HK to kill wild pigs that enter urban areas after policy shift.
Hong Kong authorities have said that they will now regularly capture wild boars and put them down in a major policy shift for controlling the animals. The change in approach follows a rising number of sightings of the animal in urban areas, with some injuries sustained to residents.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department announced on 12 November that wild pigs in urban areas would be “regularly captured for humane dispatch with a view of 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.
Under the new strategy, the department will conduct capture operations every month using dart guns with anaesthetics.
An AFCD spokesperson has said:
“Priority will be given to sites with large numbers of wild pigs, and those with past injury cases or with wild pigs which may pose risks to members of the public.”
The department said that as the nuisance was largely caused by intentional feeding activities, it was exploring amendments to the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance, Cap 170 to minimise the pull factor drawing the species to urban areas.
According to its figures, wild pigs caused 36 injury cases over the past 10 years, more than 80 per cent of which occurred between 2018 and 2021. In the past decade, only one injury on average was reported annually for the first seven years, but 10 annually in the past three years.
In the latest human non human animal encounter, a wild boar knocked won a part time police officer and bit him on the leg.
Beginning in the 1970s, the city used wild boar hunting teams made up of residents and managed by the department, but they were scrapped in 2017. They culled 44 pigs in 2015.
Courtesy of the Hong Kong Wild Boar Concern Group
The Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said a non-lethal management approach was always preferred and intervention should be minimal.
The Hong Kong Wild Boar Concern Group says humane dispatch is just a means of taking the lives of innocent animals.It said it was baffled and angry about the new measure, stressing that the department is walking back on its suspension of hunting operations.
It urged the authorities to maintain its control strategy of giving contraceptive or sterilisation treatment to the boars, while boosting public education on the treatment of wildlife.
The group also said the government should organise planting activities to create a better living environment for wild animals so that they won't venture away from the countryside as often.
Several animal rights groups in Hong Kong have petitioned wildlife officials to drop a plan to capture and cull wild boars, arguing innocent creatures will suffer for merely responding naturally to changes in their habitat.
Activist groups including the Hong Kong Wild Boar Concern Group and Hong Kong Animal Post made the joint appeal on Saturday urging authorities to instead improve the current policy to “capture, neuter and relocate” the animals in place since 2017.
“Humane euthanisation has never been humane. It is just depriving innocent animals of their lives,” the group said in a statement addressed to AFCD director Leung Siu-fai.
“The boundaries between the city and countryside areas are getting increasingly blurred. Animals have been forced to adapt to changes in their habitat, and they are now being innocently deprived of the right to survive because of this new plan.”
The HKWBCG drafted petition can be signed here
Courtesy of Kat Mak
Main Source: SCMP
