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

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

“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

“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

“A charming, passionate ode to the world's most charismatic owl—and the latent wildness that we all harbor.” —Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager

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.

This is a parable of freedom, wildness, and our urban ecosystems. Flaco has been dubbed “the world’s most famous bird.” From the night in February of 2023 when vandals cut a hole in his cage until his death a year later in a courtyard on the Upper West Side, his is a story full of adventure and unexpected turns.

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 hordes of observers 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.

hardcover ISBN: 9781958888476