A Chinese food blogger was penalized $18,500 after posting a video of herself purchasing and eating a great white shark in violation of the law.
The blogger, known by officials only as Jin and known as Tizi in her videos, broke Chinese wildlife protection laws when she purchased and ate the shark in April 2022, according to officials in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan.
The aforementioned blogger is well-known for creating mukbang videos, in which influencers record themselves competing in extreme eating challenges, according to an earlier story from Insider.
She has 7.8 million followers, on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and had previously streamed herself feasting on crocodiles and ostriches.
Jin bought the shark on Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace for 7,700 yuan ($1,141). Then, she uploaded videos to Douyin and Kuaishou. Another video-sharing platform.
In the videos, she can be seen picking up a 6.6-foot shark from a store, slicing it, cooking it, and then eating it.
The videos received criticism after they became viral in China. Great white sharks are regarded as a vulnerable species by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), with a “high risk” of extinction in the wild.
They are also protected by the law of China. In China, penalties for unauthorized ownership and trafficking in wildlife goods include fines and prison time.
The Sichuan Province authorities began looking into the food blogger in August of last year. Jin stated she was looking for legal counsel at the time and insisted that she had legally purchased the great white shark.
According to the South China Morning Post, she said, “These people are talking nonsense.”
According to Bloomberg, two people who were involved in catching and selling the animal have also been detained.
China enacted an instant ban on the purchasing, selling, and consumption of wild animals in February 2020. The prohibition was implemented at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to stop the spread of zoonotic diseases. As a result, those influencers streaming mukbang videos with endangered animals were subject to a crackdown and tougher penalties.