The Year of the Ox begins on Friday, and in the shadow of Hong Kong’s futuristic urban skyline, wild bovines are getting some love.
Cattle and water buffaloes embody hard work and serenity in the 12-animal Chinese zodiac, and were used on Hong Kong farms for centuries to plough rice fields, pull carts and provide milk and meat.
However, as farms began to shut down in the 1970s, many animals were abandoned, and their descendants became the wild cattle and buffalos commonly seen in rural Hong Kong.
Photo: Vincent Yu, AP
Ho Loy of the Lantau Buffalo Association and her team of volunteers dedicate most weekends to checking on the cattle that roam the biggest island within the territory of Hong Kong.
Starting in the middle of the morning, they distribute grass and hay bought with donated funds to various herds around the island.
“The animals are a very important part of our culture, of our regional planning — especially of our rural planning,” Ho said.
The animals provide an opportunity to explore “what that means to Hong Kongers about the nature, the remaining nature value in Hong Kong.”
The Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department estimates that there are about 1,100 brown cattle and 120 water buffalo distributed across the territory’s Lantau Island and rural parts of the New Territories, near the border with mainland China.
The Lantau Buffalo Association hopes to preserve the animals and their habitat, reduce friction with growing human communities and lobby for long-term environmental preservation policies.
While Hong Kong is best known for its neon-lit, densely packed urban environment, more than three-quarters of the remains green hills and forests.
Over her 14 years of caring for the animals, Ho, a Lantau resident, has come to know them well.
Water buffalo are “very shy, they spend most of the time in the wetland. So, preserving the wetland is one thing will help them to live healthy,” she said.
Cattle, on the other hand, are very sociable, especially if you have food.
“They will come and get your food and they are not scared of humans,” Ho said.
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