The on-running road show that is The
Mystery Animals of Hong Kong Research Project has gone down another track-way
and appropriately enough ,being shortly after Easter as I write this, I have
come across stories of peacocks and feral rabbits in
But first of all, peacocks. Geoffrey
A.C. Herklots,in his ` Hong Kong Birds` (1967) mentions “One day I was shewn
(sic) in the New Territories near Sheung Shui a magnificient Peacock which had
recently been shot . It was probably an escape from captivity which had
flourished, for a time, as a wild bird” (1)
The next time peacocks turn up in
Hong Kong is in the 1950s or 1960s. According
to my correspondent Dennis Quong, who I found on the Peak School Hong Kong
Alumni web site, “ There were few pheasant, peacocks left in the
wild as they were easy to catch. You would see one occasionally.” By “left” he
means after World War 2. Quong went to Peak School
Quong continued ,in his e-mail to me of April
9th, “I remember porcupine needles/ badger rooting sites and remains
of rabbits and lots of various poop pellets from these animals. Don't remember
seeing any up close, just the sound of the scuffling and retreating posteriors
as they fled the marauding children. The wildlife had become quite adept at
avoiding the traps and safaris launched by humans and their progeny.” (2) I
myself lived on the Peak from c. 1966-85 and remember seeing once in the early
`70s a rabbit scurrying into the bush.
Later on April 9th Quong
told me: “The rabbits and peacocks were probably offspring of
escaped pets. The largest group of rabbits were around the demolished house
behind Little Peak School. The next large groups were on the slopes around
Matilda
Hospital Kowloon reservoir. There still is a troop of
rhesus monkeys there.
take care”
dennis (3)
take care”
dennis (3)
A Gwulo Hong Kong history web site contributor
mentioned, on April 10th that rabbits were sent to Hong Kong from England as
pets in the 1920s and 30s and she knew of a photo of a white one. But Quong
says that the ones he saw on The Peak were mottled and brown.
A map of The Peak,although dated 1915,shows both
Matilda
Hospital
There was an attempt to introduce rabbits onto
Stonecutters Island in the 19th Century,for hunting,but
this failed.Stonecutters Island barely exists as an island now, being fixed to
kowloon
- G.Herklots.
- E-mail from D.Quong to
R.Muirhead April 9th 2015
- Ibid.
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