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Published on January 30, 2008

Experts from the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department will be asked to help determine the big cats' origins. A wildlife advocate suspected they were farm-raised.

Following a tip-off, the Navy's Khong River Coast Guard unit seized the spiny anteaters from one pickup truck and the six Bengal tigers, four leopards and one clouded leopard from another truck in Khub Puang village of Tambon Nam Kham at about 3am. Most of the cats were cut in half and their heads and organs were removed.

The traders however managed to escape. They were about to load the carcasses on to two boats reportedly bound for Ban Nong Bok in Laos' Savannakhet province for delivery to customers in Vietnam and China.

Lt-Commander Theeranant Daengphan, head of the unit, said this major catch was connected to the earlier one of 30 pangolins.

The pangolins would be sold for Bt4,000 per kilogram and the felines for Bt100,000 to Bt200,000 per whole animal, he said. Preecha Khammung-kun, a provincial wildlife official, said the evidence would be sent to the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conserva-tion Department's Phu Khieo Conservation Centre to determine the origin of the big cats.

He said that the pangolins probably came from the South and neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia.

Wildlife activist Hannarong Yaowalers said that at most only two tigers could be captured from the wild.

If there were more than four, they were most likely from a commercial operation, he said, and suggested that DNA tests be conducted on the cats.

The Nation