Rescue group in Las Vegas tries to catch a toucan that escaped its owner before it’s too late

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Katherine Eddington was driving in North Las Vegas last week when she thought she saw a large black bird carrying a banana fly across the intersection.

Only after taking a closer look did he realize it was a toucan; A tropical bird native to the rainforests of Central and South America, known for its large, colorful beaks.

“These are beautiful birds, so it was fascinating to see something like this so close to home,” said Eddington, who recognized the bird on social media and contacted animal rescue.

This toucan’s name is Sam and he has been living in the area since November, when a resident posted online that he had escaped from his cage. After surviving for months in the Las Vegas desert, Sam fascinated birding groups and people occasionally posted sightings around town.

A local rescue group has been trying to capture him for months and the clock is ticking.

“I’m really worried about him,” said Skye Marsh, president and co-founder of SouthWest Exotic Avian Rescue. The Las Vegas-based group spent hours searching for it, but found the bird 50 feet (about 15 meters) up a palm tree, limiting recovery options. He said they had not contacted the owner.

Donald Price, a professor and biologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies how poultry species adapt to different environments, said Las Vegas is not a good environment for a toucan to live in the wild because of its very hot summers and cold winters.

Marsh, who has two toucans of his own, said Sam was starting to show signs of struggling. Its eyes were sunken and the skin around its beak was discolored, he said.

When he first ran away in November, Sam was living off figs and pomegranates from trees in the Los Prados neighborhood, about 15 miles from the Las Vegas Strip, Marsh said. Those fruits have since disappeared and Sam has turned to citrus fruits, which are harmful to toucans, he said. Their livers cannot process calcium and iron can be fatal.

“This bird is not in good shape,” Marsh said.

Bird experts and enthusiasts are surprised that toucans have survived so long in Las Vegas. Escaped exotic birds often have difficulty finding food and avoiding predators, and changing weather conditions in Las Vegas have also likely harmed toucans.

Birds can regulate heat, but only for a certain period of time. This requires a lot of energy, so toucans will need more food, Price said.

“If he’s still alive, I can imagine he might be in trouble. I hope they catch him,” he said.

The toucan was spotted in a specific location, which is a sign that it is running out of energy, he said. The rescue group set up a cage with food and appealed to neighbors to stop feeding it. Marsh said the toucan came out of the cage but became spooked when people were around.

Marsh said the rescue group would take him to the vet as soon as he was captured. He will need fluids and his body will need to be flushed to remove the iron he ingested.

Marsh urged neighbors not to approach the toucans or try to trap Sam themselves.

“The more people out there, the worse it’s going to be because he doesn’t like people,” he said. “Then let us do our job and catch him.”