Possible Evidence of Wild South China Tigers Survival
On 5 October 2007, a supposed South China tiger attacked a cow and on 13 September, a body of an Asiatic Black Bear possibly killed and eaten by a South China tiger was found, both in Zhenping County.
In October 2007, a hunter has published a set of photographs of a South China tiger that he claims were taken in the Daba Mountains. Subsequently, a month later, a tiger picture poster appeared in the public domain. The result has been a controversy over the authenticity of photographs; the tiger photos being widely believed to be copied from the tiger picture poster. However, upon analysis of all the photos, it is concluded that the tiger in the photos is a 3-dimensional, animate object, suggestive of a living tiger have been photographed from the mountain. Comparing the poster tiger with the photo tiger, it appears that the poster tiger is an artificial monster that had been copied and modified from the photo tiger. As good news, the wild South China tiger has not been extinct.
The villager from Zhenping County in Ankang City, Shaanxi Province of China, claimed to have risked his life by taking more than thirty digital photographs of a tiger. The Shaanxi Provincial Forestry Bureau then held a press conference, backing up Zhou's claim. If true, this would be the first record since 1964 of South China tigers in the wild in Shaanxi Province's Qinba Mountains.
However, the photographs aroused suspicion, with many expressing doubts about the authenticity of the digital picture. A resident of Panzhihua discovered that the tiger poster on the wall of his home shared the same features as the tiger in Zhou's photos, including the details of the animal's stripes. The manufacturer of the poster was identified as the Yi Wei Si Poster and Packaging Company of Zhejiang province, who had published the image five years previously. In a statement issued on 23 November 2007, the Shaanxi Province Forestry Bureau said that they still "firmly believed" Wild South China tigers to exist in the province. Yet on 4 February 2008, the Shaanxi Province Forestry Bureau released an apology, qualifying their earlier statements but without repudiating the pictures' authenticity, saying "We curtly released the discovery of the South China tiger without substantial proof, which reflects our blundering manner and lax discipline." Nevertheless, the statement was not conclusive on whether the Bureau still stands by its view that the picture is genuine.
In June 2008, the authorities have announced to the press that all pictures published were proven to be forged, and the related officers have been punished, or even removed from their posts. The photographer himself, Zhenglong Zhou, has been arrested for suspicion of fraud. This officially ended the South China tiger scandal, however, public concern about the corruption in Shaanxi Province Forestry Bureau and Shaanxi Government may still last. Many believe that Zhou is merely a puppet, and the local officers pursuing funds from the central government in the name of tiger research and preservation, as well as tourists' interest to the area are the real thread pullers.
Although the Shaanxi Government has officially declared the forgery, there are still some people believing Zhenglong Zhou risked his life and found the evidence of live South China tiger. Liyuan Liu, an associate professor in the College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, said that he would never believe the photographs were fake. He also illustrated that Zhenglong Zhou could not have taken the photos of the footprints using the props retained by the Shaanxi Police. The first person who claimed to find the poster told the medium that it was bought before the Spring Festival in 2001. Moreover, there are many evidences that the tiger in Zhou's photos was moving.
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