Interesting News pt. 1.5

Nation mourns bird killed in domino shooting


AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch animal lovers are mourning a sparrow shot dead after it fluttered into an exhibition hall and knocked over thousands of dominoes set up in preparation for a world record attempt.

The sparrow will be commemorated in a live Dutch television broadcast of the domino-toppling Friday after a wave of national outrage at the shooting.

"We know we are responsible for a lot of emotion in the country and we realize we couldn't go on without properly marking this," said Jeroen van Waardenberg, a spokesman for reality TV company Endemol, the firm behind "Big Brother."

An exterminator shot the sparrow Monday in the northern city of Leeuwarden after fears the bird could upset more of the 4 million dominoes which staff had spent weeks balancing on their edges for the record attempt.

Dutch animal rights groups are outraged, especially as sparrows are a protected species in the Netherlands.

Hundreds of condolence messages have been posted on a website for the sparrow (www.dodemus.nl), which has attracted 200,000 hits.