A REPORTER may face prosecution after he was found to have fabricated footage of an endangered South China tiger, local media reported Tuesday.

The fabricated video will be seriously dealt with, officials said.

The county government of Pingjiang, Hunan, said Monday night that it had set up a team composed of staff from the departments of discipline supervision, public security, forestry and industry and commerce to look into the incident. Members of the team have already begun speaking with those involved in the case.

The film, which attracted widespread public attention, was shot March 19 by Wu Hua, a reporter with the television station in Pingjiang County in southern Hunan Province. He claimed to have "unintentionally" filmed a large animal, and asked wildlife authorities to verify its identity.

The big cat turned out to be a Siberian tiger that was part of a circus then touring the province.

What it was doing in the wild is uncertain, but several aspects of the film soon aroused suspicion. "The 20-second film was shot from a cliffside, which is a dangerous foothold. The photographer must have climbed up to the cliff and shot purposefully," said Gui Xiaojie, a wild animal protection official with the provincial forestry bureau.

Gui also said that the film stopped abruptly, which was strange since the footage showed that the animal was not disturbed. Common sense suggested that an excited photographer would seize the rare chance to keep filming such a find, Gui said, unless something happened unexpectedly to stop him.

Wu went along with the scam in a bid to become famous, while the circus owner wanted to attract more tourists, according to a Web site quoting the Hunan Forestry Bureau.

Sheng Jianhua, the owner of a Shiniuzhai tourism park and a circus in Pingjiang County, admitted that he took a tiger from the circus to a camp last Tuesday and let Wu film it "in the wild," according to the report.

(Xinhua)