<\/a>The photos by\u00a0Zhou\u00a0Zhenglong, a 54-year-old farmer from mountainous Zhenping county in northern Shaanxi province, raised hopes that the\u00a0South China tiger\u00a0might still exist in the region.<\/p>\nLocal 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.<\/p>\n
Zhou was sentenced in 2008 to jail with a three-year reprieve, which normally means the convicted person remains at liberty.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reuters reports that the farmer behind the Southern China Tiger photo scandal has been put in jail: The photos by\u00a0Zhou\u00a0Zhenglong, a 54-year-old farmer from mountainous Zhenping county in northern Shaanxi province, raised hopes that the\u00a0South China tiger\u00a0might still exist in the region. Local officials used that to promote tourism and a wildlife reserve, and rewarded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5805,5],"tags":[5574],"class_list":["post-67896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","category-society","tag-south-china-tiger","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n
Chinese Farmer Imprisoned for Fake Tiger Photos<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n