British Transport Police in tropical fish rescue after train passenger took wrong suitcase

A train passenger received a shock after picking up the wrong suitcase filled with live and rare tropical fish destined for the University of Hull. Kai Winkelmann was taking the 60 telmatochromis temporalis fish to Hull from the Natural History Museum in London by train. However, as he went to change trains at Doncaster, Mr Winkelmann discovered the case containing the fish had been taken by another passenger by mistake at Peterborough. British Transport Police (BTP) officers from Doncaster faced a race against time to find the fish that had been removed from the train. Police Sergeant at Doncaster Steve Down said: "A distressed Mr Winkelmann came into the office and relayed the incident.

"He stressed time was of the essence to find the fish as they required specialist care and would very likely die if they weren't properly cared for in the next few hours. The officers at Doncaster quickly realised the scale of the problem and called BTP and rail staff colleagues at Peterborough and Kings Cross, and the fish were quickly tracked down at Peterborough, still alive." Once they were found, the police made sure they were returned to Mr Winkelmann in Hull. Sgt Down said: "We quickly made arrangements to have the fish put on the next northbound service to Doncaster, where they were reunited with Mr Winkelmann who managed to continue on this journey without any further incidents."



Mr Winklemann was relieved to have them back. He said: "I had been studying these fish, which have been shown to be tremendously valuable for evolutionary biology, for more than three years. With great effort, I collected the parental fish of the 'stolen' ones from Lake Tanganyika in Africa in 2012. The fish that went missing were their first generation offspring and the last ones I had left, so were extremely valuable, which is why I took them on the train myself and didn't transport them by other means." The fish are very sensitive to their environment and Mr Winkelmann was concerned they would not survive long.

He said: "The fish are tropical, so if they stay at less than 23-29 degrees for more than a few hours, they wouldn't survive, so it was vital we tracked down the case. Within moments, I saw several officers on the phone and, like a miracle, they found it at Peterborough with the fish still alive. After a lot of persuasion by the officers at Doncaster, rail staff agreed to transport the case back up to Doncaster and I received my case back within 60 minutes and quickly travelled to Hull to get them into pre-prepared tanks. It is thanks to the officers that these fish survived. They went the extra mile and I was extremely impressed at how efficient, determined and organised they were. Thanks to BTP, the recovered fish have years of assisting in promising research into genetics at the University of Hull."