Beijing, March 11 (IANS) Eleven Siberian tigers have died of malnutrition at a zoo in China in the past three months, a wild life official said.

The tigers of the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in northeast China’s Lianoning province died due to malnutrition rather than infectious diseases, said Liu Xiaoqiang, vice chief of the Shenyang Wild Animal Protection Station.

The tigers were fed only cheap chicken bones as the zoo was not doing very well financially, Xinhua quoted Liu as saying.

In November last year, two hungry tigers of the sanctuary mauled a zoo worker who suffered serious injuries. After the incident, the local administration asked the zoo authorities to keep the animals in cages, which further deteriorated their health, Liu said.

Since November, 2009, Shenyang Qipanshan Administration Committee has been providing the zoo with appropriate food worth 18,000 yuan ($2.636) a day. But many tigers already had intestinal infections or kidney failure caused by the lack of food and died later, Liu added.