Flaco, the famous New York owl, has died from a traumatic impact, zoologists confirmed a day after he reportedly flew into a building, with further tests planned to determine whether the Eurasian eagle-owl could be sick.
What happened in Flaco’s final hours is top of mind for his fans across the city, who cheered him as he defied the odds to stand up for himself despite a life in captivity. Police are still trying to arrest whoever let him out of the enclosure at the Central Park Zoo a year ago.
Flaco was in good physical shape, the autopsy found, managing to catch prey even though he had no hunting experience because he had arrived at the zoo as a novice 13 years earlier. According to the autopsy report released Saturday, the owl weighed 1.89 kilograms, just 2 percent less than the last measurement at the zoo.
Flaco was found dead on a sidewalk Friday after apparently hitting a building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“The primary impact appears to have been to the body, as there was substantial bleeding under the sternum and in the back of the body cavity around the liver,” the report states.
The Central Park Zoo placed the blame squarely on the person who opened Flaco’s enclosure. But they are investigating illness as a possible factor and expect to release an update in about two weeks.
“This will include microscopic examination of tissue samples; toxicology tests to evaluate potential exposures to rodenticides or other toxins; and testing for infectious diseases such as West Nile virus and avian influenza,” the zoo’s statement read.
Praise from her admirers poured in over the weekend. The same goes for speculation about which of the many urban threats to wildlife may have contributed to his death.
Flaco fans who heard his nightly whistles on the Upper West Side reported that he had become silent in the days before his death and theorized that he may have been ill.