A mother's screams shatter the peace of a Sunday afternoon at a picnic site on the edge of Sai Kung Country Park. Rescuers rush to the scene to find her three-year-old dog lying beside a walking trail, wrapped in the deadly coils of a 4.5-metre Burmese python.
It seems an unlikely scenario in Hong Kong's generally tame and well-managed country park where footways are paved, rescue helicopters take to the skies whenever hikers become dehydrated or disoriented, and the biggest nuisance is usually scavenging monkeys.
But the incident a fortnight ago in which a woman hiker wrestled her 20kg pet dog Poppy from the grip of a python, close to the spot where 14 months earlier an even heavier dog was killed by a python, has raised at least the question as to whether small children might be at risk.
It has also exposed a yawning knowledge gap about the size and habits of Hong Kong's python population that specialists say makes it impossible to devise a coherent programme to deal with the endangered species.
'That snake meant business,' said Poppy's owner, Catherine Leonard, 41, who was almost certain it was the same python that killed the 22kg husky last year. 'These two attacks have both been close to the family walking trail and people do go out hiking with four children. A small child would weigh less than my dog.'
The husky's owner, Esther Leenders, 32, made a similar remark after struggling in vain to stop the python crushing her pet to death.