Shaanxi Forestry Department has apologized to the public for releasing the information about the finding of the South China Tiger.

On October 12, 2007, SFD held a press conference and announced the discovery of a wild South China Tiger in Zhenping County by publishing two tiger photos taken by Zhou Zhenglong. However the two pictures caused a lot of doubt later among the public over their authenticity.

SFD said that it did not ask for approval from a higher authority nor did it conduct an on-site investigation on the place where the two photos were taken before holding a press conference to announce the finding of the tiger. SFD apologized to the public for its quickness in releasing the initial information.

Regarding the verification of two photos of the South China Tiger, SFD said it had done a lot of work and would further work on the evaluation of the photos as required by China National Forestry Administration and Shaanxi Provincial Government, and it would publish the results to the public as soon as possible.