Justice is Done

I mentioned the case of the sparrow blasted to smithereens last month because it knocked over a domino (or two). Well, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has spoken and fined the killer 200 euros for the heinous act.

 

It turns out there’s even a somewhat bizarre back story to these events. The evidence of the crime (i.e. the remains of the sparrow) are currently in a freezer somewhere in the bowels of the Public Prosecution Service. There’s talk of sending them to the Nature Museum in Rotterdam. The chief conservationist, Kees Moeliker, is wondering how much actually is left for him to stuff and mount. He would like to display the little fellow in a forthcoming exhibition as "an icon of the love for sparrows". Er, Kees, it was shot… What I mean, protests Kees, is that the exhibition can become "a place of pilgrimage". Yes, thank you, Kees, and goodnight.

 

Meanwhile, the director of the Nature Museum in Friesland (the region where the crime was committed) has mixed feelings. He would have liked the sparrow for his museum… The papers don’t report what his intentions were for the corpse. Better not to ask, I think.

 

Update: I should have recognised the name of Kees Moeliker. He’s the author of that stirring piece of research: The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae). Silly of me. But today’s entry in the Improbable Research blog has put me right.