2 Hongkongers attacked by wild boar while hiking in country park
- A 60-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman bitten on their legs while they and their friend were hiking in Tai Tam Country Park, according to police
- They were taken to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan for treatment
Two Hongkongers were sent to hospital after being bitten by a wild boar while hiking in a country park on Wednesday.
The pair and their friend were hiking in Tai Tam Country Park on eastern Hong Kong Island when the attack occurred around lunchtime on Wednesday, police said.
“While hiking in the area of Quarry Gap, three wild pigs rushed out from a nearby BBQ site and one of them, about 1.5 metres in length, attacked two of the hikers,” a police spokesman said.
The victims, a 60-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman, were both bitten on the right leg, according to the spokesman. All three boars ran off after the attack.
Emergency personnel were called in following a report from the victims’ friend soon after 1pm.
The victims were taken to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan for treatment.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said on November 12, 2021, that boars found in urban areas would be “captured for humane dispatch with a view to reducing their number and nuisance”.
Between then and Thursday, the AFCD captured and humanely dispatched 74 wild pigs.
The change in approach follows a rising number of sightings of the animals in densely populated areas, with injuries to residents occasionally reported.
Over the past decade, the number of sightings and nuisance reports involving boars rose from 225 in 2011 to 1,002 in 2020. There were 36 cases of injuries caused by wild pigs over the 10-year period.
There were 1,417 reports of boar sightings and nuisance, and 22 cases of injuries caused by wild pigs. In the first two months of this year, there were 110 reports of such sighting and nuisance and 16 injury cases.
Wild boar bites Hong Kong police officer, dies after 10-metre plunge from car park
The announcement of the new strategy came two days after a part-time police officer was knocked down and bitten on the leg by a boar at the car park of a high-rise block in Tin Hau in bustling Causeway Bay on November 10. The animal then fell to its death from the building’s car park.
On November 17, an AFCD team captured and put down seven boars found in a bait-and-cull operation on Sham Wan Road in Wong Chuk Hang on southern Hong Kong Island.
The action was criticised by animal rights groups and on social media, but the AFCD said it would carry out such operations regularly, with “priority to sites with large numbers of wild pigs, and locations with past injury cases or with wild pigs that may pose risks to members of the public”.
