The Last Time I Saw Flaco

By Keith Michael

For weeks now, I’ve been hearing the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II “Paris” song on repeat in my head—substituting Flaco’s name.

It was over a year ago, the night of February 2, 2023, when Flaco, a charismatic Eurasian Eagle Owl, escaped from the Central Park Zoo after his aviary was vandalized and he first stepped through, after 12 years in captivity, to the wide, wild world of New York City. Since his recent, unfortunate demise, presumably from crashing into an Upper West Side backyard window, reams have been written about him city-wide, nationally, and internationally. Where to begin?

The first photos of “Flaco on the Lam” poised on the sidewalk in front of the Plaza Hotel on 59th Street, complete with celebrity barricades and police protection, began circulating in the NYC bird-iverse nearly immediately after his escape was discovered. Most people visiting the Central Park Zoo likely spent no more than a few seconds passing by a day-time, sleepy owl in his enclosure. Now, media trucks and long-lens cameras surrounding him were the norm. A paparazzi sensation.

The next days were flooded with nearly hour by hour reports with his whereabouts as well as updates on the 24/7 surveillance and rescue attempts by the vigilant zoo staff. At the time, his capture seemed imminent. I didn’t make my first pilgrimage to infiltrate the rubbernecking circus until three days into his freedom. Heading to the general area by Hallett Nature Sanctuary, where he had last been reported, he was easy to find. One just had to look for the hundred-plus crowd staring up with reverence like toward an eclipse.

As his fame grew and the speculations about his survival vs. his capture became more vitriolic, I made the effort to track him down four more times that week. I ended up seeing him a total of 11 times over the next year with longer spans between sightings like the expanding chambers of a nautilus.

Fast forward to waking up on February 24, 2024 to the impassioned news that Flaco had been found the night before (the day after my birthday) face down on the ground and was pronounced dead. In current parlance, my Instagram “blew up” during the day as heartfelt paeans and “the last time I saw Flaco” photos consoled the grieving.

From the moment Flaco left the zoo, his story had the perfect tension of a Greek tragedy. What was loved about Flaco was that through escaping a lifetime of captivity, he proved that his innate wild skills to survive still flourished. The naysayers felt it irresponsible that he wasn’t recaptured to live a long, protected life. His champions revelled in each rat that he caught, each face-off with a fool-hardy squirrel, each nightly foray exploring new territory, each shrugging off of the harassment from neighborhood birds, each photogenic pose. Very few zoo animals could have survived so spectacularly, and publicly, as did Flaco. He was no ecological threat as a species because his nearest potential mate was an ocean away. There was no vicarious thrill of his danger to humans (like an escaped tiger would have been) or the comedic entertainment of seals surfing out of their flooded enclosure. No one resented his dining on rats and pigeons. Rats, in particular, had become a city-wide menace. Flaco was touted as the new Rat Czar. Flaco was handsome. Flaco was a hero. Flaco became a symbol of the conquest over city life as one more “if you can make it there,” transplanted, resilient New Yorker.

Even Flaco’s zoo resume—having been stared at daily by hundreds of people at close range—contributed to his comfortability with “finding his light” for glamorous portraits. Scrolling through daily new “content” fueled his fame.

In November 2023, owl courting season began. Flaco started to roam from the hospitable environs of Central Park in search of a mate. Suddenly, he disappeared. Had Flaco headed north to the Adirondacks never to be seen again and his fans never to know his fate? But then he was spotted and his mellifluous hooting was heard in the East Village. The devoted photographers followed. Rooftops, fire escapes, and water towers were his new backdrops.

Again, he vanished but was soon heard, then seen, on the Upper West Side. Now art deco landmarks resonated with his nightly serenades to a damsel who would never appear. Once more, the anthropomorphizing of his unluckiness in love kindled new debates over the cruel trajectory of his freedom. Day by day, anxieties rose that his seemingly charmed protection against that triumvirate of urban raptor fates—eating a poisoned rodent, crashing into a window, or being struck by a vehicle—was drawing to a close. Tragically, it would be this same freedom that we adored about him which would kill him, consequently, breaking our hearts.

Once he was gone, a spontaneous memorial arose at the base of one of his favorite trees in Central Park at 104th Street and East Drive. In this tree was actually the last place I saw Flaco. Lengthy articles eulogized him only weeks after lengthy articles had chronicled his one-year anniversary of freedom. Media trucks showed up again. Street art tributes appeared. At his tree, a Ceremony of Remembrance was attended by hundreds. In Albany, the Bird Safe Buildings Act was renamed the FLACO Act to reduce window-strike bird deaths.

Would it have been better for Flaco to live 30 more years in obscure peace in the Zoo? This is a question to ask ourselves: Would we like all our needs attended to and guaranteed safety for the rest of our lives but never be able to leave our apartments ever again OR take the risk of an adventurous life out in the world inspiring thousands, if not millions, of people—the trade-off being an equally lonely, unpredictable, inevitable, possibly violent, end? For myself, I would choose the latter. Debate amongst yourselves.