Pijetar Nikac has been the manager of 267 West 89th Street, an eight-story apartment building near Riverside Park, for 30 years. What happened there on Friday was a day he will never forget.
Nikak was returning from a trip to the store around 5 p.m. when he noticed an object on the ground in the building's courtyard space.
“I thought it was a stone,” he says. “When I got closer, I saw an owl.”
Nikak knew right away that it was no ordinary owl, but Flaco, a Eurasian eagle owl that had just three weeks earlier celebrated its one-year anniversary since leaving the Central Park Zoo and living in the relative wilderness of Manhattan. Ta. There was an act of vandalism in which someone cut through the fence around the house, which remains unresolved.
Well, it looks like Flaco crashed into a building. Flaco was still alive when Nikac spotted him and Alan Drogin, a birdwatcher and resident of the building, rushed to get help, but he was pronounced dead a short time later.
On Saturday evening, the Central Park Zoo reported that initial autopsy results showed Flaco died from acute trauma. He had significant bleeding under his sternum and around his liver, and also a small amount of bleeding behind one of his eyes. Tests to determine whether the owls were exposed to toxins or infections will take longer to complete.
The improbable adventures of this large, fiery-eyed bird that captured the attention of people in New York and beyond by showing it was capable of growing on its own, at least for a while, despite spending nearly its entire life in captivity. That's how it ended.
Flaco would have turned 14 next month. And while the dangers posed by the urban environment made an early death all but certain, his life as a free bird aroused an enthusiastic following, and the widespread sadness that greeted the news of his death. It was also clear from
On Saturday, in the North Woods section of Central Park, mourners – some carrying flowers, some carrying binoculars and others pushing strollers – walked back and forth between Flaco's favorite oak trees. In the chilly sunshine, I was looking for the perfect place to pay my respects.
Offerings left under a tree near the park's East Drive included a furry owl doll, an owl carved from a block of wood, a pencil portrait of Flaco, letters and flowers. Flaco received a letter saying goodbye to his “eternal flight.” Another thanked her for bringing “joy to the hearts of everyone who witnessed your magical journey.”
Brianne Delgado, 34, was among those in the park. She placed dried red roses at the base of an oak tree along the park's East Drive, where she said Flaco, who she calls her “muse” and writes children's books, said.
“I feel like he taught us how to break out of the cage, the routine, the things that don't serve us, the things that hold us back,” Delgado said.
Owls have been a muse for artists of all kinds. People got Flaco tattoos and wrote rap lyrics and poems about him. A documentary film is in production. Caricho Arevalo, the Colombian-born artist who painted eight Flaco murals, began painting a new mural Saturday afternoon in Freeman Alley on the Lower East Side.
Alfonso Lozano, 36, was in Central Park on Saturday with his wife, Sara Bucarelli, and their 3-month-old daughter. Lozano said when Flaco left the zoo last February, he was miserable at his photography job.
He said things have changed since he started visiting Flaco, one of the owl's regular roosts in the Central Park canyon, every day.
“He was my therapy,” Lozano said, adding that the time he spent around Flaco inspired him to quit his job and start his own company.
“Flaco helped me find freedom,” he said.
Mr. Lozano, who is from Spain, drew a connection between Flaco's finding a way to survive in New York and his own experience as an immigrant in New York.
“Flaco means New York,” he said.
Leah Friedman, 33, a public school teacher who lives in Manhattan's Inwood neighborhood, said she has made a new circle of friends through Flaco's work. She said she would sit for hours at a time under the elm tree where Flaco often perched, taking pictures of him, drawing pictures of him, or chatting with people who stopped to simply say “I love you.” she said.
“He was so magical, it was like living in a fairytale version of New York,” she said.
Friedman knew there was every chance Flaco would crash into a building, collide with a vehicle, or ingest a lethal dose of rat poison. She was torn between her desire for him to be free and her desire for him to be somewhere safer, perhaps in the countryside upstate.
“I was so worried about him,” she said.
Ruben Gillon, 73, a registered nurse who lives on 112th Street, said he cried when he heard the news Saturday morning.
“He’s the epitome of just enjoying being outside and getting some sunshine,” he said. “It’s an experience that opens your mind to what it means to be free.”
Furthermore, he added: “We all have an idea of how we should live our lives. That's what we do, and that's what he did.”
Marianne DeMarco, who lives in a building on West End Avenue adjacent to the building Flaco attacked, said she first saw the owl in Central Park, surrounded by about 50 onlookers. Little did she know that he would eventually make her building one of his regular hangouts.
DeMarco, 50, said through tears Saturday as she walked her pit bull around the block. She said she met many of her neighbors in the building because of her Flaco's presence.
“It's a bit like the end of a dream we all wanted to hold on to,” she paused.
Director Nikac particularly praised Flaco's presence in dealing with the building's rodent problem. “Since he came here, there haven't been any rats,” he said.
He said he doesn't know exactly how Flaco died, but that a review of security footage from Friday evening showed a brief moment of Flaco falling quickly and violently shaking the camera.
“He was so beautiful,” Nikak recalled.
Flaco's stay in New York was limited to Manhattan, but his fans were everywhere.
Megan Herzhig, 53, of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, was running with her dog in Prospect Park on Saturday. She said she had followed Flaco's exploits and that she had mixed feelings about her actions in freeing him.
“On the one hand, I'm glad he's being released because he was in such a tight confinement,” she said. “But releasing him in a situation where he can't survive necessarily makes me really unhappy.”
Scott Weidenthal, author of Peterson's Owl Reference Guide, expressed similar regrets about Flaco's position in an interview last month, saying, “It's only a matter of time before something bad happens.'' He echoed the opinion of other bird experts. ”
Weidensaul said in an email Saturday that he was not happy to hear of Flaco's death.
“Sometimes I hate being right,” he said.
Anusha Baya, Nate Schweber, Olivia Bensimon and Gaya gupta Contributed to the report.
