__ Hey U$A, help alleviate starvation - donate your unwanted pets to Zimbabwe __

Is there really a pet overpopulation problem?

The number of healthy dogs, cats, kittens, and puppies that are euthanized
(killed) each day in the United States is almost too big for the average person
to comprehend. The estimates range from source to source, but mid-ranges are
roughly between 6 to 8 million pets euthanized each year. This translates to
16,438 to 21,917 pets euthanized each DAY. Some annual estimates are as high as
12 million.

(Figures are from various sources, including, but not limited to: Cornell
University, PetSmart Charities, and the Humane Society of the United States.)

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- 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, animal welfare
activists say.

A man feeds scraps to his dogs in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Thursday. People are
barely able to feed their pets.

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

Animals, like people, are being hard hit by Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, with
official inflation of more than 7,600 percent, the highest in the world.
Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000 percent and the
International Monetary Fund has forecast it will reach 100,000 percent by the
end of the year.

Vets have run out of the drug used to 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.

"We are accused of giving the country a bad name," the activist said.

Zimbabwe's and international human rights groups accuse the government of
intimidating, threatening, harassing and physically attacking critics or those
seen as casting the government in a bad light.

Sweeping media laws have brought the closure of independent and opposition
newspapers, speech and gatherings are tightly controlled, and President Robert
Mugabe has applauded police for beating opposition activists.

Animal activists say they have been threatened with arrest for speaking out and
SPCA offices were raided by secret police agents of the Central Intelligence
Organization on Thursday. SPCA inspectors said they were ordered not to release
details of surrendered, abandoned, slain or eaten pets.

No comment was immediately available from the government.

Mugabe's critics say corruption and his stewardship of the economy have led to
the crisis. They point to the often-violent, government seizures of thousands of
white-owned commercial farms that began in 2000 and disrupted the
agriculture-based economy in what was once a regional breadbasket.

Meat, cornmeal, bread and other staples vanished from shops and stores. A
government order to slash prices of all goods and services in June worsened
acute food shortages and has left stores virtually empty of basic foodstuffs.

Food shortages have also emboldened rats to forage for scraps in homes and far
beyond their usual hideaways, pest control specialists said.

Leftover food that would have been discarded has become too precious to throw
away, said a rat catcher in western Harare.

"We are getting rat problems where we never saw them before," he said, asking
not to be identified in the mounting climate of fear of the authorities.
"Please, I don't want any trouble."

Illegally slaughtered meat sells for more than 10 times the government's fixed
price on the thriving black market. It comes in plastic bags of 22 pounds and
more, containing bone, fat and offal and no indication of types or cuts of meat.

"You're getting brisket, shin, flank, rump and anything else that's available,
all lumped together. It's meat, take it or leave it," the animal protection
activist said.

"It is not illegal to eat dog meat in this country, but we have laws on how
animals must be humanely slaughtered," he said.

A court case is pending in the eastern city of Mutare, where a pet dog was
butchered and eaten.

Police and SPCA inspectors were called to a shopping center in Harare earlier
this month, where a man was offering frozen dog meat for sale from the back of a
pickup truck, activists said.