Wild animals frequently appear in urban areas to lure back to their habitats as the key

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department announced last Friday (12th) that from now on, wild boars that haunt the urban area will be captured and destroyed humanely every month.

Three days before the policy was announced, an auxiliary police officer was bitten by a wild boar while on duty in North Point. Therefore, there are voices in the community that the two are related, and some animal conservation groups questioned the AFCD’s haste to implement the new measures.

The AFCD estimates that there are about 1,800 to 3,300 wild boars in the rural areas of Hong Kong. However, this figure was obtained by sampling in the Ma On Shan Country Park in 2019 by a pilot project using infrared automatic cameras. The margin of error is still relatively large. In fact, the department does not have relatively accurate data, so it is difficult to effectively formulate appropriate policies to respond.

The situation of wild boar may not be accurate

After the abolition of the hunting operation with live ammunition the previous year, the AFCD adopted the medium and long-term feedback action of "catch, sterilization, and release" as its wild boar management action policy, and gradually normalized the plan from 2019-20 until this year. In June, he told the Legislative Council's Panel on Environmental Affairs that measures such as contraceptive vaccines will gradually show results, and it is expected that the number of wild boar nuisance cases will gradually decrease in the next few years.

The number of reports of wild boar infestations or nuisances rose from 583 in 2016 to 1,184 in 2019. Of these, 2 and 9 of them involved wounding, and in 2020, it dropped slightly to 3 out of 1,002. Hurt.

Although relevant figures prove that "catching, sterilizing, and returning" cannot significantly reduce the number of wild boars in a short period of time, it is actually not very appropriate to rashly change from a medium and long-term action plan to an immediate response method of "kill in the city".

The more ideal approach should be to do both, and coordinate the improvement of data statistics to revise the course of action in a timely manner.

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department aims to conduct operations 5 times a month, focusing on black spots where wild boars are infested.

(Profile picture)

It is necessary to formulate a complete wildlife policy

In addition to wild boars, Hong Kong society also has to deal with the problems caused by other types of wild animals, such as excessive breeding of wild pigeons, stray cats affecting the native ecological environment, and monkeys breaking into residential houses.

All kinds of wild animals may bring us different problems, but society must think deeply that the existence of wild animals does not constitute original sin.

Wild animals cannot express themselves for themselves, which means that they have always been in the position of being notified. Therefore, human society should formulate a set of policies to restrict their behavior, rather than simply adopting a strategy of repelling wild animals.

This approach may have a short-term effect, but it may not guarantee to induce animals to return to nature. Therefore, the government should restrict citizens from feeding without authorization by increasing penalties on the one hand, and conserve the original habitat of the animals on the other. Only in this way can it help stabilize the boundary between the city and nature.

The officer of the Hong Kong Wild Boar Concern Group believes that the people indiscriminately feeding wild boars have caused wild boars to appear in urban areas.

(Profile picture)

Animal rights can actually be used as an indicator of the degree of social integrity. How to control the power of life and death requires thinking twice.

In the face of wild animals, the hunting plan should have existed as a last resort. Moreover, Hong Kong is definitely not incapable of becoming a more civilized and animal-friendly city. We should not easily "reverse" animal-friendly policies.

The brand-new Ocean Park should truly protect animals. Pet shop abuses dogs and raises concerns. The establishment of an “Animal Police” is more proactive.