Reuters reports that the farmer behind the Southern China Tiger photo scandal has been put in jail:
The photos by Zhou Zhenglong, a 54-year-old farmer from mountainous Zhenping county in northern Shaanxi province, raised hopes that the South China tiger might still exist in the region.
Local officials used that to promote tourism and a wildlife reserve, and rewarded him with 20,000 yuan ($2,930) before the fraud was exposed by local media and Internet experts.
Zhou was sentenced in 2008 to jail with a three-year reprieve, which normally means the convicted person remains at liberty.
But he was imprisoned for two years starting last weekend after a court found he “had not cooperated with monitoring officials and had not reported his thinking and activity,” the Beijing Morning Post said on Wednesday.
