Yahoo - AFP, 19 March 2015
Three local
politicians in China raised at least 11 endangered Siberian tigers, state media
reported Thursday after one of the animals jumped to its death from a high-rise
building.
The cub
leapt from the 11th floor of an apartment building in the eastern city of
Pingdu last month when it was spooked by fireworks set off to celebrate the
Chinese New Year, officials said.
Investigations
revealed that the seven-month-old cub was being raised by Yang Wenzheng, a
member of a municipal People’s Congress, the Communist-controlled local
legislature, state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing officials.
With one of
his fellow deputies, Yang had obtained two tigers from a third councillor, who
had eight of the animals but found the costs of raising them -- 1,600 yuan
($260) per day in total -- too expensive to bear.
They bred
at least three cubs that later died, CCTV said.
Tiger meat
and bones are said to have curative properties in traditional Chinese medicine
and farming them can be lucrative -- the China Daily said tigers can fetch 1
million yuan on the black market.
East Russia
and China's northeast are home to the big cats, also known as Amur tigers.
Hundreds of
them once roamed the lush pine and oak forests of Manchuria, but due to
centuries of poaching only a couple of dozen are believed to still survive in
the wild in China.
All three
have resigned from the municipal People's Congress and were each fined 3,000
yuan for the "bad impact" of raising tigers without official
permission, but were not prosecuted, the reports said.
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