Heidi Fleiss Macaw Dispute Prompts Clark County Animal Control Response

Heidi Fleiss closed on her new Las Vegas home in February, choosing it for its proximity to tall trees and its lush, green quarter-acre of land. The plan was simple: give her macaws room to fly. What she didn't account for was a county map.

Neighbor Shauna Cordova filed a complaint against Fleiss, saying she had read the county code and knew the macaws were not meant to be flying freely, make early morning sounds, and glide near airport airspace. Cordova lives in the southeast Las Vegas Valley near Palm Eastern Mortuary, and said the birds regularly perch on a wire outside her bedroom window and begin screeching at dawn. According to Cordova, Fleiss "was told on March 08, 2026, to cage them, and she refuses."

Clark County Animal Protection Services enforced noise ordinances, visited the property, and checked on the welfare of the birds. Code enforcement is also citing Fleiss for the free roaming of the macaws within a bird strike area. The reason comes down to geography: a county spokeswoman said Fleiss is only able to house 20 macaws, and is unable to release any of them outdoors because her home is in an airstrike hazard area due to its proximity to Reid Airport. County code allows racing or homing pigeons to be exercised in free flight for not more than one hour daily, but "Macaws are not allowed to be released." Animal Protection Services "educated" Fleiss on the bird strike area restrictions on March 8, but Fleiss said she was not aware of those rules.

Fleiss doesn't dispute that she's breaking the code. She disputes that the code is right. "We have science fact, fact-based data, peer-reviewed, that keeping them in a cage is cruel and a tortured existence," she said. "Now that we have all this information and understanding, there has to be a little more compassion," she added. Her position isn't just personal: "It's time to ban them as pets. And if that happens, my cycle is complete."

The emotional core of her argument is the life she says she has witnessed firsthand. "The best experience I ever had was watching one of my birds go from solitary confinement, adjust to freedom, find a mate, and raise a family," Fleiss said. As of last week, Fleiss had four of her macaws in her backyard, introducing Roscoe and Charlie to the already-existing feathered duo of Gin and Juice. "The second I brought them here, I just thought they would check it out and come back to Pahrump with me," she said. "They would not come back because they loved it here. It's beautiful here."

Cordova sees it differently. "I'm not a Heidi Hater, I'm a homeowner that believes I have a reasonable expectation to peacefully exist at my residence," she said, adding that the airspace violation could potentially put airplanes at risk when landing a mile away at Harry Reid International Airport. She noted that Fleiss "has made zero effort to keep them from free roaming, or perching outside our windows and violating sound ordinance."

Fleiss has said she plans to enlist her legal team to fight Clark County for the right to keep her birds from living in cages. She has also said she would leave for Nye County with her birds rather than accept what she considers substandard care, and her plea to anyone who encounters her flock in the meantime was unambiguous: "Please don't hurt them."

For the parrot community, the case cuts to a familiar fault line: the gap between what county animal codes permit and what current science and lived experience tell us about what macaws actually need. Fleiss plans to move some 30 wild birds from Pahrump to the Las Vegas property, a number that would already exceed the county's stated limit of 20. Whether her legal challenge goes anywhere or the birds ultimately follow her to Nye County, the citations issued in a southeast Las Vegas Valley neighborhood have put the question of macaw welfare and municipal code squarely on the record.