Hungry Venezuelans killing flamingos and anteaters for food, biologists say

[FBaggins]

...But this isn’t simple poaching, he said. Sibira and other investigators from Zulia University, a public university in Maracaibo, are convinced that the protected birds have become the latest victims of Venezuela's growing hunger crisis. People have become so desperate, he said, that they are butchering and eating flamingos.

There are other signs that food shortages have led to the slaughtering of animals not generally considered meat: giant anteaters, for one. The university investigators — biologists and biology students — say they have kept records to show that dozens of the slow-moving creatures, classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, also have been killed for food.

In the city’s dump, more evidence of hunger-driven desperation: dismembered dogs, cats, donkeys, horses and pigeons have been found since last year, all skinned or plucked, with signs of having been eaten, according to the city’s garbage teams.

“Sometimes we only find the animal’s heads, guts and legs. We used to see this very little in the past, but this practice is now out of control and on the rise,” said Robert Linares, who works in waste disposal at the dump for the city.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article131778819.html

The Maduro diet.

[Marksman_91]

1. Well, to be fair, there's always a famine at some point with every major communist regime.

It was only a matter of time before it happened in Venezuela. Chavismo needs to go the way of the Soviet Union and be rid of for good.