Six tigers, three black bears, 24 pythons, three king cobras and a civet among many other animals were uncovered outside Bangkok Tuesday in a house owned by a man already facing charges for wildlife trading.

"It's time to amend the law," Plodprasop Suraswadi, the top official at the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, told the Nation newspaper in comments confirmed by a ministry official Thursday.

"Those who kill (endangered) wildlife, particularly the big and important animals, deserve the death penalty," he said.

Under Thailand's 1992 Wildlife Reserve and Protection Act, those found guilty of killing or trading in endangered wildlife face fines of 40,000 baht (1,003 dollars) or four years in jail.

Police arrested one man over Tuesday's haul -- which also included 48 kilograms (106 pounds) of fresh and dried tiger bones, 22 kilograms of tiger meat and two tiger skulls -- but the owner of the house remains on the run.

The animals, with a street value of about 2.6 million bahtdollars), were smuggled from Indonesia into Thailand and police believe they were destined to be sent to restaurants in China via Laos.

Wildlife poaching is rampant in Thailand and much of Southeast Asia, with the trade driven largely by the Chinese appetite for exotic dishes and faith in traditional medicines which use ingredients obtained from the animals.

Plodprasop said the penalties meted out to offenders should depend on the species and what was done to them, rather than the current uniform penalty, and said elephants should be classed as the most important species.

Thailand's elephant herd, which numbered some 150,000 animals 100 years ago, is in dire straits, with just 2,257 of them remaining in the wild and some 150 dying each year, according to the Forest Industry Organisation.

The Thai government reintroduced the death penalty in 1996 after a nine-year hiatus.

TERRA.WIRE