Councillor told his plan to ship wild boars to uninhabited Hong Kong islands won’t work ‘because they can swim’
- Former legislator Wong Kwok-hing floats idea at Eastern District Council meeting
- But proposal gets lukewarm response from the government and conservationists
Captured wild boars should be sent to uninhabited islands to stop them from causing a nuisance or attacking residents, according to a former legislator.
Raising the idea at the Eastern District Council on Tuesday, Wong Kwok-hing of the Federation of Trade Unions also argued that creating boar habitats would be better than other politicians’ proposals such as setting up hunting teams, introducing natural predators, or euthanising a large number of healthy and non-aggressive boars.
However, Wong’s proposal drew a lukewarm response from activists and the government, with an official arguing wild boars could swim and sending them to islands would not solve the problem.
“If there’s not enough food on those islands, boars would escape and swim to the nearest land mass,” said Cheung Ka-shing, a senior wetland and fauna conservation officer from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.
The number of wild boars caught in Hong Kong reached a five-year high last year. Between January and October 2018, there were 679 sightings or nuisance reports of wild boars, and 129 were captured. Five people were injured in that period by wild boars.
