Three Amur tiger cubs rest by a fallen tree limb at the Tiger Mountain exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in New York. They are not in Norfolk. (AP Photo/WCS, Julie Larsen Maher, File)

Police have responded to reports of tigers roaming Norfolk’s streets – to find one was a garden ornament and two were stuffed toys.

The EDP can today reveal there have been 82 big-cat calls to Norfolk Constabulary since 2006, including sightings of a puma half a mile away from Tesco in Thetford and a lion bounding across a field in Toftwood, Dereham.

But on the 10 occasions officers have attended, the reality has rarely matched the account of the 999 caller.

Police were dispatched to a street in Norwich in February 2011 after it was reported a tiger was thought to be lying between two cars in the road.

This call followed a sighting in May 2010 of a very large striped cat resembling a tiger sitting in the road in Bradwell in May 2010.

Both tigers were stuffed toys.

Reports of a tiger sitting on the lawn at a Kings Lynn house in November 2010 also turned out to be false, with the officers who attended finding an ornamental tiger.

For more on Norfolks big cats, including reports of a tiger sitting on a bannister and attacking a man in Kings Lynn, see todays EDP.