Wild pigs threaten farmland
According to the AFCD, it received 347, mainly rural, complaints about wild pigs last year compared to 202 in 2007. But the department said it does not know how many of them roam the city's countryside.
'They're wild animals,' says AFCD's Jolly Choi Man-chi. 'We don't have a number on how many of them there are.'
Hong Kong's largest mammals and the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, the boars (Sus scrofa) live in wooded areas, average about 180cm in length and weigh between 80kg and 200kg. Their tusks continue to grow for as long as they live and help them root through the ground, including well-tilled farmland, for food. The tusks can also serve as weapons and can inflict a lot of harm.
They were first recorded n 1905, when the British Army made their first land survey of the New Territories. In 1971, a police sergeant reportedly shot a 150kg beast that had destroyed crops in farms along Shau Tau Kok Road.
In February last year, a wild pig evaded 20 police and AFCD officers for six hours before being shot dead outside Tuen Mun Hospital. In April last year, a 77-year-old man was suddenly attacked by a wild boar. He had to be hospitalised.
