Why did Las Vegas Bellagio fountain stop because of a bird?

The Bellagio said in a social media post Tuesday that it paused its fountains after the loon “found comfort on Las Vegas’ own Lake Bellagio.”

On Wednesday, the bird was removed by the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the resort’s music and choreographed water-spray show resumed in the afternoon, MGM Resorts International spokesperson Brian Ahern said.

The yellow-billed loon is an international species of concern that is considered to be “one of the 10 rarest birds that regularly breed on the mainland U.S.,” according to the National Park Service.

Initially, the fountain shows were paused while officials figured out how to proceed, Ahern said.

Concerned birders asked state wildlife officials to intervene, department spokesperson Doug Nielsen said. The bird, a juvenile, likely sought shelter from a storm, Nielsen said, noting that it isn’t uncommon for migratory birds to visit the valley.

“They normally nest around the Arctic Circle and winter in Canada, the U.S., Norway or Siberia,” said Kurt Buzard, a veteran bird spotter who said he believes he saw the same distinctive bird a week ago at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve southeast of Las Vegas. “I think it’s lost and probably disoriented.”

Buzard said the last time he remembered hearing about a yellow-billed loon in southern Nevada was in the late 1990s at the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nye County, northwest of Las Vegas.

He worried that because neither the man-made lake at the Bellagio nor the former municipal water treatment pond at the Henderson preserve had fish, the bird he saw would be too hungry to continue its migratory…