China official sacked for fake tiger video

BEIJING, Mar 27 (Reuters Life!) - China has sacked a county tourism chief for his role in a bid to bolster tourism in the region by fabricating video footage purportedly showing a wild tiger in southern China.

On Tuesday, local media said that a reporter with a local television station in Pingjiang county, Hunan province, had staged the scene at a tourist park, taking video of a circus tiger.

The reporter tried to pass off the video as that of an endangered South China tiger "unintentionally captured on film", media reported.

An investigation by local wildlife authorities had found that the reporter had been hired by a local company to generate publicity for its tourist park, working with the local tourism bureau, the Beijing News said on Thursday.

Investigators said the Pingjiang Tourism Bureau director, Tian Gongbing, had also conspired with the tourist park owners to "borrow" a Siberian tiger from a touring circus.

"The tourism bureau was eager to develop this area and it cooperated with (the company) to get mutual benefit," the Beijing News said, citing an unnamed staff member of the tourism company.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Ken Wills)