Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl flew from his enclosure in Central Park Zoo and into the hearts of millions around the world. For the first time, he will now be forever memorialized in a new book.
The Book of Flaco: The World’s Most Famous Bird by nature writer David Gessner will come out Feb. 11, 2025, the first anniversary of the bird’s untimely death. Called a “fable of freedom and wildness,” the book will follow Flaco’s adventure from the February 2023 night when vandals cut a hole in his cage until his death a year later on the Upper West Side.
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“The year-long odyssey of Flaco the owl captured the imaginations of New Yorkers, of millions of people around the world — and Flaco captured me immediately,” Gessner said, in a statement shared with PEOPLE.
Blair Publishing
“I’ve always been intrigued by stories of the urban wild,” the author continued. “I loved the wild, orange shine of Flaco’s eyes and also the fact that he perched atop air conditioners and fire escapes and loved hooting down from water towers high over the city. This is what led me to exploring Central Park a month after Flaco’s escape, to speaking to many who were equally obsessed, and finally, to writing this book.”
David Barrett
The book will catalog Flaco’s adaptation to the mean streets of New York, eating rats and pigeons and surveying Central Park, his new kingdom as birdwatchers gazed right back. But it’s also a timely Rachel Carson-esque warning of the dangers that lurk in our environment for urban creatures. A necropsy revealed that Flaco had suffered a viral infection from eating pigeons and had multiple rodenticides in his system at the time of his death.
For Flaco fans, birdwatchers and those interested in the threats facing our environment, The Book of Flaco promises to be a hoot.
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The Book of Flaco: The World’s Most Famous Bird by David Gessner will come out Feb. 11, 2026, and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
