A man was jailed for 12 years Monday for shooting to death an Indo-Chinese tiger in southwest China's Yunnan Province, a local court said.

The Mengla county court in Xishuangbanna also ordered Kang Wannian to pay a fine of 100,000 yuan (14,642 U.S. dollars) and also 480,000 yuan for state economic losses.

The villager was convicted of shooting to death the protected rare animal and illegal gun possession.

He shot to death what he claimed an "unspecified animal" after dark while in a hunt with Gao Zuqiao for a kind of frog in the Xishuangbanna national nature reserve in February. The two fled the scene after learning the animal was a tiger.

However, Gao and six other villagers found and dismembered the tiger's body the next day for eating, the court said.

Gao was jailed for four years and ordered to pay a fine of 20,000 yuan.

Three of the six other villagers were each given a jail term of three years but with a four-year reprieve and fined 10,000 yuan.

Kang surrendered to police in June and police seized two guns at his home, the court said.