Email from Paul the Butterfly Man:

"We have found the second consecutive raid by wild animal(s) today in Lo So Shing. Fields, including my butterfly garden, were uprooted for sweet potato. Dozens of kgs of sweet potato were consumed overnight. They did not get the ability to find the sweet potato plant from smelling. It dug up my milkweed plants to find sweet potato.

"Similar raids on sweet potato fields have also happened in Mo Tat Wan and Tung O as early as last year. But no sighting was reported.

"Wild Boar? Maybe not. Villagers had never seen them around on Lamma.

"Pet animals escaped? No info yet.

"The tracks of their foot prints are attached in the following. Can somebody recognize them?"

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two reliable witnesses have, separately, reported seeing a wild boar on this island, about three years back. the footprints here look decidedly cloven, don't they?

Could be......... I saw a very clear cloven footprint in dried mud about 5 years ago up on the hills by the MST

Almost certainly a pig track, but looks more like a feral pig than a wild boar. The boar tracks have more deeply splayed and the dewclaw prints are more prominent.

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Some more photos from Paul, showing the damage:

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mmmmmmmm ......wild boar

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wooooooooooooooooh

I see this kind of rooting and these tracks all the time in the country parks and they look like wild pig to me. Although, the one track looks small, it certainly looks like a cloven-hooved creature.

A wild boar is a male feral pig; it is the same species as the pig you eat, Sus scrofa, though considered by some to be a different subspecies (if you believe in the whole concept of subspecies). These animals aren't native to Hong Kong but are the ancestors of pigs that escaped from captivity or were deliberately released many years ago. After a pig becomes feral, it doesn't take too many generations before individuals appear with the "wild" morphology, i.e. long tusks in males and very muscular bodies. It is funny to me that you can see reports of AFCD trying to protect their wild boar populations when this is an invasive species. As Paul's photos show, they can be terribly destructive to soil and vegetation. And they can also be dangerous to humans. When I see their tracks and rooting I look over my shoulder pretty regularly. One (or more) has scared some hikers in Tai Tam Country Park near Stanley in the past month.

So Nancy, you are saying that all 'wild' boar in HK are feral pigs i.e. domesticated, selectively bred pigs that have gone wild and reverted to a 'wild' morphology. What evolutionary pressures would drive this reversion to a wild phenotype and how long are we talking about here? When I studied Darwinian evolution, I understood that it was a very slow process indeed.

I've asked Dr. John of LAWC about this and he said that he had never seen a wild pig on Lamma, but that it's quite likely that there would be a few, especially in the south of our island.

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I don't know anything about this with regard to animals, but I know that when I've sewn the seeds of hybrid plants the offspring often look nothing lake the parents, having reverted to the wild phenotype. ie. smaller and less colourful flowers and smaller, tarter fruit.

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
----- Margaret Mead

That is correct; "wild boar" in HK are feral pigs. I think that some of the change in phenotype, such as the muscular build of wild pigs, has simply to do with going from lounging around and eating a lot as a pet or food pig to actually having to ensure their own survival. They probably find a lot less to eat, rooting on their own, and get a lot more exercise than when in captivity. I am not sure about the tusks in males, as I am certainly no pig expert. I suspect non-breeding pigs are neutered and the loss of testosterone may inhibit growth of tusks in captive pigs or maybe they don't have them at all. Loss of testosterone probably prevents the muscular build of the shoulders that wild pigs have. This I don't know for sure, though. I tried to find out how many generations are required before the wild phenotype emerges but my best evolution reference book is at the university. I will let you know if I find out; I am curious myself about this.

Yes, when I took evolution in college many years ago I learned the same - that evolutionary processes took thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. We are now finding that for many species, especially those with exponential growth rates (i.e. bacteria and some other organisms) and/or short generation times, that selection can occur within several generations. A few studies of amphibians have shown that adaptation (selection) has occured within about 40 years in response to habitat change, which amounts to about 8-12 generations for the particular species studied.

You might be interested in this, if you haven't seen it already. Dawkins bangs on about atheism a lot, but the Darwin stuff is quite interesting. I particularly like the piano keyboard analogy:

http://smashingtelly.com/category/science/page/2/

Which actually explains why domestic animals quickly revert to their wild forms. The "wild" traits still exist and present in each generation, in domesticated livestock these are killed, or just not allowed to breed. Without human artificial selection, the wild characteristics will naturally prevail over the traits prized by farmers. (Being docile and fat might be good for a porker, not one which has to forage for itself.)

Foxy, thanks for the link; I will check this out.

Alan, agreed. I read last night that it is indeed the neutering that inhibits the growth of the canines (the "tusks") in captive pigs. Most porkers would have razor-sharp tusks if they weren't neutered and these canines are what make feral pigs so dangerous.

So natural selection may not have such a large effect on the morphology of these animals; much of it is probably do to "farmer selection" as Alan suggests.

Having watched Dawkins again, I think the answer lies in Darwin's pigeons. As with all domestic breeds, they are a product of artificial rather than natural selection. As such, they are not selected by survival and reproductive vigour. Hence the much shorter period to 'evolve' and presumably the equally rapid reversion to the wild phenotype in the absence of artificial selection.

I think there is also the question of hybridization - as with plants, many F1 hybrids are specific crosses contrived to exhibit some special quality desirable to man which is not present in either parent, but when these hybrids are bred with one another, that sepcial trait may be obscured by dominant genes, and the ancestral phenotype is more likely to re-emerge in the reassortment - an altogether different process from gradual natural selection of breeding populations.

AFCD, police and our village representative came over for an investigation this morning. Four of the damaged sweet potato fields and some vegetable and flower gardens were inspected.
The wild boar problem is getting more common and regular in most parts of HK, even on remote islands such as Kau Sai Chau and Tung Lung Chau.
According to our experts, wild boars are very good swimmers! There was report of them swimming in middle of the sea. So, watch out, one day the wild boars might swimming alongside with Hong Kong Pink Dolphins on Lamma Channel.
To solve the problem, leaflet from AFCD recommends fencing ( normal and electric ) and lighting installations. Licensed hunting team will be call in when the wild boars come too often. ( Interesting link shows wild boar hunting: Hunting wild-pig (Boar) team Hong Kong http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=mfvkBU6Nato ) Keep away when you see them in the evening. They might be big animals of 250kgs. Call 1823 for reporting, 999 in danger.

Maybe we could invite Sarah Palin to come over and shoot a few - I hear she's a pretty good shot, and she may be looking for a job

Pig/boar sighting in North Lamma! Email from Laurence the Shaman:

"alas no pictures, this thing was moving fast, charged across my path about 20 foot away from me, it was large, fat, dark brown, hairy and with a convex curve in its back,

there was a real raw primal feel to it, so unexpected that I thought a portal had opened from the twilight zone, pretty awesome actually!

well, it was on cable road, just past the bridge that links snake path, that's near where I saw you the other day.... so go down the windmill lookout hill until cable road then turn left for about 150 yards maybe...does that make sense"

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Well, let's hope it isn't a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdVNwUp0l0E">Razorback.</a>

<img src="http://wherethelongtailends.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/razorback.jpg">