A latest conclusion reached by experts in digital imaging,
zoology and botany who attended an appraisal conference organised
by China Photographers Association in Beijing on Sunday, confirmed
that the photos of a would-be extinct wild South China tiger are
completely fake and in fact replicas of a traditional Chinese lunar
new year picture, Beijing Times reported.
Chinese lunar new year pictures are a type of mass-printed
pictures of a certain piece of original Chinese painting, which is
often designed on China's Lunar New year, just to give people a
sense of festive atmosphere and happiness.
By carrying out scientific experiments on the 40 some South
China tiger photos provided by Chinese website 163.com, experts
from the Digital Image Identification Centre of the China
Photographers Association showed that the tiger in all those photos
takes the exact same posture, which doesn't confirm to the general
rule of wildlife photography. Furthermore, the photos don't show
any stereoscopic elements.
Hu Huijian, a zoologist and expert on South China tiger, gave a
detailed demonstration on the falseness of the tiger in the photos:
its eyeballs remain white, which, if it was real, should glisten
like a bulb under a flashlight, and there was no reflected liquid
on its eyes or lip either.
The Huaxia Evidence Identification Centre, incorporating a team
of doctors of science from the Sun Yet-San University, top Chinese
detective Li Changyu, and fingerprint expert Liu Chiping analysed
the photos with their respective expertise and reached a consensus
that the tiger in the photos is the same as the one in the
traditional lunar new year painting.
A reporter from the Beijing Times later dialed Zhou Zhenglong,
who claimed he spotted the tiger and took the photos in Shaanxi's
Zhenping County. Zhou insisted the tiger was real, "I spent more
than one month taking the photos. I'm not telling a lie. They
cannot speak at random without any fact-finding visits onsite."
Zhou Zhenglong, 52, a farmer who was once a hunter, claimed he
snapped the feline with a digital and film camera on October 3 near
a cliff in Zhenping County, northwest China's Shaanxi province,
where has been believed to be a key habitat for the no-longer-seen
wild South China tigers. He submitted the 40 digital photos and 31
film photographs to the Shaanxi Provincial Forestry Department, who
released the news and photos to the public on October 5.
As sources put it, the department acknowledged that the photos
featured a South China tiger but didn't establish their
authenticity before being released to the media.
The photos soon sparked suspicions from hundreds of thousands of
netizens online. Some doubted whether the tiger was a wild one
because its eyes looked mild and dull. While others said that the
tiger's skin and hair seem too shiny, without any three-dimensional
effect, and speculated that the digital pictures might have been
copied from another source.
The debate became heated. Curious laymen and professional
experts contributed more and more evidences which seemed to prove
that the photos were indeed fabricated. Finally a netizen posted
online what he claimed was "convincing proof" - a traditional
Chinese lunar new year picture of a tiger which he bought one year
ago.
(CRI December 4, 2007)
