The Domino Day 2005 house sparrow, generally known as the domino sparrow ( nl, dominomus) was a

house sparrow The house sparrow (''Passer domesticus'') is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. It is a small bird that has a typical length of and a mass of . Females and young birds are coloured pale brown and grey, a ...

(''Passer domesticus'') that was shot and killed by a hunter from the company Duke Faunabeheer in the Frisian Expo Centre in

Leeuwarden Leeuwarden (; fy, Ljouwert, longname=yes /; Town Frisian: ''Liwwadden''; Leeuwarder dialect: ''Leewarden'') is a city and municipality in Friesland, Netherlands, with a population of 123,107 (2019). It is the provincial capital and seat of the ...

, Netherlands, during preparations for

Domino Day ''Domino Day'' is a world record attempt for the highest number of toppling domino stones, organized from 1998 to 2009 by Endemol Netherlands. Together with Weijers Domino Productions of Robin Paul Weijers, also known as Mr. Domino, parties team ...

2005 on 14 November 2005. With only four days to go until Domino Day 2005, the bird flew into the building and landed on several

domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...

bricks, eventually causing 23,000 of them (out of 4.3 million) to

fall Autumn, also known as fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (Souther ...

. Because of the protective gaps that were placed between groups of dominoes, the damage was limited. Faunabeheer was hired to remove the unwanted intruder from the centre. After trying to capture the sparrow with nets and sticks, the company decided to shoot the bird.

Controversy

The

Dierenbescherming The Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals ( nl, Nederlandse Vereniging tot Bescherming van Dieren or '' De Dierenbescherming'') is a Dutch voluntary animal protection organisation, founded in 1864. Today it has about 200,000 members and abo ...

, a large animal protection organisation, went to court against Faunabeheer and the production company

Endemol Endemol B.V. was a Dutch-based media company that produced and distributed multiplatform entertainment content. The company annually produced more than 15,000 hours of programming across scripted and non-scripted genres, including drama, reality ...

for their actions against the domino sparrow. The public prosecutor fined the shooter 200

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s for illegally killing an animal belonging to a protected species. After several Dutch newspapers and television stations announced what had happened in the Frisian Expo Centre, several

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

organisations, popular blogs like

GeenStijl GeenStijl is a Dutch blog founded on 10 April 2003. The logo is a pink coloured crown within a circle. In the Dutch language, the term "geen stijl" (literal translation: no style) is used to describe an act by a person or organisation that lack ...

and radio DJs like

Ruud de Wild Ruud and Rud are surnames of Norwegian origin. Both are also Norwegian place names of numerous farmsteads named Rud or Ruud from Old Norse ''ruð'' meaning clearing. Ruud is also a Dutch masculine given name meaning "famous wolf" although it is also ...

devoted time and attention to the subject. They claimed that killing an animal in order to save a television show is a low deed, and accused the shooter of having no respect for animal life. De Wild said that he was willing to give a €3,000 reward to anyone who toppled the dominoes before the start of the event. However, nobody was able to do this since the security around the Frisian Expo Centre tightened following the sparrow incident and death threats against Faunabeheer,

SBS Broadcasting SBS Broadcasting Group (SBS), formerly Scandinavian Broadcasting Systems, was a European multinational media group, operating commercial television, premium pay channels, radio stations and related print businesses in Northern, Western and Cen ...

, and Endemol. A month after the sparrow's death, the Dutch Public Prosecutor handed the bird over to the Natuurhistorisch Museum in Rotterdam, as requested by its curator

Kees Moeliker Cornelis W. "Kees" Moeliker (born 9 October 1960) is a Dutch biologist and director of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam. He is also European Bureau Chief of the ''Annals of Improbable Research''. Early years Moeliker's father worked for ...

. The museum stuffed the dead bird and displayed it in an exhibition on the house sparrow from November 2006 until May 2007. The bird was subsequently moved to an exhibition containing dead animals with a backstory. In 2019, it was reported that even almost a decade and a half after the incident, the hunter who killed the bird still received threats to his life.

References

{{reflist Individual songbirds 2005 animal deaths 2005 in the Netherlands Individual animals in the Netherlands Individual wild animals

Controversy

See also

References