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Two farmers jailed for eating tiger
Two farmers in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province have been given jail terms of nine and five years on charges of eating a tiger, the local court said on Thursday. Zhang Licheng and Gong Weisheng, both farmers in Dongning County, were imprisoned for the crime of illegally hunting and killing endangered wild animal species, according to the People's Court of Dongning County. The Siberian tiger, mistakenly trapped but intentionally eaten by the farmers, was a critically endangered animal which is under the first-class state protection in the country. The farmers, living in a village very close to forests, used to trap wild animals like roe deer and hares when they were in slack seasons of farming. They found the dying tiger unfortunately caught in their trap in February 2003. Knowing that tiger trade was illegal, Zhang and Gong however thought eating a dead tiger's meat was not a breach of the law. They decided to cover it up and therefore did not report to the relevant authorities, the court said. Six days later they secretly carried home the tiger that had died of starvation as they had expected. The two farmers burnt the tiger's skin, ate its meat and hid away the bones, according to the court. The crime was uncovered and reported to police about a year later and the transgressors were arrested on Jan. 16, 2004. |
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