A businessman in China has been caught illegally buying, killing and eating three tigers that were smuggled into, China probably from India/Bangladesh. That would make them Bengal tigers, which were almost certainly poached from a reserve. He was jailed for 13 years and fined £160,000 – 1.5m yuan or $250,000 USD.
The man is Mr Xu. He is a property developer with a taste for the exotic and the beliefs of someone living in the dark ages of the 14th century. He believes that eating tiger penis increases virility. He bought three tigers for 440,00 yuan each ($71,000 USD). Yes, a whole Bengal tiger is worth around $70k USD. It is the first time I have seen a price for a whole, live tiger. This makes the entire, world population of wild tigers worth about $210 million.
Tiger penises cost around $7,000, incidentally.
He bought them in Leizhou, Guagdong. Guangdong Province is where the residents have a taste for domestic cat as well. It appears to be the world capital of cat meat from wild to domestic:
He bought them in the spring of 2014. All three tigers were electrocuted to death with a specially adapted cattle prod. Mr Xu has a special hobby: grilling tiger bones, boning tiger paws, drinking tiger blood alcohol, eating tiger meat and storing tiger penises.
On one occasion he demanded that one of his dismembered, electrocuted tigers be brought to a hotel he was staying at. With 14 friends he ate the tiger. Why haven’t the hotel management being prosecuted as accessories? The 14 associates have been successfully prosecuted.
He was videoed watching one of his tigers being slaughtered. All this illegal in China although you would not believe it because the law making it illegal to kill endangered species is hardly enforced making China the biggest threat by far for the tiger’s survival.
The police found eight pieces of tiger meat and a tiger penis at his home. His macabre habits are not confined to the highly endangered tiger. The police also found the skeletons and flesh of 16 giant geckos and a cobra. Both are endangered.
He probably washed the meal down with tiger bone wine which is made from the bones of captive tigers in China. The Chinese say the captive tigers are for conservation purposes but this is a scam. They are bred for the body parts and to produce the wine.
Mr Xu single-handedly did a great job in furthering the extinction of the tiger in the wild. I am sure there are many like him.
Ching Chang Chung
8 inch of tongue?
Well sad that they do all sort of bluffs and eat innocent and also those creatures which have nothing to do within the category of human food 🙁
Exactly. Our governments turns a blind eye to their disgusting ways in order to keep the peace.
They paid no price for exporting tainted products here.
They killed babies with tainted formula and countless pets with melamine loaded food. Yet, we won’t ban their imports because of debt.
The real blame lies with the FDA who is in charge of inspecting imported products. They failed us and are equally to blame for babes and pets dying in our arms.
Commercial reasons? The Panda is good money. Exporting and tourism. Also it is good PR. They could have done the same with the South China tiger but it was too late. They made them extinct before they could exploit the Chinese tiger commercially. It is all abut money and the Chinese are obsessed with the stuff as is most of the rest of the world. Money destroys wildlife.
I agree, it does show the authorities will prosecute sometimes. It is just they don’t do it anywhere near enough nor do they enforce CITES in their country or stop ivory sales etc.. The Chinese exterminated the South China tiger in China (there may one or two left but not for long). It may be a sort of show trial for publicity reasons. To tell the world how good they are at conservation and how they have changed. Obviously we are not fooled if that is their intention.
Can anyone explain to me why the Chinese authorities invest huge amounts of time and money maintaining the Giant Panda as a species, yet can’t offer the same protection to other indigenouse wildlife?
Those poor tigers. I’m pleased to hear that Mr Xu was given a 13 year prison sentence and wasn’t able to buy his way out of trouble. With any luck Chinese prisons are even more horrendous than I imagine them to be.
Considering that he was wealthy enough to spend around $213,000 USD buying the tigers as a “delicacy”, I don’t think the $250,000 USD fine is going to hurt his pocket very much. I’d be curious to know how the authorities reached that figure or whether that was the maximum fine they could impose.
It’s heartbreaking to think about how those tigers must have suffered, but on a positive note at least the authorities prosecuted the culprit. Changes in cultural attitudes are slow, but perhaps making an example of Mr Xu is the first step in the right direction.