Putin allegedly came face to face with wild tiger four years ago, but bloggers now say it was set up using a zoo animal

It was Vladimir Putin's much flaunted love of animals that brought him face to face with a tiger four years ago. Deep in the woods of Russia's far east, the powerful leader was on a mission to help save the endangered amur tiger, when one of the fierce beasts appeared out of nowhere and attacked. Putin saved the day – and at least one television crew – when he intercepted its approach with a swift shot from a tranquilliser gun.

That, at least, was the story presented by state-run television, in lengthy, fawning reports that aired repeatedly after the incident in 2008.

But now, four years later, environmentalists and bloggers are presenting evidence that the tiger Putin shot was no wild tiger at all – and that the animal died as a result of the stunt.

The scandal is the latest to show the cracks in the president-elect's carefully crafted image, as his popularity continues to fall despite a recent election win that critics say was manipulated by fraud.

According to local and Moscow-based environmentalists, the tiger, named Serga, was taken from a zoo in the eastern city of Khabarovsk and driven several hundred miles to the Ussuri nature reserve, where Putin had flown to check on efforts to monitor the amur tiger, a cause he had taken under his personal control.

She was tranquillised, placed in a snare and forced to lie in wait as the infamously tardy leader got to the site, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. After Putin inspected the big cat, helping to place a GPS satellite collar on it and, reportedly, giving it a kiss, Serga was taken on the long drive back to the Khabarovsk zoo. In the days that followed, the rare tiger died, unable to recover from the three tranquillisers used by scientists during the PR stunt.

"It should have been one tranquilliser shot, but it was three in a short period of time," said Masha Vorontsova, the head of the Russia branch of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "I'm not even blaming Putin, but the people who do these things for him – all they are interested in is big money. It's against all scientific and human ethics," she said.

The research centre that organised the project, the Russian Academy of Science's Institute for Ecology and Evolution, declined to comment.

Bloggers this week began uploading what they said was photographic evidence of the stunt, comparing follow-up photos on Putin's website that allegedly show Serga, to images of the tiger when it was first tagged.

"The markings on a tiger are as unique as fingerprints – they don't change throughout its life," said Vladimir Krever of the World Wildlife Fund's Moscow office. "If the photos going around the internet are what they say they are, it is definitely two different tigers."