#owl flaco
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The Bronx Zoo has just released Flaco's necropsy results.
He was not thriving, as the people championing the ideal of "freedom" claimed.
He was poisoned.
He was sick.
He was suffering.
"Freedom" would have eventually killed him. A building just happened to do it first.
"Postmortem testing has been completed for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was found down in the courtyard of a Manhattan building a little over a year after his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was vandalized on February 2, 2023. Onlookers reported that Flaco had flown into a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on February 23, 2024, and acute trauma was found at necropsy. Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists determined that in addition to the traumatic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying conditions. He had a severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons that had become part of his diet, and exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticides that are commonly used for rat control in New York City. These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building. The identified herpesvirus can be carried by healthy pigeons but may cause fatal disease in birds of prey including owls infected by eating pigeons. This virus has been previously found in New York City pigeons and owls. In Flaco’s case, the viral infection caused severe tissue damage and inflammation in many organs, including the spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain. No other contributing factors were identified through the extensive testing that was performed. Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors—infectious disease, toxin exposures, and traumatic injuries—that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting."
The naturalistic fallacy kills animals in horrible ways. The romanticism of what humans want to think of as a "free, wild, pure life" cannot be allowed supplant the reality of injury, sickness, and death. Releasing captive animals (or keeping them from being recaptured) because it's "better" for them to suffer untethered than live a healthy, safe, captive life is inhumane and horrific.
Flaco's life didn't have to end in pain, sickness, and suffering.
Flaco's death didn't have to be tragic.
But once the idea of "freedom" entered the chat, Flaco's fate was unavoidable.
#flaco#tw animal death#tw animal sickness#better dead than fed is a horrific mindset#zoo animal welfare#screenshot feat the WCS's inability to remember to remove their editorial template from highly sensitive press releases round 2#colored text#people who loved the ideal of him more than the reality of him#congrats#you killed this owl#I'm still so mad that people who wanted him to stay loose got all sorts of media attention for the elegies they wrote when he died
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i am obsessed with himmmmm
(studies from the bird watching twitter!)
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let this be a reminder that we have no business using commercial rodenticides in the unregulated way that we do & that rodenticides indiscriminately kill both invasive ‘pest’ rodents along with native species, and anything that might predate on them
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just learned about Flaco the Eurasian eagle owl who people “freed” from the Central Park zoo. people tracked his location on Twitter and every time zoo keepers tried to get him back they would make noise and scare him away. as a result, he died not even a year after his escape after striking a window. he was 13 years old, he would have lived another 40 years if he had been left alone.
being a conservationist really makes me hate the general public sometimes
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As of February 18th, Flaco the Eurasian Eagle Owl is still loose in Central Park and the zoo has, for now, stopped attempts to recapture him. He has begun hunting on his own and has found a corner of the park that’s relatively safe to stay in. The zoo will continue to monitor him to make sure he stays in the area and avoids sickness and injury.
Please note that while Flaco is surviving, as a Eurasian Eagle Owl in a large North American city, this is not his native habitat. Central Park already has a population of native owls (many of which succumb to rat poison) that he is now competing with and may be displacing. Also, while Flaco may be hunting on his own, owls are not all the same and others may not fare as well if released. Native birds of prey in zoos are usually rescues that could not be returned to the wild due to injuries that impair hunting. I say this because the fear is that activists may see this as a successful release and attempt to endanger more animals by “releasing” them.
As for the Zoosiana monkeys, police are being very quiet about the situation. Last I heard, they have not even released any relevant information to the zoo’s director after interrogations with suspect Joseph Randell. The monkeys remain missing. If you live in the area, please keep an eye out for and report any “squirrel monkeys for sale” you see to the Broussard Police Department at 337-837-6259, LA Department of Wildlife Fisheries, or Crimes Stoppers at 232-TIPS.
I have also not seen anything further about the investigation into the lappet-faced vulture, Pin’s, death.
Sorry I don’t have too much to add, but thankfully Flaco remains alive and is eating, and I have no further news of animal-endangering zoo vandalism.
As reports of other incidents are beginning to come in, I thought I’d make a thread on all the crazy break-ins going on in the zoo world since the beginning of 2023.
Keep reading
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This Flaco situation is like if, in The Martian, people started protesting the effort to save Mark Whatney because he’s free now and how dare you try to put him back in that cramped spaceship!
And NASA keeps trying to explain that Mars is not an environment where people can live but the public said “but look you said he’d be dead by now and he’s thriving!”
And then NASA tells them it’s a ridiculously astonishing feat that he survived a week, let alone months but there are so many dangerous things that can and eventually will kill him. But public outcry gets the funding for a rescue mission cut.
Then when he eventually dies from one of the hazards NASA warned about people all talk about how inspiring his life was and how at least he got to be free and happy on Mars.
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Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped the central park zoo has died in apparent building collision. It is a dark day.
:C
I was really rooting for him. This is a really sad time for all of us.
RIP FLACO !!!
Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo), male, family Strigidae, order Strigiformes, species found across much of Eurasia
photograph via: Manhattan Bird Alert
photograph by JACQUELINE EMERY
photograph by David Barrett
Read more about Flaco the Owl:
Death of Flaco, NYC’s Celebrity Owl, Calls Attention to Bird Strikes - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Central Park's Flaco had a family. Conservationists fear other owls will become targets for release. - Gothamist
Flaco the owl dies after colliding with a New York building | AP News
#owl#flaco the owl#flaco nyc#flaco#bubo#strigidae#strigiformes#bird#ornithology#animals#nature#europe#asia
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“Flaco, the NYC Eagle-Owl”, 13”x13” watercolor and colored pencil on cream paper. My tribute to Flaco, who escaped his zoo enclosure and made his way over to Central Park. This painting will be on the online gallery website @everydayoriginal tomorrow, April 30th, available to purchase. Thanks for your consideration! 🩷🦉🩷
#traditional illustration#artists on tumblr#painting#art#original art#art collection#flaco the owl#flaco#art for sale#painting art
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🦉🦉🦉Flaco and the Central Park squirrel (cont). After a lengthy stare down, the squirrel decided to take the lower branch and Flaco chose to let it pass! Flaco then went back to sleep and they both lived happily ever after! 😊
📸 by Above96th
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ok. i’m making a more cohesive post about flaco the owl because i’m seeing a lot of people reblogging that post praising him and excited about him venturing further into nyc. as cool as it may be to see him around, i think a lot of people lack the knowledge to understand why it’s not necessarily a good thing.
as someone who’s studying wildlife and who’s been working in wildlife spaces since i was 17, i have a lot of feelings about this, but i think this article i’m going to link is more succinct and explains better the harms flaco poses/risks he faces if he remains out of captivity. i’ve been following this story since he was let out and agree with the biologists i’ve seen supporting flaco’s recapture over birders or others who support him remaining outside captivity.
i also want to clear up a misconception from the post i’ve seen going around: flaco didn’t just “escape” the zoo - it wasn’t a desperate bid for freedom or something. his enclosure was vandalised and someone purposefully let him out. that action very well could have killed him, and, considering there are still many risks, could still lead to his premature death.
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Its Flaco the eurasion eagle owl's one year anniversary of living loose in New York city and peeping in windows and hooting at the moon!
#i love checking twitter to see where flacos been spotted#flaco the owl#birding#birdwatching#i know realistically its a complicated issue of him being loose out there but i do very much love him regardless#glad he is doing well#basically im celebrating his survival lol
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The idiots are already out saying Flaco is better off dead than in a life of captivity.
#look I’m a pretty passive person in real life#if someone said that to my face I think I might scream at them#it gave me great comfort to go to the zoo this weekend and see it packed#even if it meant it was hard to view animals at times#flaco the owl#zoos#animal abuse#ara insanity
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'Flaco, the New York City Eagle Owl' by Julia Lundman.
13" x 13" Watercolour and coloured pencil on Stonehenge Legion paper, in a 1/1 original edition for $500.
On sale now through Every Day Original.
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rip flaco, you were too good for this world
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flaco, eurasian eagle owl, central park
x
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