Wildlife officials have determined that the tiger found butchered and bound for a Bangkok restaurant this week was a female that had two cubs.
The conclusion was reached after officials compared markings on the dead tiger with photographs taken at the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in Tak Province, the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department announced on Friday.
The first pictures of the same animal were taken at the sanctuary in 2012. When the tiger was spotted again last year it had two cubs about eight months old, said department chief Thanya Nethithamakul.
Soldiers and police found the carcass and its internal organs in a car in Mae Sot district in Tak on Thursday as the drivers were transporting them to a restaurant in Bangkok.
The dead tiger bore a code number, HKT-212F, assigned by the department to track the protected animal.
Rangers are now searching for the two cubs, now almost two years old, amid concern that they too could be targets for butchers. Their exact location is unknown as they might have left Huai Kha Khaeng with their mother and migrated into neighbouring forests.
''Two young tigers at that age can live on their own with occasional assistance from their mother,'' said Saksith Simcharoen, a tiger expert with the department.
Only about 100 tigers are known to exist in Thailand and about 80 of them live at Huai Kha Khaeng, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Images released by wildlife officials show the markings on a tiger found butchered this week matched those of a female spotted earlier in Mae Sot district of Tak province. (Photo courtesy of the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department)