ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The toucan seen outside a beauty salon in Orlando has prompted renewed attention to other wild-animal incidents across Florida.
An employee at Dermi Wax Center on Conroy Windermere Road captured the bird on video and reported the sighting to News 6, but officials have not confirmed where the bird came from.
Below is a list of wild animals that were on the loose and made headlines in the state:
- A king cobra escaped from an Orange County home in 2015 and was found weeks later under a woman’s dryer. The owner agreed to pay $2,500 to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for the cost of the investigation and $1,500 to the Florida Wildlife Alert Reward Fund.
- A male orangutan escaped from a non-public exercise yard at Busch Gardens in Tampa “for about an hour” in June 2016, FWC records show. Investigators later found a small portion of the wire mesh enclosure had been compromised. About two weeks later, a female orangutan temporarily escaped from an open-topped habitat at the same theme park, according to records. An agency investigator did not identify any obvious point of exit.
- A cobra vanished from an Ocala home in 2017 after being improperly handled by an apprentice caregiver, according to FWC. The agency is unaware of the snake ever being recovered. Prosecutors later dropped misdemeanor charges against the apprentice after he completed a pretrial intervention program, court records show.
- A gate was accidentally left open at the Hillsborough County home of the owners of a traveling circus in 2017, records show, allowing a zebra to leave the property and run through adjacent neighborhoods before being captured.
- While a Tampa man was feeding his girlfriend’s Tamarin monkey, the small primate escaped from its cage and climbed a nearby tree in 2017. The man contacted a privately-owned bucket truck to lift him into the tree to retrieve the licensed pet.
- Two chimpanzees escaped from a Miami wildlife facility in 2018. After being seen on a road outside the facility, FWC officers used chemical immobilization darts to safely capture the primates.
- An employee of an Okeechobee Home Depot was attacked by a spider monkey that escaped from its owner while shopping at the store in 2018, according to FWC
- An elephant once owned by singer Michael Jackson briefly wandered out of its enclosure at the Jacksonville Zoo in 2018 after an employee left a gate open, records show.
- A professional boxer was charged with 22 offenses related to the escape of an unlicensed pet cougar from his home in Parkland in 2019.
- An exotic African serval was captured while wandering through Palm Bay in 2020. The owner, who mistakenly thought he had purchased a domesticated breed of cat that does not require licensing, told FWC his children accidentally allowed it to escape from their home.
- A meerkat exited an exhibit at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 2020 by using an undetected ramp carved in artificial rockwork, according to FWC records. The meerkat retreated back into the exhibit after presumably being scared by employees communicating via two-way radios.
- An injured kangaroo belonging to Busch Gardens that was being cared for by a zoological employee at the employee’s Land O’ Lakes home escaped from an enclosure in the worker’s yard in 2021, records show. It was captured in the neighborhood the next day.
- A monkey was spotted roaming a Volusia County neighborhood in December 2024, including a school drop-off.
- A kangaroo on the lam in Volusia County was captured in November 2024. The kangaroo, which escaped its enclosure after an incident with a bear, was found in a fenced-in area.
- In January 2026, a St. Johns County deputy captured a runaway emu in St. Augustine and returned it to its home following reports of the bird’s escape.