(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-05 09:13

The Photojournalist Society of China (CPS) has stripped a photographer of a top award given for his picture of a vet vaccinating pigeons in front of Sophia Cathedral in Harbin, saying it was a fake, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Friday.

The Harbin Daily Group has also fired the photographer, Zhang Liang, the report said.

The picture won gold in the Nature and Environment Protection News category at the inaugural China International Press Photo Contest on March 24, 2005.

However, photography and computer experts questioned the authenticity of the picture, in which two pigeons looked similar, and agreed the image of a single pigeon had been duplicated.