Hong Kong authorities late on Wednesday captured and euthanized seven wild boars as they began a campaign to reduce their numbers in the territory’s urban areas after one bit a police officer last week.
The boar roundup in a district where authorities said some residents were spotted feeding them marks a policy shift in controlling the animals.
“Veterinarians used dart guns to capture seven wild pigs for humane dispatch through medicine injection,” the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said in a statement.
Photo: AP
Boars in the residential area less than 30 minutes’ drive from the heart of the financial district were “accustomed to wandering along the road and looking for food from passers-by or even chasing vehicles,” the department said.
Last week, a wild boar knocked down a police officer and bit his leg, causing a deep wound and prompting Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) to warn that the government would increase penalties for those who feed them.
That animal subsequently fell off the edge of a carpark, plunging about 10m to its death.
Photo: AFP
About 30 boar attacks have been reported in the past few years, authorities said.
Hong Kong’s policy had been to capture the animals, then sterilize and relocate them to remote, unpopulated areas.
The shift in policy has sparked criticism from animal rights groups.
Hong Kong Wild Boar Concern Group spokesman Roni Wong (黃豪賢) told reporters that the boar problem was caused by the government, which had failed to allocate resources to deal with the animals peacefully.
“Now the animals have to pay for the cost,” Wong said.
Lam said this week she understood that many Hong Kongers loved wild animals, but “ultimately, our society has to ensure the safety of residents.”
“As a responsible government, we need to take action,” she told reporters at her weekly news conference on Tuesday.
Boars have at times been seen on subway trains, or waiting for the traffic light to turn green at pedestrian crossings by the harbor.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, when most Hong Kongers were working from home, a video of a boar family bathing in a fountain in between the financial district’s skyscrapers went viral.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
RSS