The Government today gazetted an amendment notice to expand the places where feeding wild animals is prohibited to the entire area of Hong Kong, with a view to preventing wild animals, in particular wild pigs, from losing their ability to forage in the wild.

The Prohibition of Feeding of Wild Animals Notice 1999 (Amendment) Notice 2022 will be tabled at the Legislative Council on November 9 for negative vetting and come into effect on December 31.

The Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department pointed out that feeding is the main cause of wild pig nuisance in recent years.

To effectively control such nuisance, apart from conducting capture and humane dispatch operations to reduce the number of wild pigs at nuisance sites, the Government also needs to curb wild pig feeding activities, thereby reducing the incentives that attract wild pigs to linger in urban areas and near residential areas.

Currently, the coverage of the feeding ban area under the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance only includes the Lion Rock, Kam Shan and Shing Mun country parks, as well as part of the Tai Mo Shan Country Park and Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve.

As such, the department considered it necessary to expand the feeding ban area to cover the entire city in order to step up the control of wild animal feeding activities, particularly the feeding of wild pigs.

After the area's expansion, anyone without a special permit feeding any wild animal, including wild pigs, at any place in Hong Kong could be prosecuted.

The department anticipates that the nuisance caused by feeding wild pigs will decrease substantially, while wild pigs' reliance on feeding by humans can be reduced.

Meanwhile, the department said it would cope with the possible increase in enforcement work through internal resource redeployment and a risk-based enforcement strategy.

It is also planning to amend the ordinance to increase the penalty for illegal feeding of wild animals and introduce a fixed penalty to enhance the overall deterrent effect, so as to further curb wild pig feeding activities.