The Book of Flaco: The World's Most Famous Bird

by David Gessner Narrated by BJ Harrison

Overview

The story of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped from Central Park Zoo and captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of followers around the world.



Nature writer David Gessner chronicles the year-long odyssey of Flaco and the human drama that followed the owl who captured the imaginations of New Yorkers and people around the world. Though he'd spent his life in a cage, Flaco learned to survive in New York City by eating rats, squirrels, and birds. He was an immigrant coming from elsewhere to make it in the big city. Central Park, the island of green in an urban sea, was his new home territory.



Flaco's urban adventure brought controversy, pitting those who felt he should be returned to the safety of the zoo against those who created the "Free Flaco" movement. The birding world was fractured over the ethics of the online sharing of his location that brought scores of enthusiasts to view him each day. And his end-with a grim necropsy revealing Flaco had suffered a viral infection from eating pigeons and had multiple rodenticides in his system-serves as a Rachel Carson-esque warning about the harm we've done to our urban environments, inspiring the passage of long-sought legislation protecting urban birds and regulations meant to reduce the use of rodenticides in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"For Flaco fans, birdwatchers and those interested in the threats facing our environment, The Book of Flaco promises to be a hoot."—PEOPLE

"Gessner offers a panoramic overview of the bird’s impact on the environment, the law, and everyday New Yorkers, as well as providing shrewd insight into why Flaco attracted so many fans, suggesting that the owl’s story tapped into the desire 'in each of us... to break out of the lives we find ourselves trapped in.' Flaco’s admirers will flock to this."—Publishers Weekly

"Issuing a subtle challenge to reappraise human effects on wildlife, The Book of Flaco is a touching tribute to a bird mourned worldwide."—Foreword Reviews

"Gessner talked to the people who knew and loved Flaco best, and as he tells the owl’s story, we also get the story of New York’s birders and the fleeting light of cyber fame."—Booklist

"For one glorious year, it was Flaco's world, and we were just living in it. The world watched as a scrappy newcomer made New York his home, and we mourned his death even as we knew his freedom couldn't last. Fortunately, David Gessner came along to chronicle these events as they happened, and to conduct a post-mortem, as it were, on Flaco's flight to freedom, his rise to fame, and his inevitable downfall. The result is a wonderfully entertaining tribute to Flaco and everything he taught us about what owls are capable of, even in the urban chaos of Manhattan.”—Amy Stewart, author of The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession and The Drunken Botanist

“Gessner writes beautifully, with heart and honesty. This book is about an owl, sure, but more than that, it's about ourselves: about what we in our distracted, self-centric lives have lost and occasionally, in the unexpected presence of a wild creature, are lucky enough to regain. Like Flaco himself, this book is an inspiration, an invitation to step outside ourselves, to leave the cage, as it were, and connect to something pure and precious. Nature writing can have no worthier purpose.”—Mary Roach, author of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

“The Book of Flaco is a charming, passionate ode to the world's most charismatic owl—and the latent wildness that we all harbor. Few birds touched as many human lives as this escaped Eurasian eagle-owl, and few writers have memorialized an animal as gracefully as David Gessner.”—Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager

Kirkus Reviews

2024-12-28
The story of the owl that escaped from a New York zoo and fascinated the city.

Flaco, a Eurasian eagle-owl, escaped from the Central Park Zoo in February 2023 after someone cut open his enclosure. He lived free in and around Central Park—with forays to other parts of the city—eating rats, pigeons, and other small game that he caught. The zoo tried to recapture him but ceased its efforts after public opinion began to swing in favor of letting the bird remain free. During his year of freedom, Flaco became a sort of avian celebrity, fascinating people in the city and beyond; many followed his adventures online, thanks to bird-watchers who spent their nights tracking him. Those bird-watchers are the primary sources for Gessner, an author and journalist who never actually saw Flaco in the flesh. The responses of the birding community are as much the focus of the book as Flaco himself. Two factions emerged: One wanted to spread news of Flaco as widely as possible, and the other looked to shield the bird from public scrutiny. Gessner gives both sides a sympathetic portrayal, along with those whose interest in birds was much more casual until Flaco appeared. Drawing on his own experience of observing ospreys in the wild while researching an earlier book, the author also puts Flaco’s story in the wider context of the ecological movement and looks at whether we can justly make parallels between humans and wild animals.

A well-told story of the bird that captured the imagination of New York and much of the world.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940193638155
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	02/18/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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