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A Eurasian eagle owl has escaped its enclosure at the Central Park Zoo in New York City after vandals hacked into its stainless steel mesh cage.
The owl, named Skinny, was reported to have disappeared from his exhibit Thursday night and was later seen walking down New York City’s iconic shopping stretch of Fifth Avenue.
Officials tried to retrieve the bird, but it flew away before they could catch it. He was last seen in Central Park on Friday morning.
The owl was intercepted by the NYPD on a sidewalk at 5th Avenue and 60th Street, but was able to evade custody, making its way to Central Park on Friday morning.
“Our focus and effort at this time is on the safe recovery of the owl,” zoo officials said in a news release. “We will issue updates as necessary.”
It comes after a series of thefts at animal enclosures across the US, including in Dallas and Louisiana.
A Eurasian eagle owl has escaped its enclosure at the Central Park Zoo in New York City after vandals hacked into its stainless steel mesh cage. The policeman tried to contain his own in a cage but he got scared and flew away
The owl, named Skinny, was reported missing from its exhibit at the Central Park Zoo on Thursday night, and was later seen walking down New York City’s iconic shopping stretch of Fifth Avenue.
Eurasian eagle-owls are one of the largest owl species with a wingspan of over 6 feet and have mottled brown and black feathers with distinctive ear tufts. They are not native to North America.
This one would do well in Central Park if it knew how to hunt, said David Barrett, an avid birder who chronicles the city’s bird population through Twitter accounts including Manhattan Bird Alert and Brooklyn Bird Alert.
Eurasian Eagle Owls have even been known to make their home in urban settings such as city parks, as long as there are suitable places to nest and prey to hunt.
However, after years of captivity, “this owl has surely lost its hunting skills,” Barrett said. He calculated that the owl would starve to death after a day or two in the wild.
Zoo staff located the owl perched in a tree Thursday night and stayed with it overnight.
At dawn Friday morning, he flew from the tree on Fifth Avenue to Central Park, where the zoo said he made eye contact. It is understood that Flaco spent the morning and afternoon in the park.
Barrett confirmed Friday afternoon that rangers had been dispatched to investigate how the owl might be brought back into captivity.
Eurasian eagle-owls are indigenous to many countries in Europe and Asia, from much of Spain to China to the east. They can live around 60 years.
It takes the name eagle owl due to its size, which is not different from that of an eagle. They are among the largest types of owl in existence.
Skinny, photographed on the loose last night, was able to evade the NYPD and made his way to Central Park in the morning.
At dawn Friday morning, the bird was sighted in Central Park and perched in a tree near Fifth Avenue, where police had tried to capture it the night before.
After years of captivity at the Central Park Zoo, the owl is not expected to have the hunting skills it would need to stay alive in the wild.
The vandalism at the New York City Zoo occurred after a series of animal disappearances and other bizarre incidents across the country, including in the Dallas Zoo.
A 24-year-old Texas man was arrested Thursday in connection with the abduction of two tamarin monkeys from the Dallas Zoo. The man was arrested near the Dallas Aquarium on Thursday and charged with animal cruelty.
both monkeys were found unharmed Tuesday, a day after she went missing, just south of the Lancaster Zoo.
The man was discovered after officers found the monkeys inside an empty church that was also filled with cats, birds and other small animals, police said.
Meanwhile, he was shown in bizarre security footage creeping around the zoo, apparently looking at the animal enclosures and eating Doritos.
Less than a week ago a dozen monkeys were robbed in a zoo robbery in Louisiana. The primates were removed from their enclosure in Zoosiana on Saturday, Broussard Zoo staff revealed in a statement, adding that the incident occurred just before midnight.
In all, 12 squirrel monkeys were taken, the zoo said, and officials said an unidentified perpetrator also attacked other small monkeys during the raid, before taking only the aforementioned animals.
Officers have yet to make an arrest in the case.
Officers found the monkeys inside an empty church (pictured) that was also filled with cats, birds, and other small animals.
Meanwhile, Irvin was shown in creepy security footage creeping around the zoo, apparently looking at the animal enclosures.