Man To Serve 12 Years For Eating China’s Last Wild Indochinese Tiger

A man was sentenced to 12 years in prison after a Chinese court found that he had killed and eaten an extremely rare tiger.

Reuters reports that villager Kang Wannian, claimed that he encountered what was possible China’s last wild Indochinese tiger by while he was collecting freshwater clams in a nature reserve near the Laos border and that he killed it with his illegal firearm in self-defense. Four villagers who are said to have assisted Kang in butchering the dead tiger are also said to have partaken in its meat.

Kang was sentenced to 10 years for killing a rare animal and two years for illegal possession of firearms. Prosecutors questioned why Kang needed a gun for gathering clams. In addition to his custodial sentence, Kang was issued a fine of 480,000 yuan (USD $70,000)

The four other villagers who took part in the tiger feast were each sentenced to between two and four years for “covering up and concealing criminal gains.”

It is unknown whether Kang killed China’s last known wild Indochinese tiger, which was photographed in the same reserve in 2007 and has not been seen since Kang’s crime.

The Indochinese tiger population numbers fewer than 1,000 and is scattered between Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.

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[Image: Save The Tiger Fund]