Government officials fined N96,000 for breeding tigers without permission

Chinese authorities have burst a tiger-breeding ring consisting of politicians, slamming them with a fine of 3,000 yuan (about N96,00) for misconduct.

Business Insider reports that 3 local politicians in China raised at least 11 endangered Siberian tigers.

Authorities were alerted after a 7-month 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 say the cub was being raised by Yang Wenzheng, a member of a municipal People’s Congress, the Communist-controlled local legislature.

Yang, along with one of his fellow deputies obtained 2 tigers from a third councillor, who had eight of the animals but found the 1,600 yuan (about N51,000) per day cost of raising them too expensive to bear.

Tiger meat and bones are reported to have curative properties in traditional Chinese medicine and farming them can be lucrative, fetching as much as 1 million yuan (about N32 million) on the black market.

The 3 erring officials have resigned from the municipal People's Congress and were each fined 3,000 yuan(about N96,00) for the "bad impact" of raising tigers without official permission.

They were however not prosecuted while the surviving animals have been moved to a local zoo.