
© Associated PressIn this Jan. 8, 2010 file photo, an endangered Siberian tiger runs away with a chicken tossed by tourists at the Harbin Tiger Park in Harbin.
Beijing - Eleven rare Siberian tigers kept in small cages and fed only chicken bones have died of malnutrition at a cash-strapped zoo in China's frigid northeast, state media said Friday.
A manager at the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in Liaoning province, however, said the animals had died of disease.
Siberian tigers are one of the world's rarest species, with just 300 believed remaining in the wild.
Liu Xiaoqiang, vice chief of the Shenyang Wild Animal Protection Station, a local animal protection agency, was quoted by the China Daily as saying 11 of the zoo's tigers died of malnutrition in the last three months after subsisting on a meager diet of chicken bones.
Two others were shot dead by police in November after the hungry animals attacked a zookeeper, the report said.
The Liaoshen Evening Post, a local Shenyang newspaper, reported on its Web site 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.