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Police are looking into a Chinese influencer after a video of her roasting and devouring a great white shark went viral. The vlogger, who goes by the online alias Tizi, was captured on camera gorging on the great white, which police in Nanchong, in central China, identified as such on Sunday. In a mid-July video, Tizi said, “It may look vicious, but its meat is truly very tender,” while tearing off sizable pieces of the barbecued meat. She can be seen in the video, which has since been taken down, unwrapping a two-meter-long fish and lying down next to it to demonstrate how much taller it is than her.
The shark’s head is cooked in a hot broth after being split in half, marinated, and barbecued.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed great white sharks as a vulnerable species, which is the last category before being labelled as endangered.
Shark populations, which are among the most significant apex predators in the ocean, have suffered over the past few decades, primarily as a result of industrial longline fishing and shark finning.
They are classified as protected in China. A five- to ten-year prison sentence is possible for illegal possession.
One commenter in response to the story said, “It is flabbergasting that an internet celebrity can consume a protected species in front of millions in broad daylight!”
Another person said, “These uncultured attention-seekers will go to any length to get attention!”
If Tizi, who has approximately 8 million followers, will be penalised is unknown.
She claimed to have obtained the shark through “legitimate routes” in a statement to the local media, but the local agriculture bureau said on Monday that her assertion was “inconsistent with the facts” and that police were looking into it.
In China, dried baby shark flesh is sold in a variety of online retailers for usage as cat food.
Chinese official media has long been at battle with popular binge-eating films, also known as “mukbang” in Korean, while livestreaming sites have long threatened to delete accounts that encourage overeating and food waste.
