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The national controversy over a farmer's 'snapshots' of a tiger long thought extinct in the wild shows no sign of abating, with a poster firm based in Zhejiang  suing the farmer and a Shaanxi  forestry official.
Luo Guanglin, the president of Yiwushi Vista Print Packing Company, lodged a suit in the Yiwu People's Court on Monday accusing Zhou Zhenglong , the farmer who claimed to have photographed a south China tiger,  of damaging his company's reputation and causing economic losses by  accusing it of copying one of his photos.
Mr Luo made the same claims against Guan Ke , the head of the provincial forestry bureau's publicity department
Mr Zhou, a 52-year old hunter from mountainous Zhenping county, said he went into the forest near his village in October and, despite great personal danger, snapped dozens of close-up shots of a wild south China tiger.
He handed them over to Shaanxi forestry authorities, who cited the photos as proof that the tiger still existed in the wild.
But  early last month, a panel of photography, zoology and botany experts  unanimously  dismissed the photos as faked.
Then a netizen  said the tiger photos bore a striking resemblance to a Lunar New Year poster hanging in his home, raising suggestions that Mr Zhou had copied the image from the poster.
But The Beijing News quoted   him as saying: 'The [Yiwushi Vista Print Packing Company] drew the poster in imitation of my tiger [photos].  The company is on the edge of bankruptcy ... They think a farmer is easy to bully.'
Mr Guang also insisted  the poster was the imitation.
But Mr Lou said: 'We did not copy his photos and I haven't accused him of copying because I don't know whether he did so or not. It's up to the authorities to judge.'
The  State Forestry Administration  ordered the Shaanxi Forestry Bureau to reassess the photos as soon as possible, but the results of that process have not been released.



Poster firm sues in controversy over photos of extinct tiger