A toucan that escaped in November has prompted a months-long rescue effort in the Las Vegas area, with rescuers warning that time is running out.
Katherine Eddington said she was driving in North Las Vegas last week when she thought she saw a large black bird carrying a banana across an intersection. After a closer look, she realized it was a toucan, a tropical bird with large, colorful bills, and she contacted animal rescue, saying she had recognized it from social media.
Rescuers said the toucan is named Sam and has been in the area since November, when a resident posted online that it had escaped from its cage. SouthWest Exotic Avian Rescue has spent hours searching for Sam and has received occasional reports from community birding groups, but the group’s attempts have not yet led to a capture.
SouthWest Exotic Avian Rescue president and co-founder Skye Marsh said she has been “really worried about him.” She said the rescue group has not been in touch with the owner and that it has limited rescue options after locating Sam about 50 feet (around 15 meters) up in a palm tree.
Marsh said experts expect conditions in Las Vegas to be difficult for a toucan. She said Sam is starting to show signs of struggle, including sunken eyes and skin around his beak becoming discolored. She also said Sam likely lived off figs and pomegranates in the Los Prados neighborhood, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Las Vegas Strip, before those foods disappeared and the bird moved on to citrus.
According to Marsh, citrus can be harmful to toucans because their livers cannot process calcium and because iron intake can be deadly. She said that combination is part of why she believes the bird is not in good shape, as the clock continues to tick for an animal that has survived far longer than many exotic birds that escape are expected to.
Donald Price, a professor and biologist at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas who studies how winged species adapt to different environments, said Las Vegas is “not a good environment” for a toucan to be wild through both hot summers and cold winters. He said birds can thermoregulate but only for so long, and that the toucan would need more energy and more food as the weather and conditions changed.
Price said if Sam is still alive, “it could be in trouble,” adding that the rescue group needs to catch the bird. He also said Sam has been spotted in one specific location, which Marsh described as a sign the toucan may be running out of energy.
SouthWest Exotic Avian Rescue has set up a cage with food in it and urged neighbors to stop feeding Sam, Marsh said. She said Sam has scoped out the cage but gets spooked when people are around, complicating efforts to move him into the transport cage. Marsh said the group will rush Sam to a vet once he is caught, and that he will likely need fluids and medical care intended to flush out iron he may have eaten.
Marsh urged residents not to get close to the toucan or try to trap Sam themselves. She said Sam does not like people and emphasized that the presence of more people could make it harder for rescuers to catch him, telling neighbors to “just let us do our thing, and we’ll get him.”