BEIJING - A CHINESE farmer who caused a sensation by producing photos of a rare tiger was convicted on Saturday of faking the pictures and jailed for 30 months, Xinhua news agency reported.

Zhou Zhenglong, 54, won a reward of 20,000 yuan (S$4,142) from the authorities in northwestern Shaanxi province last October for his digital photos of a South China tiger, an endangered species that has not been seen in the wild for decades.

But doubts about the authenticity of the photos soon surfaced online, and it turned out Mr Zhou had borrowed an old tiger poster and propped it up between the trees.

Police also found a wooden model of a tiger claw he used to replicate a paw print in the snow. -- REUTERS