Population control or wipeout? Hong Kong ‘buffalo mama’ worries for Lantau Island cows, wants sterilisation stopped
- Lantau has most of Hong Kong’s 180 water buffaloes, which are not endangered but loved by residents
- Authorities have been sterilising buffaloes after cases of people being injured by animals
A buffalo lover on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island is rallying residents to push back against the government’s plan to sterilise two female buffaloes there.
Jean Leung Siu-wah, known as “buffalo mama” in the community for feeding and taking care of the animals around Pui O in southern Lantau, is worried that those are the last fertile cows left in the area.
She has been encouraging residents and animal-lovers to petition the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) to halt its buffalo sterilisation programme.
“This is not population control,” she said as the Post accompanied her to feed the buffaloes in Pui O. “It seems to me they want to wipe out the population completely.”
Leung, who has been voluntarily caring for the buffaloes for 15 years, said there were 29 in Lo Uk Tsuen and another 24 in Shap Long, and she had names for all of them.
She was worried about five-year-old “Che-nui” from the Lo Uk Tsuen herd and four-year-old “Bu-bu” from the group at Shap Long. Both gave birth to calves in the past year.
“In the past two years, six of my baby buffaloes have died,” she said. “It is not easy for them to reach adulthood.”
