Tiger cub found hidden in suitcase of stuffed toys

A Thai woman has been caught at Bangkok airport trying to smuggle a tiger cub out of the country, hidden in a large suitcase filled with cuddly toys - all of them artificial tigers.

The cub had been tranquillised and was spotted when an X-Ray machine picked out its beating heart and other organs amid the checked-in luggage.

The owner of the case, who was about to board a flight to Iran, was taken to be interrogated by Thai police about where exactly she planned to deliver the cub.

The young tiger is recovering from its ordeal at a National Parks Department rescue centre while its DNA is examined in an effort to discover which subspecies it belongs to and where it comes from.

The anti-smuggling organisation Traffic congratulated the Thai airport staff for spotting the cub, but warned that the incident showed the need for constant monitoring and tougher sentencing for smugglers.

Whether the cub would have survived the journey is unclear. As anyone who has taken a pet - officially - on a plane journey knows, the crew have to regulate the temperature in the hold if there is an animal on the manifest.

The woman's name has not been released, so there is no danger yet of her joining Mary Bale - Coventry cat dumper - on an international hit list of feline abusers.

Also unnamed is another culprit who's given cats, big and small, a week to remember - the fox who climbed into a bedroom in Folkestone, Kent and killed an eight-week-old kitten called Reggie. "I think they should bring back fox-hunting," said Reggie's distraught owner, Leah Betts. ·