China sacks officials behind faked tiger photos: report

Yahoo News 29 Jun 08;

Chinese officials involved in a set of fake photos supposedly showing an endangered South China tiger have been sacked, state press said on Sunday.

The photographer behind the fabricated pictures, Zhou Zhenglong, a 53-year old farmer, has also been detained on suspicion of fraud, Xinhua news agency said, citing police in the northern Shaanxi province.

The Shaanxi provincial government on Sunday confirmed earlier reports that the photos of the tiger, which has not been seen in the wild for decades, were fake.

Up to 13 local officials linked to the case, including the deputy head of the Shaanxi forestry bureau and several of his subordinates had been sacked, Xinhua said.

According to local press reports, the forestry officials were seeking to set up a South China tiger natural reserve and the photos were being used as a springboard for their conservation campaign.

But doubts about the photos surfaced immediately after they appeared in the state press in October last year.

In Sunday's press conference, officials confirmed that some of the tigers that appeared in the photos were old pictures that had been "borrowed," Xinhua said.

The last wild South China tiger sighting was recorded in 1964, earlier reports said.

Experts have said no more than 20 to 30 of the tigers were believed to remain in the wild, but none have been spotted in decades.

The South China tiger, whose traditional range is southern and central China, is one of six remaining tiger subspecies.

Three other subspecies, the Bali, Java, and Caspian tigers, have all become extinct since the 1940s, according to the US-based Save The Tiger Fund.