Three Chinese lawmakers were today fined for keeping eight endangered Siberian tigers as pets after one of them jumped to its death from 11th floor of an apartment building.
The incident happened in China's Qingdao city in eastern Shandong Province after a seven-month-old tiger cub jumped to its death after it broke loose from its cage during the Lunar New Year holiday last month, the South China Morning Post quoted local media reports as saying.
The three lawmakers, who are members of the People's Congress in the city, were each fined 3,000 yuan (USD 500).
Businessman Yang Wenzheng had kept the cub, along with another young tiger, on the roof of a building he owned.
He was helping a friend, Cui Jinguang, who was the manager of a mountain park and could not afford to pay for all the tigers under his care.
He gave two to Yang and kept an adult and baby tiger himself. The men were fined as they did not have licences to keep the animals.
Two members of the local forestry bureau have been sacked for dereliction of duty, the report said.
The seven surviving tigers have been seized by the authorities.
Siberian tigers are an endangered species and about 450 of the animals, also known as Amur tigers, are thought to live in the wild, according to the international conservation group WWF.
