Hedge your bets - on a fish supper

A pub game where drinkers bet on which live fish is eaten first by a predator has been criticised by the RSPCA.

The game involves Prince, an eight-inch long Oscar fish with a voracious appetite, being let loose in an aquarium of six multi-coloured guppies.

Punters at the Prince of Wales in Norwich bet up to £5 on which guppy Prince will eat first. If they win, they get £10 back. The rest of the takings go to help pay for a seven-year-old girl with an inoperable brain tumour to go on holiday. So far, more than £150 has been raised since the game was started a few weeks ago.

But the RSPCA called it "a sad reflection on society" and director of veterinary services, Chris Lawrence, said: "There are other ways of feeding this fish without giving it live fish.

"It's the whole principle of feeding one live animal to another. You wouldn't go to a zoo and expect to see a live deer fed to a lion."

But landlord Jason Bertie, 30, argues that because Oscars eat smaller fish in their natural habitat, there is nothing wrong with allowing Prince to do it for a good cause. He said: "The first one to get eaten tends to be the nearest one to Prince when we remove the partition from the middle of the tank. He swallows them whole and cleans out the tank within a minute."

Last night's event was called off after the RSPCA's intervention. Alison Joy, for the society, said: "The animals are being used in an exploitative way. The situation is being created so that an animal will die.

"There are many other ways of raising money for charity that don't involve killing animals."