoo revealed Flaco had died of acute traumatic injury, and further tests to determine whether he was exposed to toxins or infectious diseases are pending.
“I would be surprised if the toxicology report didn’t show some kind of rodenticide or perhaps lead or some other toxin,” Farnsworth said. “That said, it’s hard to say whether that was in part responsible for the collision. He was certainly fending well for himself, and did not seem to be exhibiting signs of typical poisoning, like really high levels of rodenticide.”
Flaco’s death came less than a week after that of another, less well-known, raptor. On 19 February, a bald eagle nicknamed Rover died after colliding with a vehicle on the highway that runs up the western edge of Manhattan, probably as he swooped on prey.
“We all got to know Rover over the years, and he’d been something of a reliable figure in the area,” Barrett said.
With two cherished avian celebrities dying within a week of each other, New York birders are left holding on to tender memories.
“These birds give us beauty,” Barrett said. “They give us a connection with the wild world. It’s amazing to have that
To humans, Flaco’s hoots were comforting, they were melodious and beautiful to hear
David Barrett
party. It’s a mess!
What could happen on the left?
The Democrats are not devoid of political drama, either. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who represents parts of Detroit and Dearborn, has backed an effort to get Democratic voters to choose “uncommitted” on their ballots instead of voting for Biden as a protest against the president’s support for Israel, one of his key liabilities with liberal voters.
Listen to Michigan, the group behind the push, wants to get at least 10,000 votes for “uncommitted” to send a message to Biden ahead of the general election and lend support for a ceasefire. There’s little risk for the effort to hinder Biden in the presidential primary, where he will probably win handily. The organizers have said they don’t support Trump or plan to vote for him when the two men are likely to be matched up in November, but the push gives voters a way to make their voices heard on this issue.
Who are Michigan’s voters?
The push for an “uncommitted” vote in Michigan makes particular sense because the state is home to one of the country’s largest populations of Arab Americans. Detroit is home to the country’s largest Arabic-speaking population. More than half of Dearborn’s population is of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. The way the Israel-Gaza war plays out will be a major part of voters’ calculations there.
On the whole, about 14% of Michigan is Black, 3.5% is Asian American and nearly 6% is Latino, the 2020 census shows.
The state is firmly a swing state. It went for Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020, and it’s in play for either candidate come November. It often serves as a bellwether state, skewing close to the way the country tends to vote in a given contest.
When will we get results?
The primary election on 27 February ends at 8pm central time, and results should come out bit by bit starting later that night. If contests in other states are any indication, it’ll quickly become clear who won – and that’ll be Trump and Biden.
For the 2 March caucus, the convention starts at 10am central in Grand Rapids (and maybe in Detroit, for the Karamo convention), with the state Republican committee set to meet by 8.30pm that night to decide the delegate allocations.
What will the results mean?
We’re not really paying much attention to who wins the Michigan primaries because that’s all but given at this point.
We are going to be watching a few storylines, though:
Will the “uncommitted” vote be sizable enough to push Biden on a ceasefire? And will there be moves in other states to send similar messages that don’t carry much political risk for the president?
Will second-place candidates like Haley on the right and Phillips on the left stay in the race? If so, what’s their strategy? With two older frontrunners, one of whom faces a smattering of criminal and civil court cases, the runners-up could become more important down the line.
How will two separate Republican conventions play out? Will they both try to send different delegates? The way the internal feud displays itself when Michigan is under the national spotlight will be interesting to see.