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By Max Rivlin-Nadler

From the moment of his escape from the Central Park Zoo, the inherent tragedy of Flaco’s freedom was written in the stars (the rat poison and pigeon herpes did the actual killing). But in death, will Flaco go on to help save thousands of other birds? 

That’s the goal of new legislation, introduced on Thursday by Manhattan Councilmember Shaun Abreu, that would aim to have the City use rodent birth control instead of anticoagulant rodenticides. Those rodenticides ooze into the city’s foodways, and kill thousands of birds each year. Another bill that’s considered part of the same bird-friendly raft of legislation, now known as Flaco’s Law, would force commercial buildings to turn off their lights at night, to avoid drawing in birds and having them collide with buildings. (That bill was introduced last year, but stalled out in committee; another bill regarding bird safety, at the state level, has the annoying backronym Feathered Lives Also Count, which, yikes).

Abreu’s bill would mandate a six-month pilot program for rodent birth control in his district, where the City is also running its trash containerization pilot. Abreu is hopeful that his bill will at least get a hearing—he’s the chair of the council’s Sanitation Committee. 

“What we do know is that rodenticide is not effective and it doesn’t work,” he said at a press conference held next to City Hall on Thursday, hours before he was set to introduce the bill. “We can feel good by killing 100 rats—well, actually by the way, we shouldn’t be feeling good about that—but it’s not going to address the explosive rat population.”