Hiking in Hong Kong can be exciting. The views are beautiful and you can even see some animals along the way including monkeys, boars, cattle, and — if this couple are to be believed — maybe a tiger.
According to hk01, a couple in their 30s claimed they saw a tiger during a hike in Ma On Shan at around 9am this morning.
Granted, what they describe — a large yellow cat, about three feet by two feet — doesn’t sound much like a tiger. Or really anything like a tiger. But it’s apparently right there in the police statement.
The website reported that the couple were walking through the Ma On Shan Country Park BBQ site, and immediately headed downhill after spotting the big cat and called the police for help.
According to Apple Daily, emergency services arrived at the scene at about 9:50am where the couple — a 32-year-old man and 39-year-old woman surnamed Lee — appeared unhurt.
About 25 minutes later, they were escorted down the mountain by firefighters and a band of reporters asking them where they had seen the “tiger” before they were taken to the Prince of Wales Hospital.
Police and personnel from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) have been searching the area for a tiger since, but have so far found no trace of it.
Before you say anything, we know what you’re thinking: aren’t tigers supposed to be orange with black stripes and at least four feet long?
Indeed, tigers feature nowhere on the list of local protected wild animals on the AFCD website, but leopard cats are and can be occasionally found in the countryside, and are, y’know … yellow. However, even sightings of leopard cats in Hong Kong are rare as they are nocturnal animals.
An AFCD spokesperson told Coconuts HK they could not confirm if the couple had possibly mistaken a large cat for a tiger, adding that when they received the police report, the couple insisted it was a tiger.
The spokesperson added that in 2002, the AFCD set up infrared surveillance cameras in Hong Kong’s country parks to see what kinds of animals live there, but no tigers have ever been caught on camera.
He added that in 2013, there was a suspected tiger sighting in Sha Lo Tung in Pat Sin Leng Country Park, but again, no giant cat was found.
So could there be an actual tiger lurking in one of Hong Kong’s many country parks? It seems unlikely, but in a world with pigzilla, we suppose anything’s possible.
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