Shots of tiger in the wild not real

XI'AN: Thirteen government officials have been punished and a man arrested for presenting false evidence to prove the highly endangered South China tiger existed in the wild.

The Shaanxi provincial government said Sunday that farmer Zhou Zhenglong had fudged some photographs for the purpose. The government had earlier claimed the photos were real.

The 54-year-old farmer from Zhenping county, who claimed to have photographed the "tiger" with a digital camera on Oct 3 last year, was arrested for alleged fraud on Saturday, said Bai Shaokang, spokesman for the Shaanxi provincial public security bureau. The provincial forestry department has revoked his 20,000-yuan reward ($2,915) too.

Experts believe the South China tiger is the progenitor of all the living tiger species.

Its number in the wild had fallen between 30 and 80 by 1996, when the World Conservation Union put it on its Red List of threatened species. Now, it is widely believed to have become extinct in the wild.

Bai said police have seized the old tiger photograph, which Zhou borrowed from a farmer in another village in September to fudge his photos. A tiger paw made of wood, which he used to create pug marks on snow, has been seized too.

Zhou had insisted that he "risked his life to take the photos of a real tiger".

The 13 officials penalized for the scandal include:

Zhang Shenian, provincial forestry department head - he was reprimanded;

Zhu Julong and Sun Chengqian, provincial forestry department deputy heads - both were sacked;

Guan Ke, provincial media official - sacked;

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