People Eating Tasty Pets

Zimbabwe's misery continues so long as Robert Mugabe remains in power. Because the situation is so dire - with hyperinflation running rampant and no food available, people are resorting to eating their pets to survive.

Pets are being slaughtered for meat in shortage-stricken Zimbabwe and record numbers of animals have been surrendered to shelters or abandoned by owners no longer able to feed them, according to animal welfare groups.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it could not feed surrendered animals or find new homes and was being forced to kill them and destroy the corpses.

Vets have run out of the drug used put down the animals and are relying on intermittent donations from neighboring South Africa. One veterinary practice was waiting for supplies to destroy about 20 animals, and on Friday could neither feed them adequately nor fatally inject them.

In its latest bulletin to donors and supporters, the SPCA said it launched an awareness campaign on "the ethical and moral issues regarding the killing and consumption of trusted companion animals."

"But in the face of starvation and the burgeoning number of stray and abandoned animals the moral issues become far more complex and we should not be too hasty in our condemnations when animals and people are suffering equally," it said.

One animal rights activist, who asked not to be named out of fear of arrest, called the situation "too ghastly for words.

Mugabe's voodoo economics is a path of misery, and yet there are others intent upon following his prescription for disaster, including [T]hugo Chavez in Venezuela. This is what Venezuelans may have to look forward to in a few years if Chavez enacts similar policies.