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To feed or not to feed that is the question Bella Huang reports on the grass-feeding dilemma of Sai Kung’s feral cattle With an influx of visitors to the town over the past year, many of Sai Kung’s beloved cattle have been left with nothing to eat. You may remember a story from our January issue about Tap Mun Island running out of grass, the situation has not improved and many have decided to take matters into their own hands. Catson, a volunteer from Hong Kong Cattle Ranger, has resorted to bringing fresh bags of hay and cut grass to the town several times a week for the feral cattle. “The cattle are living in the desert. There’s no grass for them at all,” she says. “We don’t come on a regular basis and the cattle don’t have enough food to eat most of the time. I just hope they can have a fulfilling meal every time I go.” Prior to becoming a popular countryside retreat for busy city dwellers, Sai Kung was
home to a farming and fishing community, where cattle were domesticated to help plough paddy fields. Along with rapid economic development in the past decades, the local agricultural industry declined and many cattle were abandoned. As these animals wander around in the area, local authorities from time to time receive cattlerelated nuisance reports such as traffic disturbance and crop damage. To tackle the complaints and stabilise the cattle population in 2011 the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) launched the “Capture-SterilisationRelocation” programme. Its Cattle Management Team implements surgical sterilisation on healthy cattle and upon recovery, the cattle are relocated to nearby
Country Park area to minimise nuisance to the public. According to AFCD, currently, there are more than 1,000 cows in Hong Kong. Between 2012 and 2016, 453 were relocated. Fanny, a volunteer from Sai Kung Shap Sze Heung Cattle Concern Group, says once she saw a three-month-old young calf being taken by AFCD for injury treatment and later relocated to Chong Hing, separated from the mother cow. The officers assured her that Chong Hing is a more optimal place for the calf to live. However, worried about the injured young cattle, Fanny decided to visit Chong Hing herself. “The place is shocking to me at the first sight. There’s nowhere more barren than here. You can’t even see any grass at all. The cattle are so skinny that you can almost see their skeleton,” says Fanny. “There’s no grass in Chong Hing, so we bring grass to them. Also because we don’t want them to eat trash. Neither do we want them to beg visitors for human food.” While many organisations have good intentions for feeding the feral cattle, founder of Sai Kung Buffalo Watch, Karina O’Carroll believes grass-feeding behavior does more harm than good to the cattle. “It seems to be a vicious cycle. Bringing hay in garbage and plastic bags teaches cows to associate that these bags (and humans) equals food, so cattle are beginning to rummage in bins looking for hay,” says O’Carroll. Additionally, because volunteers often take taxis to bring in food, it is likely that the cattle associate vehicles with food, according to O’Carroll, which could possibly explain why cattle have recently been chasing cars and taxis in Sai Kung. Dr. Fiona Woodhouse, SPCA Deputy Director in Welfare Services, says she is not completely against grass feeding and that properly monitored feeding can sometimes be beneficial. Still, Woodhouse suggests a more measured approach when it comes to feeding wild animals, “it’s possible that feeding the cattle grass would change their diet habit. It should be more carefully monitored and managed by the AFCD cattle team,” she says. The AFCD points out that the size of Sai Kung Country Park is over 7,000 hectares with sufficient natural resources for the cattle, who have lived in the wild for decades. “They are capable of foraging in the wild, regardless of locations, seasons and weathers,” AFCD responds in an email enquiry, “on the contrary, human feeding may change their natural behaviour and survival instinct and encourage them to beg for food from humans.” Regardless of what side you take there is one thing we can all agree on, we need to protect Hong Kong’s countryside and wildlife before it’s too late.
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