The Lonely Pig

(Kabul, Afghanistan) Dramatically shabby, the Kabul Zoo has never recovered from the early 90s civil war when Mujahideen gunmen overran the place and ate the deer and rabbits while wantonly killing the one lonely elephant. In taking the zoo, the Mujahideen suffered only one reported casualty.

One fighter climbed into the lion enclosure but was immediately killed by Marjan, the zoo's most famous inhabitant. The man's brother returned the next day and lobbed a hand grenade at the lion leaving him toothless and blind.

Marjan ultimately died in 2002, reportedly from old age but there is the belief that he suffered a slow agonizing death from digestive distress caused by eating a Mujahideen fighter.

In any event, Kabul Zoo officials continue their work toward modernization. The zoo currently houses 42 species of birds and mammals and 36 species of fish and recently took possession of a pig, a gift from China.

The pig is a novelty, the only one in all of Afghanistan. Until the swine flu hysteria, it would graze with the goats and visitors would giggle and point but now it's been quarantined in a special room.

One lonely pig locked in solitary confinement at a zoo in a war-torn nation. How sad it must be for the animal rights advocates. By the way, where is PETA on this story?