Stuffed pigs used in drill to instruct Hong Kong agricultural officials in how to cull sick animals in event of African swine fever outbreak
- Photos of the exercise, which were posted on health minister Sophia Chan’s Facebook page, proved to be a surprising social media hit
Toys pigs, with a price tag of up to HK$700 (US$89) each, were enlisted to a drill this week to help train Hong Kong agricultural officials in how to kill sick animals in the event of African swine fever spreading across the border to Hong Kong farms.
Whether it is a bargain or not is a matter of opinion, but taxpayers have been told the toy pigs will cost them a total of about HK$20,000.
The surreal scenes of officials, in full protective gear, playing with the pink fluffy toy pigs – sending them to the cull one by one – quickly attracted the attention of the public after the pictures were posted on the official Facebook page of health minister Sophia Chan Siu-chee.
The post, uploaded on Tuesday night, quickly became Chan’s most popular post in at least the past month, attracting over 43 comments and 156 “shares” in two days, compared with her usual Facebook posts that draw only a few comments.
One comment read: “The pigs are so cute.” Another read: “Can I adopt one?” Some were not too amused though, questioning if it was a waste of taxpayers’ money to buy toy pigs.