October 16, 2026 - 12:34 pm

The Canadian man accused of stealing and mistreating a Flamingo resort bird testified Friday that he drank 30 to 40 beers leading up to the incident.

“I believe it’s a realistic estimate,” Mitchell Fairbarn told his defense attorney, Joshua Tomsheck. “It sounds crazy.”

Fairbarn, who faces two counts of animal cruelty, is accused of taking the bird, named Peachy, from its habitat at the Flamingo and bringing it to his hotel room and torturing it.

The 34-year-old contractor was in Las Vegas to speak at a construction convention. He and his friends arrived a day early, on March 2, and they “let loose,” Fairbarn said.

“We grabbed beers up and down the Strip,” Fairbarn said, adding that he bought a beer whenever he could.

By the early morning of March 3, he said, he was drunk. His group had returned to the Flamingo and while two of his friends slept in their room, he roamed the casino.

He said he then entered the enclosure and picked up the bird. Tomsheck asked Fairbarn what he was thinking at the time.

“It’s a question that I ask myself now,” Fairbarn testified. “I don’t know. I was trying to make an experience or a memory … I thought at the time that it would be some silly joke.”

When Fairbarn picked the bird up, he took his shirt off to contain the bird’s wings and protect it from waist high hedges in the enclosure, he said.

Tomsheck also said that Fairbarn, who lives on a farm in a rural area, had been taught by relatives how to handle wild and domesticated birds, including turkeys, ducks and chickens. Generally, Fairbarn said, he was taught to hold long-necked birds by grasping their necks, which he had done with the flamingos.

When he was arrested at the resort, Fairbarn said he thought they would simply kick him out and cite him for trespassing. He said he now knows he shouldn’t have entered the habitat, but he never intended to hurt Peachy.

Fairbarn said that, while in the enclosure, he neither slammed nor dragged the bird. Instead, he placed his hand at the base of its neck as it repeatedly changed direction quickly.

“So as an animal lover, you said, you didn’t want an animal to feel scared or hurt,” Deputy District Attorney Haley Willming said. “You realized they did not want you there. So why’d you stay?”

“I guess in my head every time we wrangle up our ducks or chicken, they do the same thing,” Fairbarn replied. “It’s common for a bird to want to walk away from you.”

He added, “I wouldn’t say they felt like their lives were endangered.”

Later that afternoon, Fairbarn’s wife testified before the defense rested its case. District Judge Jaqueline Bluth told the jury to expect closing arguments Monday.

Contact Akiya Leggio at aleggio@reviewjournal.com.