{"id":289329,"date":"2025-11-13T15:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/289329\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T15:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:24:10","slug":"frankie-the-flamingo-wins-her-freedom-after-flying-to-france-from-cornwall-cornwall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/289329\/","title":{"rendered":"Frankie the flamingo wins her freedom after flying to France from Cornwall | Cornwall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zookeepers in Cornwall<\/a> have decided to grant an escaped flamingo what she apparently has gone to great lengths to attain: freedom.<\/p>\n

Four-month-old Frankie took flight on 2 November<\/a>, despite having her feathers clipped, from the walled garden of Paradise Park in Hayle.<\/p>\n

She amazed her owners when apparent sightings of the audacious phoenicopter were reported more than 100 miles away in Brittany, France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now Paradise Park has confirmed Frankie did indeed make the 120-mile flight across the Channel to the coast at Plage de Keremma \u2013 and they have decided not to attempt to bring her home.<\/p>\n

Frankie in the sea off Brittany. Photograph: Paradise Park<\/p>\n

In an update, Paradise Park curator David Woolcock said: \u201cIt was never our intention for Frankie to end up in the wild. There are a number of reports of similar situations where flamingos have lived for many years and thrived, including over European winters, so while we will continue to worry about her it is a position we have to accept.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are confident that her movements will be observed and logged in France by the citizen science members and feel relieved to know that she has shown the resilience and skills that will serve her well as a \u2018wild\u2019 flamingo. Frankie\u2019s parents and the rest of the flock at Paradise Park continue to do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woolcock said it would be too hard to catch Frankie and if she were caught she would need to be health screened, and she also now poses a risk as she may have been in contact with birds with avian influenza.<\/p>\n

Frankie the flamingo before her escape. Photograph: Josh Ryan Murray\/Paradise Park\/PA<\/p>\n

The zoo believes Frankie was able to fly despite having her wings clipped because her feathers were continuing to grow as she developed, adding that wing clipping inhibits the ability to take off, but not necessarily the ability to fly once airborne.<\/p>\n

Addressing fears over her chance of survival, Woolcock said: \u201cShe was feeding independently and was a supremely fit young bird before she left the park. All the evidence that we have seen of her in France shows a well-adjusted, well-fed bird doing extremely well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zookeepers in Cornwall have decided to grant an escaped flamingo what she apparently has gone to great lengths…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-289329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}