Sparrow Shot in 4 Million Domino Record Attempt

Animal rights activists in the Netherlands want charges laid in the shooting of a rare sparrow that knocked over 23,000 dominoes as a TV company was setting up for a world-record attempt.

The sparrow, which is on the national endangered list, had flown into an exposition centre on Monday in the northern city of Leeuwarden. After knocking over the dominoes, it was chased into a corner and shot by an exterminator with an air rifle.

About 100 people with the TV company Endemol NV had spent weeks at the centre setting up more than four million dominoes in an attempt to surpass the official Guinness world record for falling dominoes. The record is 3,992,397.

Read an earlier story [here]. The bird flew through an open window?? What’s wrong with this picture?



  1. RonD says:

    “That bird was flying around and knocking over a lot of dominoes,” van Waardenberg said. “More than 100 people from 12 countries had worked for more than a month setting them up.”

    If just one of those 100 people had thought to shut the windows there would not have been a problem. The dominoes could always have been set up again after safely shooing the bird outside. There was no need to kill it.

  2. estacado says:

    First the flu, now they destroy our dominos. What’s next?!

  3. Imafish says:

    I agree with RonD. One would think that people who do dominos “professionally” would be pretty relaxed by their very nature. Exactly why would you pick such a ludicrious career unless you loved it?!

  4. Awake says:

    DUH!
    They don’t deserve the record because they are stupid.
    Whenever you setup a domino topple, there’s a couple of things you do:
    a) Every so often you leave a few dominoes out, so it there is an accident, the topple stops. You add them in right before the main event to connect the separate segments, AND
    b) You setup little ‘safety walls’ that slide between the dominoes, and remove then carefully just before the topple, so if the dominoes start to fall over, they get stopped by the little wall. I have seen little pendulum flags that flip up out of the way.
    If they lost their whole setup, they are just plain dumb dumb dumb.

  5. Andrew Gray says:

    Who cares. It was a single bird. Two birds have probally died by getting hit with automobiles by the time you finish reading this.
    Why is this a news stroy?

  6. Andrew says:

    This story has got to be one of the funniest things I’ve heard all month.

  7. Mike says:

    Who had a gun, and why??

  8. Joe says:

    This is just hilarious! The irony is just rich.

  9. Mike Voice says:

    a) Every so often you leave a few dominoes out, so it there is an accident, the topple stops. You add them in right before the main event to connect the separate segments,

    From the “Read an earlier story. [here]” link:

    “Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain prevented the bird from knocking most or all of the dominoes over ahead of schedule…”

  10. Adam says:

    Pretty Funny Stuff
    I agreen with Awake, any bozo know’s better than to not leave some of the dominoes out for safety.

  11. ijsbrand says:

    A couple of comments:

    1] Domino Day has become a yearly record attempt to topple as many dominoes as possible, and because this is already the umptieth time the media don’t pay attention to it anymore.

    2] The news of the dead sparrow was broking by the Dutch daily De Telegraaf, not coincidentally a major stakeholder in SBS6, who happens to broadcast Domino Day.

    3] Suddenly Domino Day is all over the news. Just a couple of day before the broadcast!

    4] I’ve seen no image of any dead sparrow in any Dutch media, I did however see an interview with the sharpshooter who allegedly killed the bird. Which still doesn’t convince me it might not be a hoax.

    5] But above all: what amazes my most are all the people crying out loud what a shame it is the bird got killed, meanwhile indicating how good and noble they are.

  12. ijsbrand says:

    Meanwhile, some Dutch have opened a website where anyone can pay his or her condolences to the sparrow.

    http://www.dodemus.nl/ [mus = sparrow, dode = dead]

  13. lola says:

    I agree with Ron, one would have thought that at least one of those stupid people would have had the common sense to shut the windows. Besides that they can always restack the stupid dominos, but they can’t give the bird back its life.

  14. Carl vdwiel says:

    could u please send me a copy of the record breaking event thanks


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