Beloved Owl Flaco Ate Poisoned Rats, Herpes Pigeons, Causing His Death

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — For fans of the famous owl, the news was their worst fears confirmed.

Flaco, the beloved Eurasian Eagle Owl who was released from his small Central Park Zoo enclosure over a year ago and died last month, was discovered to have high levels of "debilitating" rodenticide in his body, according to a necropsy.

Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists additionally found that Flaco had also caught a "severe" pigeon virus from feasting on the feral birds, which appears to have had a greater impact on the freed owl by damaging numerous vital organs.

For many birders, the news was not a surprise, and confirmed an early fear of Flaco fans that the New York City bird of prey food scene would ultimately lead to his death.

Some speculated that Flaco was sick just before he died, and that his illness was the reason he hadn't hooted in the days leading to his death.

"We knew he was sick," wrote one Flaco fan on X, formerly known as Twitter. "It’s just too bad we didn’t know where he was . He was hiding and suffering in silence during that week ."

Bird advocates have long suspected that rodenticides played a role in Flaco's death, as it had in the death of another beloved owl, Barry the Barred Owl, who died in 2020, and numerous other raptors over the years

Just a week after a vandal ripped open the top of Flaco's cage, freeing him and, ultimately, killing him, birders in Central Park told Patch that rats filled with rodenticide was one of the main dangers facing Flaco in the Manhattan wilderness, a contributing factor in the deaths of other beloved major Central Park bird celebrities — especially birds of prey.

Hours before Flaco's full necropsy results were released, THE CITY published an examination of last year's necropsy results, finding most of the examined birds were poisoned by rodenticide — especially red-tailed hawks.

City Parks restrict the use of rodenticides inside parks during nesting season — from February to August — but its use is unrestricted elsewhere.

According to Flaco's necropsy, the "severe pigeon herpesvirus" had cause severe tissue damage and inflammation to many of his organs, including his spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain, the Central Park Zoo said.

At least four different rodenticides were found in his system, the report stated. Those anticoagulants are commonly used for rodent control around the city, the report states.

"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 Central Park Zoo said in a statement.