A team of zoo staffers armed with nets and traps had been monitoring Flaco's movements around-the-clock as he avoided their attempts to \"rescue\" him.
\"Since our recovery strategies, thus far, have all been based on luring him to familiar food items, we need to rethink our approach,\" zoo officials said in their update Sunday. \"Our main concern has always been for the well-being of the eagle owl. Our observations indicate that he seems to be comfortable in the area of the park where he has been hunting, and we don't want to do anything to encourage him to leave this site.\"
Zoo officials said that while Flaco \"faces potential challenges in this environment on a daily basis,\" they have scaled back in their attempts to recover him.
One big concern is that Flaco could eat a poisoned rat. In August 2021, a barred owl nicknamed \"Barry\" by Central Park birders was killed when it flew into the path of a Central Park Conservancy maintenance vehicle. A necropsy done on Barry detected a potentially lethal level of rat poison that could have impaired the owl's flying abilities, officials said.
\"We will continue to monitor him, though not as intensely, and look to opportunistically recover him when the situation is right,\" zoo officials said of Flaco.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/flaco-eurasian-eagle-owl-abc-mz-29-230213_1676309770721_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
Lisa Amand
PHOTO: Large crowd of birdwatchers flock to Central Park on Feb. 10, 2023, to catch a glimpse of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl who escaped from its vandalized enclosure at the Central Park Zoo.
Meanwhile, Flaco has quickly become the city's latest celebrity bird, drawing huge crowds in the park over the weekend that rivaled those attracted by the Mandarin duck, a brilliantly colorful fowl who mysteriously appeared in the park in 2018, stayed in the area for several months before vanishing without a trace.
\"I just wanted to see him. I just think it's really fun,\" said Jen Roff, an economics professor at The City University of New York, who glimpsed Flaco through her binoculars as he slept in a tree Monday afternoon. \"I think he's beautiful. He's gorgeous.\"
Moustafa Elbeik also stopped by Central Park during his lunch break Monday to get a gander at the owl.
\"It's exciting that we get to see a creature out here like this,\" Elbeik told ABC News. \"It's pretty rare.\"
Elbeik added that it was also a relief to hear Flaco is now catching his own food, saying, \"It's pretty impressive.\"
\"He's helping to take care of our rat problem,\" Elbeik said. \"So, that's much appreciated.\"
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