BEIJING – A food blogger in China was fined 125,000 yuan (S$24,000) by the authorities after she posted a video showing her illegally buying and eating a great white shark, a clip that prompted a backlash online.

The woman broke China’s wildlife protection laws when she purchased the animal in April 2022 and later consumed it, said officials in Nanchong, in the south-western province of Sichuan, in a statement at the weekend. Officials identified the woman only as Jin, and she goes by Tizi in her videos.

Jin had paid 7,700 yuan on Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao shopping site for the animal, which the International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified as a vulnerable species whose population has declined sharply. 

In July 2022, the woman posted videos on social media sites Douyin and Kuaishou that show her picking up the roughly 2m-long shark from a shop, posing with it, and then cooking and eating the animal. The clip went viral in China, with many people complaining about cruelty to animals.

The authorities in Nanchong began investigating the influencer last August.

DNA tests from tissue remnants confirmed it was a white shark, which is protected under Chinese law. Two other individuals involved in catching and selling the animal were also arrested.

China imposed a total ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals in February 2020 to curb activities that scientists say may have caused the deadly coronavirus to jump from animals to humans.

The country officially clamped down on shark fin soup a decade ago, but consuming certain exotic, wild animals or their parts remains popular due to often unproven claims that they provide health benefits. The nation revised its wildlife protection laws recently to boost penalties for poaching, and banned practices such as hunting and consuming most wildlife from May.

Still, some wildlife campaigners say the effort does not go far enough to outlaw activities like captive breeding. BLOOMBERG