1 March 2024
One week in the past at this time, on 23 Feb 2024, essentially the most well-known owl in New York Metropolis hit a window on West 89th Avenue and died.
Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) escaped his enclosure on the Central Park Zoo greater than a yr in the past after a vandal broken it on 2 Feb 2023. The zoo tried to recapture him and frightened that he would starve or be hit by a automobile. As an alternative Flaco thrived on his personal and have become a logo of freedom to many New Yorkers.
He endeared himself to condominium dwellers by typically visiting their highrise home windows or perching on their fireplace escapes.
Sadly a window was Flaco’s undoing. Flaco’s greatest fan, David Lei (@davidlei), reported:
As you will have already seen, Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl has handed away. I’m unhappy past phrases. Flaco defied the percentages and made fairly a life for himself within the metropolis over the previous yr. Alongside the way in which he got here to imply a lot to so many, together with me. ??? pic.twitter.com/gJnby3TtvB
— David Lei (@davidlei) February 24, 2024
Memorials sprung up immediately.
Flaco’s dying was coated within the New York Instances: Flaco, Escaped Central Park Zoo Owl and Defier of Doubts, Is Lifeless and commented on by the zoo the place he lived most of his life.
His story shouldn’t be over, although. Flaco was not the one hen to die of a window strike in North America. He was merely essentially the most well-known. Practically one billion birds per yr hit home windows within the U.S.
If your private home has ever skilled a window strike please implement one in all these methods to forestall additional collisions and deaths.
Discover out extra at this classic weblog, written after one in all our younger peregrines died of a window strike.
I hope Flaco’s dying evokes everybody to do extra to forestall window strikes.
(credit are within the captions)
