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At a Buddhist temple used as a morgue and elsewhere in tsunami disaster zones, hungry stray dogs have been feeding on victims' corpses, even managing to get into body bags to do so, relief workers say.

It has become such a problem that a group of Thai veterinarians, armed with tranquilliser guns, has been given the task of capturing the strays.

Aid workers in India have used real bullets.

"The dogs are starving and they just eat any meat," said Dr Kiartisak Rojnirandorn of Thailand's Foundation for Stray Dogs.

More than 60 dogs have been seized, including 40 around the Yan Yao Buddhist temple, which has become a makeshift mortuary in Phang Nga, one of Thailand's worst hit provinces with more than 4000 people killed.

Some 2000 bodies are being kept in the temple while undergoing autopsies and other identification attempts.

Most have been kept refrigerated, but some newly found ones sometimes lay on the open ground pending a post-mortem exam.

Stray-dog free zone

The vets' goal is to make the area affected by the tsunami a "stray-dog free zone".

They plan to send the captured dogs to a sanctuary in western Thailand.

Before the tsunami, most probably weren't strays but house pets whose masters were killed in the disaster.

"These dogs are smart. They can unzip body bags and eat the corpses inside," said Tohboon Sappasri, a Thai volunteer who has taken a two-month leave from his job in the United States to help tsunami victims.

Stray dogs attacking survivors

Civic workers killed packs of stray dogs that were attacking tsunami survivors, including children, at relief shelters in some of the worst hit areas of southern India.

The dogs' behaviour changed after they ate corpses washed ashore after the tsunami struck, said Shantha Sheela Nair, a relief official in the area.

Dogs were also seen eating a corpse on Indonesia's Malinggei Island, where the 500 residents either died or have been evacuated.

Reports 'not surprising'

David Reinecker, a US-based animal behaviourist and professional dog trainer, said he was not surprised by the reports.

"We must not forget that dogs are carnivore animals and they follow the scent trails of blood," Reinecker said in an e-mail interview.

"Put simply, their predatory instinct is pushing them to search for food,” he said.

The dogs that survived the tsunami are going through a period of stress, fear and trauma.

"Pet dogs may be looking for their owners at the beginning, but with the time they will be in desperate need of aliment. If there are stray dogs in the area, they will be the first animals eating human flesh and the more domesticated dogs will follow," Reinecker said.

Sapa