After a series of charity scandals, cash-strapped conservation group the RSPB has announced that it will refocus its conservation efforts on saving the Angry Birds, rather than their real cousins.
‘What people don’t realise is that looking after real birds is bloody expensive,’ said a spokeswoman. ‘We have to buy in wing splints and beak bandages for when the damn things get themselves mangled by wind turbines, shedloads of soap for when they go swimming around in oil slicks, and all these maps and stuff so we can find out which wetland habitat the government is concreting over next. This stuff costs millions, and it’s not much fun either. Whereas Angry Birds is just 69p and we can make a difference every level.’
The RSPB’s governing council has already approved changes to its constitution to scrap its 150-year commitment to environmental protection, and instead position the society as the world’s leading preventer of bad piggy attacks on innocent birds and an active campaigner for the knocking down of precarious virtual sheds and towers. ‘One of our key aims has always been to engage young people in observing and caring about the world of birds,’ said RSPB chief executive Dr Mike Clarke. ‘And our research tells us that they don’t give a shit about ptarmigans or hooded mergansers or whatever, they’re too busy helping save angry birds on their phones all the time. Although there remains quite a healthy level of interest in shags, funnily enough.’
The RSPB’s statement has been greeted with relief by London Mayor Boris Johnson, who will now be free to concrete over 150 square kilometres of wetland in north Kent to build his eponymous airport. ‘Excellent news, just the ticket,’ he told reporters. ‘As Herodotus once said, bugger the egret breeding grounds, this means we can triple our runway capacity at a stroke. Or was it Mark Carney, I can’t remember. Who are you again?’
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