Farmer charged with faking tiger photos

XIAN, China, June 29 (UPI) -- A Chinese farmer has been charged with fraud for allegedly faking photographs and tracks of a South China tiger.

Officials in the Shaanxi provincial government say Zhou Zhenglong used a neighbor's photograph and a wooden tiger claw, Xinhua reported. He claimed he took the photos with a cell phone, the official government news agency said.

Zhou received a reward of 20,000 yuan, or almost $3,000, from the Provincial Forestry Department. He claimed to have taken the photos Oct. 3, 2007.

Bai Shaokang of the Shaanxi Public Security Department said investigators found the area where Zhou's photograph was taken.

"It was a small area with few tall trees, which was not a suitable habitat for a real tiger," he said.

Police also measured the tree trunks and extrapolated the size of the tiger in the picture. They found the tiger would have been 27 centimeters long and 35 centimeters wide -- about 9 inches by 11 inches.

Zhou, who formerly claimed he had "risked his life" to get the pictures, now admits he got the idea when he guided a team searching for tigers in 2006.