Tiger bones have long been an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, supposedly for a capacity to strengthen the human body, and while they have been removed from its official ingredient list the belief persists among some.
More than 10 tigers have been killed as "visual feasts" to entertain officials and rich businessmen in a Chinese city, state media reported.
Police in Zhanjiang in the southern province of Guangdong seized a freshly slaughtered tiger and multiple tiger products in a raid this month, said the Nanfang Daily, the mouthpiece of the provincial Communist Party.
But buyers would check them to make sure that they were alive before the killing," it quoted an unnamed source as saying.
Local officials and successful businesspeople gathered to watch the tigers being killed as "eye-openers" to show off their social stature, it said.
Disclaimer: this summary is not guaranteed to be accurate, correct or even news.