Animal rescuers have been devastated to find out that a giant Siberian tiger that they had released back into the wild last year has been shot and butchered by heartless monsters so it could be used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Pavlik, a male Amur tiger, which is one of the largest and most endangered tiger in the world, was rescued as a cub and reared to survive in the wild.

Pavlik was shot dead by poachers in Eastern Russia, which is located to the border of China.

It is reported that the head and the paws of the tiger were cut off.

Experts expect that the paws and the head of the tiger are likely to be part of Chinese medicine or ask an aphrodisiac.

The lion was one of the 300 male tigers that are left in their natural habitat in Eastern Russia.

The death of the tiger came to light when experts discovered that the GPS signal from his collar had been cut out.

Vasily Orlov, the Governor of Amur region, released a statement about the incident, where he said:

Monsters killed Amur tiger Pavlik who was released into the wild one year ago. What an awful case.  I will seek the most severe punishment for those responsible. They won’t get away with it.

The police are now hunting the poachers, who could be jailed for 4 years.

Pavlik and Elena, the sister of Pavlik, were released into the wild last year in May.

The 2 Amur tigers were rescued in February 2018.

The cubs and their mother were traced after they started to hunt pet dogs and other animals in Aleksey-Nikolskoye, a small village.

Before being killed, Pavlik swam into China and swam across the Amur River and the Bureya Reservoir, said researchers that were tracking the animal.