Young boar’s Hong Kong train trip sparks calls for stiffer fines for people who feed wild animals
- Young animal may have come down from hills around Quarry Bay as residents in area regularly feed wild pigs, official tells lawmakers
- Piglet was found to be in good health and released back into hills after its cross-harbour MTR train ride
A young boar which startled Hong Kong commuters and boarded two separate trains could have come down from hills around Quarry Bay where some residents regularly feed wild pigs, according to agriculture officials.
The incident earlier this month also brought the issue of rising numbers of boars being seen in urban areas back into focus, prompting calls from lawmakers to impose stiffer fines and expand a law that bans people from feeding wild animals.
Wild boars can occasionally be found near King’s Road, a major thoroughfare on the north side of Hong Kong Island, as the animals are regularly fed by people in the Quarry Bay area, according to Simon Chan Kin-fung, assistant director at the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.
Chan, who oversees conservation, said he believed the young boar could have come from this area and wandered to Quarry Bay MTR station, before getting out of a train carriage at the North Point interchange and onto one on the Tseung Kwan O line to the other side of Victoria Harbour on June 18.
“The wild pig was in very good health, already weaned and finding food on its own,” Chan told a Legislative Council meeting on Monday afternoon.