Life.Culture.Discovery.

Tiger sightings in Hong Kong – a definitive guide to the big cats’ roaming in the territory

When John Saeki heard the two anecdotes often told about tigers in Hong Kong – the one that killed policemen in 1915 and the one shot in 1942 – he wanted more

A long-time resident, he shows South China tiger sightings were reported regularly until the 1950s, and describes in colourful detail several of the accounts

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An image from the American Museum Journal of January 1919 of missionary Harry Caldwell with a South China tiger killed with one shot from his rifle. He knew more than anybody about the subspecies. Photo: courtesy of Harry R Caldwell

Published: 11:15am, 12 Mar 2022

Like many who arrive in Hong Kong for the first time, John Saeki was blown away by the city’s rich biodiversity.

“You quickly learn how rural the place is when you explore the remote mountain paths and woodland trails,” says Saeki, who landed in Hong Kong in 1998.

“You learn about the dolphins, monkeys, boars and snakes, and the 450 species of birds and you begin to see the place differently,” he says.

What piqued Saeki’s interest most, however, were tales of South China tigers, the second smallest tiger subspecies, which once roamed Hong Kong.

Policemen pose with the South China tiger shot in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong, in 1915 and believed responsible for the deaths of two officers. Photo: SCMP

The focus, he says, was always on two anecdotes: a story from 1915, when a tiger reportedly killed two policemen (PC Ernest Goucher and PC Rutton Singh) in Sheung Shui, in the northern New Territories near the border with China, and the shooting of a tiger in Stanley on Hong Kong Island in 1942, considered the last tiger killing in the territory.