RSPB calls out Angry Birds following pet shop cruelty allegations

Two Scottish pet shop employees were sacked yesterday after a report in the Oban Times revealed that they had been using dead birds as projectiles while playing a physical version of hit smartphone game Angry Birds.

The fired employees allegedly took parakeets and mice from an industrial freezer to use as props in a lunchtime game, which Pet Island manager Sharon Renton described as "radge" - a common Scots dialect word meaning 'egregious'.

The game appears to have involved the participants stacking empty soft drink cans around the frozen mice and then trying to knock them over with the tropical birds.

RSBP spokesman Glen Piper told the Oban Times, "Sadly, this isn't the first instance of "copycat" bird cruelty we've seen since Angry Birds became a hit."

The RSPB has received dozens of reports in the last few months of birds being been thrown at makeshift fortresses.

Piper added, "Fortunately none of the incidents so far has involved a live bird. If you tried to throw a live bird, it would just fly off somewhere."

Thousands of dead animals are incinerated at Scottish pet shops every day.