A big, fat, hairy, wildlife worry
Out of the darkness appeared a snout.
“Fei zhu! Fat pig!” 8-year-old Shino Chen shouted to her younger brother as she jumped up and down and pointed at a wild boar.
The hairy black pig, which must have weighed at least 150 pounds, grunted and snuffled through a flimsy, old fence along the sidewalk. The children tiptoed toward the animal then sprinted back to their father’s side.
Kenneth Chen, 44, and his children visit the boars almost every night. All they have to do is step out of their apartment in the neighbourhood of Tai Wai, located on the fringes of an expanding metropolis.
“I bring my kids to see a natural habitat because they seldom get to see live animals in Hong Kong,” Chen said.
Hong Kong’s 7.4 million residents spend most of their days rushing between highrises, metro stations, tiny apartments and air-conditioned offices. People occupy less than a quarter of the 426-square-mile region, making its urban core one of the most densely populated places in the world.
The rest of Hong Kong belongs to monkeys, snakes, porcupines, boars and other wildlife.
The city is a concrete jungle in the middle of an actual jungle.
Now, as urban areas sprawl into the surrounding hills, Hong Kong is struggling to contain a wild boar problem.
The pigs are everywhere: sprinting down the highway, digging into dumpsters, falling through the ceiling of a children’s clothing store, sauntering into metro stations, taking over barbecues, confronting police at the airport, even swimming across the balmy bays of Hong Kong Island.
No one has conducted a census to determine the actual number of wild boars in Hong Kong. But encounters reported to local authorities have more than doubled in the last five years, from 294 in 2013 to 679 in the first 10 months of 2018 alone.
There have also been injuries: A 70-year-old man was hospitalized recently after he threw a stone at a wild boar and the animal retaliated by biting him.
Searching for a solution, politicians have suggested different tactics for the boar problem, including introducing natural predators into Hong Kong or sending the boars to nearby islands. But wild boars are strong swimmers, and their predators — tigers and wolves, among other carnivores — wouldn’t exactly fit the urban landscape either.
For now, the city’s solution is birth control. A team of veterinarians recently launched a two-year pilot sterilization program that starts with tracking down boars and shooting them with tranquilizer darts.
The biggest problem in Hong Kong is not that boars or humans are hurting each other, but that too many people find the pigs adorable and decide to feed them.
“It was really cute once upon a time, but I mean, wild pigs running loose in a city centre is not very exciting anymore,” said Karthi Martelli, one of the vets.