Hungry Zimbabweans try to eat giraffe

Police stopped villagers from slaughtering and eating a giraffe that strayed into the outskirts of the capital amid chronic food shortages caused by an economic crisis, the official media reported Saturday.

The adult giraffe was believed to have wandered from nearby farmland. Wildlife authorities took the giraffe away after police kept a crowd from killing it "for the pot," the state Herald reported.

Zimbabwe is suffering shortages of meat and basic foods in an economic meltdown that has left it with the world's highest official inflation _ nearly 7,000 percent.

Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000 percent and the International Monetary Fund forecast it reaching 100,000 percent by the end of the year.

A government order to slash prices of all goods and services by about half in June has left stores across the country empty of meat, cornmeal, bread and other staples and crippled transportation services.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said this month that it was launching a campaign to raise awareness about the moral and ethical issues surrounding cases of pets being slaughtered for meat.

It said while it was not illegal to eat dog meat in Zimbabwe, the nation's laws covered the humane killing of all animals.

In recent weeks, authorities also have reported one of the worst spates of bush fires across the country in recent memory, largely blamed on people who set fires to flush out the rodents. Roasted mice are a traditional dish in some areas.