Chinese lawmakers fined for keeping endangered tigers as pets

Chinese lawmakers fined for keeping endangered tigers as pets
(Image credit: Tim Boyle/Getty Images)

Three members of the People's Congress in Qingdao, China, have been fined for keeping eight Siberian tigers as pets.

The lawmakers' endangered pets gained national attention when a seven-month-old tiger cub jumped to its death from an 11-story building. The cub had gotten loose from its cage and jumped in fear during a fireworks display for a Lunar New Year celebration.

The men were each fined 3,000 yuan (about $481.75), The South China Morning Post reports. Yang Wenzheng, the cub's owner, apparently kept the cub and another tiger on the roof of a building that he owned.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

According to the Post, Wenzheng and another friend were keeping the tigers for a third friend, Cui Jinguang, who managed a mountain park and couldn't afford to care for all of them. The three men were fined for keeping the animals without a license, and the seven living tigers were seized by the authorities. By WWF estimates, there are only 450 Siberian tigers remaining in the wild.

Explore More

Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.