Celebrity owl Flaco dies a year after becoming beloved by New York City for zoo escape
By RUTH BROWN
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped from New York City’s Central Park Zoo and became one of the city’s most beloved celebrities as he flew around Manhattan, has died. Zoo officials announced the news on Friday. A little over one year after he was freed from his cage in a criminal act that has yet to be solved, Flaco appears to have collided with an Upper West Side building. Staff from the Wild Bird Fund, a wildlife rehabilitation center, responded to the scene and declared Flaco dead shortly after the collision. He was taken to the Bronx Zoo for a necropsy.