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Wild boar
Hong KongHealth & Environment

Hong Kong to regularly capture and kill wild boars after spate of run-ins with residents

  • Under new strategy, wildlife officials will carry out capture operations every month using dart guns with anaesthetics
  • Change comes after rising number of sightings in recent years, with a police officer bitten on the leg this week

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People look on as a wild boar raids a rubbish bin at Tai Mo Shan. Photo: Winson Wong
Danny Mok
Hong Kong authorities will now regularly capture wild boars and put them down in a major policy shift for controlling the most commonly seen wild animals in the city.

The change in approach follows a rising number of sightings of the animals in densely populated areas in recent years, with injuries to residents occasionally reported, sparking heated debate on how best to handle the nuisance.

In the latest violent encounter, a wild boar on Wednesday knocked down a part-time police officer and bit him on the leg in North Point. A photo of the officer, clearly in pain and clutching his bloodstained trousers, received widespread attention.
A part-time policeman was knocked down and bitten on the leg in Tin Hau on Wednesday. Photo: Facebook
A part-time policeman was knocked down and bitten on the leg in Tin Hau on Wednesday. Photo: Facebook

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department on Friday announced that wild pigs in urban areas would be “regularly captured for humane dispatch with a view to reducing their number and nuisance”.

It said it had launched a capture and contraception/relocation programme in 2017 and, in 2019, also adopted a multipronged approach to strengthen management of the species to tackle the nuisance. However, wild pigs had continued to gather and forage in some urban locations and had caused a serious nuisance and potential danger, it added.

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