Dutch Dominos

Endangered species…when are we going to get over this? I mean when are we going to say, “ok we can’t save everything”. It’s another example of taking a good thing too far.

I picked up a story about how some Dutch television show broke the world record for domino drops…to the tune of 4.1 million. Remember how that was big in the US back in the eighties…way to stay hip, Netherlands!

Well, it turns out, during the set up a Dutch house sparrow flew into the area and knocked over 23,000 dominos. A local ORKIN man was called out and he “captured” the bird with a shot from an air rifle. Seems it’s much easier to capture a dead bird than one still flapping around.

As fate would have it…the offending bird was and “endangered” species. A fucking sparrow is an endangered species in the Netherlands. Are you kidding me with this crap? Apparently the species, according to the AP, is down to less than 1 MILLION breeding pairs. For comparison, the Netherlands have a human breeding population of just over 8 million pairs.

Anyway, there was the obligatory public outcry from the animal rights groups. They set up a web site for mourners that got tagged by at least 5,000.

Here’s the Alanis-type irony in the story: The exterminator reportedly had received several death threats for his actions. That’s right, the people who want to save the birds, want to kill this guy for doing his job. How completely fucked up does that sound?

This was a friggin sparrow! Not even some really rare breed of sparrow, it was a common house sparrow. If they’re so endangered in the Netherlands, let’s send them some of ours…I’ve got plenty around here that like to shit on my truck! While we’re at it, let’s export some of these damn Canadian Geese…they’re protected too.

Was killing the sparrow a bit over the top? Yeah, maybe. But did it really need the attention of all those people? No. Sparrows die all the time…they’re friggin everywhere. I’m not an ornithologist, but I’m willing to bet that the common sparrow is second only to the pigeon in worldwide population of bird species and some poor Dutch guy is getting death letters ‘cause he popped one.

What should have prompted public outrage is the fact that a television station dedicated the man-hours to setting up 4 million dominos, just to knock them over. If the Dutch are that hard-up for entertainment, they should start importing some re-runs of the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire or Knight Rider.

Domino, Mutha-Fucka!