Chinese zoo 'starved rare tigers to death'

Eleven rare Siberian tigers have died of malnutrition at a cash-strapped zoo in China's frigid northeast, after they were fed only chicken bones.

The China Daily newspaper reported that the animals were kept in small metal cages at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in Liaoning province, where they eventually starved.

But a manager at the zoo said the animals had died of disease.

Siberian tigers are one of the world's rarest species, with just 300 remaining in the wild.

Liu Xiaoqiang, vice chief of the Shenyang Wild Animal Protection Station, a local animal protection agency, said 11 of the zoo's tigers died of malnutrition in the last three months.

Two others were shot dead by police in November after the hungry animals attacked a zoo keeper, the report said.

Cash-strapped animal park

The Liaoshen Evening Post, a local Shenyang newspaper, reported on its website that the company that owns the zoo was trying unsuccessfully to auction the zoo property and many staffers complained they hadn't been paid in 18 months.

But Wu Xi, one of the managers of the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo, said "various kinds of diseases" had been responsible for the animals' deaths.

Wu said the tigers were kept in iron crates indoors because it was an unusually cold winter and the zoo had no heating.

He refused to specify what diseases the animals had or respond to allegations they starved to death.

The China Daily said the zoo was mainly privately owned, though the Shenyang municipal government holds a 15 per cent stake.

Xie Yan, China director for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, said many Chinese zoos and wildlife parks have more tigers than they can afford to keep.

Tiger breeding program

The animals are expensive to take care of because they require a lot of food and space to roam, and ticket sales generally aren't enough to support them.

Xie said Chinese zoos began breeding tigers in the 1980s and captive populations increased rapidly in the 1990s. There are now about 6,000 captive tigers of various species in China.

"In the past two or three years, people have started to realise it's become a problem," she said, referring to zoos that have more animals than they can afford to keep.

Xie said the government should do more to regulate zoos and enforce standards for animal care. She also said birth control is needed to keep the captive tiger population at manageable levels.

Chris Chaplin, a spokesman for WWF International's Beijing office, said the news was "a massive blow" to conservation efforts.

WWF colleagues in Changchun, the capital of Jillin province, which is next to Liaoning, had just began investigating the allegations, he said.