Thai customs seize live tiger in airport baggage

BANGKOK (Reuters Life!) - Airport customs in Bangkok found a two-month-old tiger stashed in a bag, filled with stuffed tiger toys, which was checked-in for an international passenger flight, authorities said on Friday.

The dazed and drugged cub was concealed in an oversized bag packed with the toys and bound for Iran when it was discovered by Thai authorities using an x-ray machine at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport earlier this week.

A 31-year-old Thai woman was detained for questioning and was unable to explain why there was a real tiger in the bag.

"The woman trying to check in the oversized bag denied any knowledge of the tiger. She said she was carrying it for someone else," Nirat Nipanand, an airport customs official in charge of tracking animal, told Reuters.

An investigation was underway and DNA samples were due to be taken to find out the species of the cub, which had been sedated with anti-depressants, and determine whether it was caught in the wild or bred in captivity.

Tiger populations in Asia are under constant threat by poaching and illegal trade and wildlife groups have been lobbying governments to increase monitoring and enforce tougher penalties.

"We applaud all the agencies that came together to uncover this brazen smuggling attempt," Chris Shepherd, deputy regional director for wildlife trade monitors TRAFFIC, said in a statement.

"They obviously think wildlife smuggling is something easy to get away with."

(Reporting by Ambika Ahuja; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Jason Szep and Miral Fahmy)