A Chinese food blogger has been fined $18,500 for cooking and eating a great white shark in a video posted to social media. The blogger — who was identified by police as Jin but posts as Tizi online — insists that what she did wasn’t illegal and that she bought the shark on Taobao for roughly $1,150. However, authorities weren’t impressed with her story.
In a statement, Nanchong City Market Supervision Bureau said that Jin bought the shark in April 2022. She cooked the shark in broth and ate the animal, posting a video on both Douyin, known as Chinese TikTok, and Kuaishou. “It may look vicious, but its meat is truly very tender,” she says in the clip, which went viral pretty much immediately. At one point in the video, she even laid down next to the dead animal to compare her height to the shark’s.
The blogger fined for eating the shark insists she’s innocent
The fact that the blogger filmed herself eating a great white shark isn’t necessarily surprising. She built her nearly 8 million strong following by posting mukbang and extreme eating videos. Throughout her feed, she eats ostriches, crocodiles, and other animals.
And while authorities have fined her heavily for her antics, Jin still insists she’s innocent. She told the South China Morning Post that the shark was “bred in captivity” and was “edible,” and that “people are talking nonsense” by accusing her of illegal activity. However, state-run news site The Paper thinks there’s something more sinister at work, especially since it takes a lot of planning to ship a great white shark more than 1,100 miles. The person who sold Jin the shark has reportedly been arrested.
Great white sharks are considered a protected species in China. The Wild Animal Protection Law bars people from buying, selling, and transporting the animals. If caught, they could receive heavy fines like Jin/Tizi or up to 10 years behind bars.
