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

Gessner (A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World), a creative writing professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, delivers a vibrant account of how Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped his Central Park Zoo enclosure in 2023 and died a year later from a pigeon herpes virus that caused him to fall from a 10-story building, captured the hearts of New Yorkers. Profiling the birders who kept tabs on Flaco, Gessner describes how, for months, Anke Frohlich spent her nights lugging heavy photographic equipment to Central Park so she could take pictures of the owl until the park closed at 1 a.m. Gessner surveys the heated debates stirred by Flaco, discussing how some petitioned for the owl’s recapture, worrying he wouldn’t survive on his own, while others argued he should remain free. The detection of rodenticides at Flaco’s autopsy served as “a Rachel Carson-esque warning,” Gessner contends, detailing how the discovery led to a new city law promoting the use of rat contraceptive pellets, which are less harmful to other animals, over poison. 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. (Feb.)