The controversial photo of a rare South China tiger has been
sent to an "authoritative State institution" to be judged for its
authenticity, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said
yesterday.
Officials at the Shaanxi forestry department insisted the tiger
in the photo does exist in Zhenping county, although the China
Photographers Society confirmed the images were not real.
In October, a farmer from Zhenping claimed he snapped photos of
a South China Tiger, a subspecies believed to have been extinct in
the wild for more than three decades, in the forest near his
home.
However, many scientists and Internet users have denounced the
pictures as fake.
(China Daily December 28, 2007)
