Mitchell Fairbarn, 34, faces two counts of animal cruelty. Police say security cameras caught him around 5 a.m. March 3 hopping a fence into the habitat, and that he then carried Peachy to his hotel room.
Prosecutors opened with surveillance video, photos and Snapchat clips. The footage shows Fairbarn smiling and laughing as he grabs Peachy by the neck, with two friends beside him. Peachy's veterinarian called that inappropriate and potentially fatal. She described seven to eight missing feathers, broken shafts and blood loss consistent with trauma, and said the bird needed antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and weeks of pain medication.
On the stand, Fairbarn called it a drunken "silly pranky joke" and said he now sees how big a mistake it was. His attorney asked if he ever intended to kill the bird. "No," Fairbarn said.
He told jurors he lives in central Ontario, runs an excavation business he started in 2014, is married and has three children. He grew up on farms, owns dogs and a parrot named Sonny, and was in Las Vegas for ConExpo, a global construction show.
A man who says he once rescued an abandoned llama and six ducks now has to explain to a jury what happened to one flamingo.