Sometime this week, Chinese police apprehended ten suspects after allegedly killing a panda in the wild, and selling its meat and body parts in Zhaotong, Yunnan, the country's southwestern province. The story began to develop in a raid last March, when the police discovered a wild panda's pelt and about 9.75 kg of meat. Another raid in March allowed the police to seize more panda pelt, meat, skull and bones.

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The killing and poaching of pandas is extremely rare in the Chinese homeland, where the creatures are not only protected, but revered as national treasures. In 1987, the Chinese government enacted a law that solidified the protection of these endangered species, and the punishment of violators within the nation's territory. Moreover, the act carries with it a minimum of 10 years of imprisonment, as well as the confiscation of property. In extreme cases, killing pandas could even result in the death sentence.

According to the Yunnan forestry administration (as told by an article in the UK Telegraph), two brothers were responsible for the panda killing in March. Purportedly, they were hunting an animal that had killed their sheep, when they came across what they described as a "huge animal", and proceeded to shoot it.

Only then did they realize what they were shooting down was a panda. Unfortunately, the brothers kept shooting at it, butchering the animal, and eventually sold approximately 35 kg of its meat, as well as four of its paws, for a total of 4,800 yuan ($773.58) in the black market.

A third man was later arrested by Chinese officials for buying some of the meat, and seven others were apprehended after being implicated in the trafficking of the meat.

Albeit being one of China's most protected wildlife, pandas have been in the endangered species list since the later half of the 20^th century. In the latest survey by the World Wildlife Fund, found that there are about 1,864 pandas in the wild today.

TagsPanda, world willdlife fund