Chinese TikTok Food Blogger Fined $18,500 For Cooking And Eating 2-Meter Long Endangered Great White Shark

A Chinese TikToker has been fined 125,000 yuan (around $18,500) for cooking and eating a great white shark in a video posted online.

What Happened: The food blogger, who goes by the name Tizi, was fined for eating the great white shark, which is a protected species in China under the Wild Animal Protection Law. 

The law prohibits anyone from transporting, buying and selling them, and violators can receive hefty fines or up to 10 years in prison.

Tizi had bought the shark on an Alibaba-owned shopping site Taobao for 7,700 yuan ($1,141). The authorities chased Tizi after she posted the video on social media platform Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok. 

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The videos showing Tizi cooking the two-meter-long great white shark — much bigger than her in terms of size and length — in a spicy broth and eating its meat garnered massive attention on the internet. "It may look vicious, but its meat is truly very tender," Tizi said in the video before taking a bite of the shark's carcass.

Tizi, who officials have identified as Jin, is known for posting extreme food videos, showing her eating animals like crocodiles and ostriches. She has over 7.8 million followers on Douyin. 

According to the World Wildlife Foundation, or WWF, great white sharks are considered to be at high risk of extinction as a large number of people hunt them for their fins and teeth. This has significantly decreased their population.

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