The China Daily said officials in the northeastern city of Shenyang also have launched a probe into the deaths, which spotlighted poor conditions in the country's often underfunded zoos in the lunar Year of the Tiger.
China zoo where tigers died to get emergency funds
The deaths have occurred at the Shenyang Forest Wildlife Zoo since November and have been blamed on a combination of inadequate funding, an unusually cold winter and poor general conditions at the facility, the report said.
Zoo workers fed the tigers cheap chicken bones in recent months as funding dried up. The tigers became so desperate for food that two of them severely mauled a zoo staffer in November.
The man survived, but the tigers were shot during the rescue.
Besides the tigers, 22 other animals have died including rare species that are protected in China including a red-crowned crane, four stump-tailed macaques, and one brown bear, the Xinhua news agency said.
The Shenyang municipal government has a 15 percent share in the zoo, which is mainly privately owned.
China says it has nearly 6,000 tigers in captivity, but just 50 to 60 are left in the wild, including about 20 wild Siberian tigers.
In the 1980s, China set up tiger farms to try to preserve the big cats, intending to release some into the wild. But conservation groups say the farms are used to harvest the tigers for ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine.
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