With Chinese netizens and the media left to fester for more then two months as Shaanxi Forestry Bureau officials continued to insist on the authenticity of a series of apparently fake photos of the functionally extinct South China Tiger, the national State Forestry Administration (SFA) has now finally stopped deflecting questions from the public. On December 15, the Information Office of the State Forestry Administration said that SFA had already demanded that the Shaanxi Forestry Bureau commission state authorized agencies to reevaluate the authenticity of the digital photos, taken by local farmer Zhou Zhenglong, and “honestly publicize” the reevaluation results to the public. The Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV published this news (see the screen shot) ) in an interview with Jia Zhibang (贾治邦), the director of the State Forestry Administration (SFA) and former Shaanxi governer, via Fu Dezhi’s blog.
This should be the beginning of the end of this “South China Tiger” photo saga.
