Published on ShanghaiDaily.com (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/)
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200806/20080630/article_365092.htm
At long last it's official - the lie of the tiger
Created: 2008-6-30 1:47:48
Author:Li Xinran
THE worst-kept secret in the nation was confirmed yesterday - the photos of the "in-the-wild" South China Tiger released amid much fanfare last year are fake.
The farmer-photographer who claimed he risked his life to get the snaps of the animal that is believed to be extinct is under arrest and in disgrace and 13 provincial officials have been dismissed from their posts over the scam.
The Shaanxi Province government in northwestern China confirmed that the pictures were bogus at a press conference yesterday.
Zhou Zhenglong, the photographer, is being held on charges of swindling the government out of 20,000 yuan (US$2,915), the prize he received for his "discovery" of the tiger. The Shaanxi provincial forestry department has ordered him to return the cash reward.
Police and experts discovered that the tiger in Zhou's photos was superimposed on a forest scene and so-called claw marks were from a wooden model.
A police officer at the press conference displayed the picture and the wooden claw they seized from Zhou's home.
Sun Chengqian and Zhu Julong, two deputy directors of the provincial forestry department, have been sacked over the affair, the China News Service reported.
No civil servants or other villagers were directly involved in the photo-taking, said Bai Shaokang, spokesman and vice director of Shaanxi's public security department.
Police and experts researched all the tiger photos and the scene using high-tech measures. These revealed that the space in the picture was too small for a real tiger to crouch. In fact, the animal in the photos was no taller than 30 centimeters when the scale of the forest was determined.
Zhou reportedly confessed that he borrowed the tiger picture from a local villager and a digital camera from his relative, Xie Kunyuan, a business official in Shaanxi's Zhenping Town.
Zhou said he put the tiger picture in bushes on the outskirts of Zhenping last October 3 and spent about 30 minutes taking photos with the digital camera. He returned the camera to Xie and asked him to print the photos out the next day.
Zhou attended a press conference on October 12 amid much fanfare and received his 20,000-yuan prize.
Zhou also made a wooden tiger claw with the help of a neighbor. He left claw marks in the snow near the scene of the photo shoot at the beginning of April this year to strengthen his case.
Zhou said the local government's reward for proof of the existence of the tiger was his motive.
Thirteen local officials including Sun, Zhu and Xie were removed from their posts, according to Bai. Guan Ke, the head of the information office of the provincial forestry department, was among them.
Guan once defended Zhou on his Web blog, while Zhu expressed support for the authenticity of Zhou's photographs.
The Shaanxi provincial forestry bureau released the tiger photos last October, saying they were proof that the tiger was not extinct.
Netizens nationwide were outraged, saying the photographs were clearly fake and a calculated ruse to boost local tourism.
A tiger poster that bore an uncanny resemblance to Zhou's images was widely circulated.
The forestry department apologized in February, but did not come out and say the pictures were fake.
The South China Tiger, also called the "Amoy" or "Xiamen Tiger,"is widely believed to be extinctin the wild.
It is considered critically endangered because of a loss of habitat. There were believed to be only 30 to 80 in existence in 1996, according to the World Conservation Union's Red List of threatened species.
The farmer-photographer who claimed he risked his life to get the snaps of the animal that is believed to be extinct is under arrest and in disgrace and 13 provincial officials have been dismissed from their posts over the scam.
The Shaanxi Province government in northwestern China confirmed that the pictures were bogus at a press conference yesterday.
Zhou Zhenglong, the photographer, is being held on charges of swindling the government out of 20,000 yuan (US$2,915), the prize he received for his "discovery" of the tiger. The Shaanxi provincial forestry department has ordered him to return the cash reward.
Police and experts discovered that the tiger in Zhou's photos was superimposed on a forest scene and so-called claw marks were from a wooden model.
A police officer at the press conference displayed the picture and the wooden claw they seized from Zhou's home.
Sun Chengqian and Zhu Julong, two deputy directors of the provincial forestry department, have been sacked over the affair, the China News Service reported.
No civil servants or other villagers were directly involved in the photo-taking, said Bai Shaokang, spokesman and vice director of Shaanxi's public security department.
Police and experts researched all the tiger photos and the scene using high-tech measures. These revealed that the space in the picture was too small for a real tiger to crouch. In fact, the animal in the photos was no taller than 30 centimeters when the scale of the forest was determined.
Zhou reportedly confessed that he borrowed the tiger picture from a local villager and a digital camera from his relative, Xie Kunyuan, a business official in Shaanxi's Zhenping Town.
Zhou said he put the tiger picture in bushes on the outskirts of Zhenping last October 3 and spent about 30 minutes taking photos with the digital camera. He returned the camera to Xie and asked him to print the photos out the next day.
Zhou attended a press conference on October 12 amid much fanfare and received his 20,000-yuan prize.
Zhou also made a wooden tiger claw with the help of a neighbor. He left claw marks in the snow near the scene of the photo shoot at the beginning of April this year to strengthen his case.
Zhou said the local government's reward for proof of the existence of the tiger was his motive.
Thirteen local officials including Sun, Zhu and Xie were removed from their posts, according to Bai. Guan Ke, the head of the information office of the provincial forestry department, was among them.
Guan once defended Zhou on his Web blog, while Zhu expressed support for the authenticity of Zhou's photographs.
The Shaanxi provincial forestry bureau released the tiger photos last October, saying they were proof that the tiger was not extinct.
Netizens nationwide were outraged, saying the photographs were clearly fake and a calculated ruse to boost local tourism.
A tiger poster that bore an uncanny resemblance to Zhou's images was widely circulated.
The forestry department apologized in February, but did not come out and say the pictures were fake.
The South China Tiger, also called the "Amoy" or "Xiamen Tiger,"is widely believed to be extinctin the wild.
It is considered critically endangered because of a loss of habitat. There were believed to be only 30 to 80 in existence in 1996, according to the World Conservation Union's Red List of threatened species.
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