What Is It Like to Be an Owl?: A Eulogy to Flaco
On February 2, 2023, Flaco, a Eurasian eagle-owl, fled the Central Park Zoo through a damaged opening in his enclosure. Until that point, Flaco was a lifelong zoo animal. He had little to no experience hunting or flying. For 13 years, he had faced no real pressure to stay alive. Suddenly, things were different.
In his 1974 paper “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” philosopher Thomas Nagel reminded everyone that animals have points of view. He said that those points of view are inaccessible to us. What was Flaco’s perspective? If we take Nagel’s argument seriously, then we should conclude that even if we knew all the facts about Eurasian eagle-owl physiology, we could not understand his subjective experience one iota. Well, let’s try. What is it like to escape a zoo? What is it like to have had wings all your life, but to have never flown? What is it like to learn to fly in middle age? What is it like to feel tension in your chest as you wobble in the air hundreds of feet above Central Park? What is it like to feel your talons clasp around a rat after countless failures, to complete your first perfectly executed dive? What is it like to call for a mate that, unbeknownst to you, was never there? What is it like to perch upon a water tower and view the fuzzy lights from skyscrapers in the distance? What is it like to have no words for city lights, no way of understanding them, but to see them all around you? At the time of writing, no other species than humans is confirmed to speak a language. So, what is it like to have no comprehensible thoughts but nevertheless look at your own dire situation and say, “I will try to survive.”
Flaco died on February 23, 2024 after colliding with a building on the Upper West Side. He lived an extremely unusual life for a member of his species. In many cultures, owls symbolize intelligence. Animal symbols are meant to inspire us to adopt virtues we perceive in the natural world. I followed the story of a famous owl for more than a year, but I have no desire to emulate his species. I don’t want to be like owls — I want to be like one owl, Flaco, who responded to uncertainty and danger with bravery. Flaco saw a chance at a new life and went for it. He was uniquely beautiful, but he will be remembered more for his boldness, and to me, he will be a symbol that suggests we not lie down in the face of a hostile, unfamiliar world. To me, Flaco is a symbol of the fight to survive. May he rest in peace.
