As those who have lived in Hong Kong for a while know, random encounters with wild boars (especially in the summer) are not unheard of. In fact, we’ve talked about them on Coconuts Hong Kong so frequently that we came up with a hashtag for all our pig-related stories (#HKBoarWatch).
In most instances, the boars are pretty harmless and even friendly — we’ve seen them drinking from puddles, taking naps, and enjoying the aircon at the regional police headquarters. Of course, they were generally left alone in those instances, unlike on Saturday, when a police officer foolishly kicked a wild boar he was trying to subdue in Tseung Kwan O:
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that agitating an already-confused, 60 kilogram animal is a bad idea, but hey ho. At least he didn’t try to blow it up for its meat.
According to Apple Daily, police received a report at 7:38am that a boar was foraging for food near Lohas Park. At some point, the animal apparently rushed towards a 73-year-old cyclist’s bike, and the man, surnamed Lee, fell to the ground.
After police responding to the call arrived on the scene, the boar ran towards a 34-year-old officer, surnamed Cheung, who fell and injured his arm, SCMP reports. Both injured men were sent to Tseung Kwan O Hospital for treatment.
At some point, one of the police officers unwisely kicked the animal, angering it and resulting it in running into and denting the left side of an Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) van.
At about 10am, the boar was captured in a joint effort from 12 police and AFCD personnel, who herded and subdued the animal with nets, police riot shields, and what appears to be a cage of some kind. An AFCD spokesperson said the animal, an adult female weighing 60 kilograms and measuring about one meter in length, was released in a country park.
As if just to illustrate our point about boar stories being a semi-regular occurrence, a group of four wild boars (one adult male, three juvenile females) were spotted wandering around near the Aberdeen Marina Club at about 6:30am yesterday, Oriental Daily reports. The group, which is believed to have been searching for food, was successfully captured by AFCD officers using rope and tranquilizer darts, and released into a country park later that day.
