Wealthy China-Man Imprisoned for Eating Tigers

A wealthy China-man was recently sentenced to 13 years in prison for purchasing and then consuming at least three tigers last year, a sign that efforts to curb the illegal tiger trade are failing to protect these endangered animals.

According to the state-run news outlet Xinhua, from March to May 2013, the businessman - only identified by his surname Xu - along with 14 paid accomplices were convicted of smuggling and killing three endangered tigers. As evidenced by cell phone video obtained by police, one of these majestic creatures was even maliciously electrocuted and then butchered to become a meal.

Another two tigers shared the same cruel fate, with Xu buying the flesh, bones, internal organs and blood at the scene for a reported $70,957 dollars each.

They were officially charged with "illegally transporting precious and endangered animals," supposedly importing them from outside the country, according to a New York Times report in June.

Trading in endangered animal parts, including tigers, has become a wildly popular practice that goes beyond the realm of the traditional medicinal market. Now wealthy individuals are eager to buy so-called luxury items such as pelts, horns and ivory. Fearing for the lives of these big cats, the Chinese government banned the illegal tiger trade in 1993, though high demand for their precious hides keeps the trade going on the black market.

"Things such as tiger bone wine represent a new asset class for wealthy investors - particularly for those who have become disillusioned with real-estate and stock markets," Judy Mills, author of Blood of the Tiger, explained to Nature World News last month. "These investors are banking on extinction. If tigers disappear from the wild, those parts and products... that investment will become priceless."

Due to decades of poaching as well as habitat loss, there are a mere 3,000 wild tigers left in the entire world today, compared to 100,000 in the early part of last century.

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