June 26, 2008
According to today’s Shenyang Evening News, Zhou Zhenglong, the Shaanxi farmer who cooked up a fake tiger photo last year may be under arrest.
In 2007, Zhou claimed that he had found a living South China tiger, a species that is believed to be extinct in the wild. He was rewarded 20,000 yuan from the Shaanxi Forestry Department for this “discovery”. Despite strong online dounts and questions about the authenticity of the photo that Zhou used as evidence, the Shaanxi Forestry Department and Zhou himself both insisted that it was genuine.
The article says that villagers in Zhou’s village confirmed they haven’t seen Zhou for more than a month.
According the same article, some government officials in the Shaanxi Forestry Department have been interviewed by police as well.
Also on the front page of the newspaper: Wang Xuming, spokesperson for China’s Education Department responded to the firing of Fan Meizhong (aka ‘Runner Fan’), the middle school teacher who abandoned his class and fled out the classroom for life when the earthquake hit. Wang said “shamelessness should not be tolerated”.