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.
In the whole of 2017, there were 738 sightings or reports, 106 were captured and three people injured.
The department would send officers to capture wild pigs, inject them with a contraceptive vaccine, before releasing them back to the wild. Aggressive or large boarscould be euthanised.
At an Eastern District Council meeting, Wong said boars should not be released into country parks.
“They will just continue to cause trouble,” he said. “You should locate some uninhabited islands, set up boar habitats, and then you can catch boars, send food there regularly, and handle them there.”
But Cheung said Wong’s idea would not work. “Boars are very good swimmers,” he said.
Cheung also said the department had relocated boars to places far away from urban settlements or residential areas. The contraceptive vaccines would remain effective for four to six years, he added.
The issue of wild pigs has once again become a topic of discussion after it was raised during a Legislative Council meeting on Thursday.
During the meeting, pro-establishment lawmaker Kenneth Lau Ip-keung, chairman of the powerful rural body Heung Yee Kuk, asked Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor whether the government would consider setting up a hunting team, or introducing natural predators to kill boars. Lam said she had asked the department to look into the problem.
That failed to impress district councillors. At a Tai Po District Council meeting on Friday, Cheung was faced with a similar question about predators. He said it would be too risky as boars’ predators are wild beasts such as lions and tigers.
Lam’s predecessor, Leung Chun-ying, also weighed in on the issue on Saturday.
Writing on his Facebook, Leung suggested that rather than injecting contraceptive vaccines or neutering boars, more of them should be euthanised.
“Stray dogs and cats would be euthanised, rats and cockroaches would be poisoned, why treat wild boars differently?” he asked.
Additional reporting by Zoe Low
