BEIJING

A man in China has been jailed for 13 years for buying and eating tiger meat, state media reported late Tuesday.

The man, whose surname was given as Xu, ordered the dismembered body of a tiger delivered to his hotel in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi autonomous region in southern China, before he and friends ate the animal, Xinhua news agency said.

Qinzhou City Intermediate People's Court heard that Xu, thought to be a wealthy businessman, witnessed one of the three tigers he bought and ate over a few months last year being killed by electrocution shock in Leizhou, Guangdong province, in March 2013.

The other two tigers were killed in the same way in April and May last year, with Xu buying the flesh, bones, internal organs and blood.

He was arrested after police found a video recording of Xu witnessing the first tiger's death. At his home, police found animal skeletons and meat, later confirmed to belong to a giant gecko and cobra, both protected animals in China.

Xu told the police he had bought the tigers for 440,000 yuan ($71,000) each.

The origins of the tigers are unknown but are thought to have been smuggled into the country.

Some Chinese believe tiger meat has health-giving properties or can be used as an aphrodisiac. This has led to a buoyant illegal trade in tiger parts.

While the country is home to tigers, mainly in the northeast near the Russian border, their numbers have been drastically reduced by poaching and habitat loss.

Xu was originally jailed in April for illegally transporting precious and endangered animals, when he was also fined 1.55 million yuan. He appealed but the sentence was upheld.

Fourteen others who participated in transporting the tigers received jail terms of between five and six-and-a-half years.

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