Here’s a lesson for drone-owners. Never fly your drone camera too close to tigers. Sure, you’ll get some great footage, but sooner rather than later the tigers will destroy it.
Siberian tigers in a park in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province did just that when a drone with a camera buzzed within reach. One of them tried to chew on it, but as the device began emitting smoke, even the formidable cats sprang back in alarm.
The video published by China Central Television, a state-run channel, said the drone was meant to provide “exercise” for the visibly chubby tigers.
Not everyone was entertained, however.
Science journalist John R. Platt tracked down the location to the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park, where tigers are bred to interact with tourists and, it is alleged, later slaughtered to make traditional medicines.
China has been infamously known for contraband of tiger bones to make “bone wine”, with the belief that using tiger parts in medicines can treat ailments.
In South Africa, too, lions are bred for tourism, canned hunting, and even supplying bones.
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