A Hong Kong golf club said on Sunday it may be forced to shut down temporarily its two 18-hole courses because of an invasion of wild boars.
A marauding band of about 20 boars, some of them weighing up to 180kg, are digging up the fairways on the two public courses on Kau Sai Chau island, east of Hong Kong.
Now there are fears they may start charging at golfers as well as doing so much damage to the courses, designed by Gary Player, that it will not grow back.
A private contractor has now been brought in to try to solve the crisis at the 450ha facility, which is used by up to 500 golfers a day.
Three square kilometres of turf have this year been ripped up by the boars, which dig for larvae-producing grubs that live below the surface of golf courses.
The boars are reproducing rapidly and apparently swimming to the island from nearby uninhabited islands to join in the nightly foraging expeditions on the fairways.
William Yiu of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which runs the courses, said: ”The issue is not just one of playability, it is one of public safety.
”I don’t want to get to the stage where I have to close the golf course, but if I have to I will. At the end of the day, the safety of human beings comes first.”
Bait-filled traps are being laid to try to capture some of the boars.
”The plan is that if we trap one, they are intelligent animals and word will get around,” Yiu said.
Hunting teams comprising locals with shotgun licences used to deal with wild boars, which are indigenous to Hong Kong and live mostly in its rural New Territories.
However, police banned the shooting parties because of fears over public safety, and countryside rangers say the problem is one the golf-club managers must deal with themselves.
Wildlife biologist Tom Dahmer, who has been contracted to trap the boars, said the boar population in Hong Kong has grown because of the depopulation of rural villages.
He said the boars appear to swim to the island where the golf courses are located and possibly communicate with each other over long distances.
”I have no idea how they get the message across that the smorgasbord is open and to take a swim over,” he said.
Dahmer said he does not think the boars will harm people.
”I have ever heard of an incident where a boar has killed a person, and you get wild boar all the way from Europe to the Pacific Ocean.
”There is always that element of risk that someone could just step on a boar that is sleeping or a sow protecting piglets, but it is a very, very remote possibility.”
A spokesperson for Hong Kong’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said: ”We are unhappy about wildlife being killed. However, if there are no other options, we hope it will be done in as humane a way as possible.”
Hong Kong’s Agriculture and Fisheries Department said it receives approximately 12 complaints a year about wild boars threatening people and property. — Sapa-DPA