TORONTO - What do a woman wrapped in sausages, a bag full of elephant manure, and a skinned primate all have in common?

They're just a few of the strange and stomach-turning items that Canada Border Services officers have come across and confiscated during luggage checks at Pearson International Airport in recent years.

They're trained for the seizure of weapons, narcotics and counterfeit money. Still, even the most seasoned checkers get taken aback by the discovery of freshly butchered meat, cultural delicacies and exotic libido enhancers.

"I noticed this thing, and so I pulled it out and these five fingers come out, this arm comes up, and then you see the jaw bone and teeth, and nose and eyes," said Ed Filman.

"What it turned out to be was a skinned monkey, and from my understanding, they were going to eat it," said the six-year border officer.

Other passengers bring in deer tails, bovine and tiger penises and even animal innards, claiming they improve sexual stamina.

One of the difficulties in his line of work, Filman admits, is identifying and recognizing what the offending object may be.

"How would anyone know what a bovine penis looks like?" he asks, noting it was a metre-long rod with a surface that resembled wood.

That's why the initial sniffing out of suspect bags is left to the detector dogs. But in some rare cases, their help isn't even needed.

"One time we had this guy, (he) was very well dressed and the clothes in his bag were neatly folded," he said. "There was this grocery bag sitting on top ... we opened it up and we saw a big heaping, moist, fresh pile of elephant manure.

"He said he was going to smell it and burn it for incense."

In most of these cases, the travellers aren't intentionally trying to contravene federal rules, said Patrizia Giolti of the Canada Border Services Agency.

"So our position is that we want to educate them, let them know which products aren't allowed" and why.

Giolti says the rules for importing are regularly updated.

She adds that "most things are allowed in Canada, as long you have declared it and you have the proper documents to bring it in."

Knowing the rules might have saved one woman the inconvenience of sitting on an overseas flight draped in sausages, said Steven Cescon, a customs official at Pearson.

"We thought she had narcotics on her person. But when we did an exam, we found she was actually body-packing sausages ... She thought she couldn't import meat, so she was smuggling it."