Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl who escaped from his destroyed Central Park Zoo enclosure in February 2023
died last month in Manhattan with "severe herpesvirus" that he developed by eating pigeons and high quantities of rat poison in his system.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which runs New York City's Central Park Zoo, released the post-mortem necropsy report Monday afternoon
revealing its findings about what caused Flaco's death on February 23 of this year
when he was found critically injured in the courtyard of a residential building on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
"Veterinary pathologists at the Bronx Zoo discovered that, in addition to the catastrophic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying diseases.
He had a serious pigeon herpesvirus from feeding feral pigeons, which had formed a component of his diet
as well as exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticides frequently used for rat control in New York City," according to a Wildlife Conservation Society statement.