The last tiger killed in Hong Kong was shot near Stanley in about 1942. The last substantiated sighting of a tiger in Hong Kong was by the Bishop of Hong Kong near Shatin in 1947. But there was a sighting in 1964 near Lowu in the New Territories and a posse of excited police officers went out armed with rifles to help preserve the species by shooting it. They did not find it.

In South China probably the last sighting was around 1970.

Then, a few days ago came a Xinhua report that a peasant in Shaanxi had seen a South China Tiger. This was possible. After all in the early fifties there were probably four thousand of them. Mao Zedong declared them pests. But it is possible as many as 30 still exist.

So the peasant’s sighting was just possible. On the other hand, the one picture that came with the story looked as if it was from A Beginner’s Guide to Photoshop.

The picture was released by the Forestry Department of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province at a news conference. And it was announced that Zhou Zhenglong, 52, a farmer and former hunter in Chengguan Township of Shaanxi’s Zhenping County, had photographed the tiger with a digital camera and on film on the afternoon of October 3.

Reporters were assured that 40 digital pictures and 31 film photographs were genuine. Only one of the 71 was released at the press conference and this is the one.

Zhou Zhenglong, who believes he will be further hugely rewarded by authorities because of the photos, refused to show his original photos to reporters or anyone else. He said, ‘I must protect my intellectual property rights for which I have risked my life.’