Starving tigers eat each other at cash-strapped Chinese zoo

Nov 19, 2007, 12:38 GMT

Beijing - Four starving Siberian tigers killed and ate a fifth member of their group at a cash-strapped wildlife park in north-eastern China's Shenyang city, state media said on Monday.

The four tigers attacked their companion, which had lived with them for five years, at the privately run Shenyang Glacier Zoo over the weekend, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The tigers tore a hind leg and ear off their 12-year-old companion, the agency quoted staff and visitors as saying.

'When the keeper arrived, the four tigers were still eating the dead body on the ground,' said Li Wenshui, the deputy director of the zoo. 'I was shocked, particularly as the five tigers, who were the same age, had been living together for five years.'

He said the zoo was in 'financial crisis' and had been unable to feed the tigers properly for the last two years.

Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) programme director Fan Zhiyong blamed the zoo's management for the incident, the agency said. 'This kind of tragedy of tiger eats tiger is unheard of. It rarely happens in the wild,' Fan said.

The zoo, which opened in 2000, houses 300 endangered animals, including white tigers, leopards and Asian elephants, and some 1,700 other animals, the agency said.

The zoo is unable to provide the 500 kilogrammes of meat and 120 kilograms of fish needed daily to feed the animals, it quoted other officials as saying.

A hungry elephant smashed its way out of the compound last year, the agency said.

The WWF estimates that only about 500 Siberian tigers remain in the wild.