Escapee Zoo flamingo found in Texas over 10 years later

It sounds like a cartoon scenario, but it isn’t. A flamingo that escaped from a zoo over a decade ago was found living it up in the state of Texas, U.S.

Everyone enjoys hearing stories of animals that managed to escape from zoos or other centers. This one is about a flamingo that has managed to escape a zoo about 13 years ago and has been on the run ever since.

Everything started in 2005, when the escapee flamingo, which was known by its band on the leg, no. 492, along with an accomplice decided to escape Sedgwick County Zoo located in Wichita, Kansas. There were 40 flamingos brought over from Tanzania in 2004, including the two mentioned earlier, and they were meant to give the zoo’s new exhibit a more African style.

In an interview he gave to the New York Times some years ago, Scott Newland, who is the zoo’s bird curator, said that the flamingos were already adults when they were brought to Kansas. If they had been young birds, their wings would have been clipped. This is a painless procedure for them, as the bones of the birds have not reached maturity yet and the wings have not developed sensation. However, in the case of adult flamingos, clipping their wings would have been a cruelty, which is why the zoo decided not to undergo with this procedure.

Instead, they decided to trim the flamingos’ wing feathers, which is like a haircut, a procedure that has to be repeated every once in a year, as the feathers molt. Nevertheless, on a windy day in June 2005, two flamingos, no 492 and no 347, felt more adventurous than any other day. Their feathers reached the phase where they needed clipping, but the zookeepers hadn’t noticed this yet. As a result, the two birds decided to take advantage of this and made a break for it.

Even though the birds stayed local for a couple of days and the zookeepers tried several times to recapture them, the efforts were in vain. A storm hit the region on July 4, Independence Day (quite a coincidence, huh?), which gave the birds the chance to fly away once and for all.

Sadly, there are rumors that say no 347 died, but no 492 on the other hand survived and made it all the way to Texas, which is more than 1,000 km away. The bird started a new life there and it appears it has been living its best life.

The thing is that the flamingo escaped before its sex was determined. He was spotted in Texas next to a Caribbean flamingo companion, which has a leg tag reading HDNT. It’s not known yet whether the two are lovers or simply BFFs, but let’s hope that they will have a happy and very long future ahead of them. Flamingos can live for up to 40 years in the wild and our beloved no 492 is believed to be around 23 years old.

 

Source: iflscience.com