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Marshall, P.
Hong Kong mammals
Book Chapter
Hong Kong is situated on the borders between the Holarctic and Oriental regions, and its fauna is of interest in that it contains animals from both the Holarctic, such as the fox, and from the Orient such as the pangolin and the civets. Back in the 10th century, Hong Kong was covered in dense tropical rain forest. After its settlement, settlers were harassed by wild beasts such as elephants, rhinos, tigers, leopards and wolves from the forest. For fuel and to discourage the wild animals, drastic deforrestation was carried out. Presently, eight orders of living placental mammals are represented. Before 1940, tigers often visited Hong Kong but they have not been seen now for many years. The last one was shot at Stanley during the war. The Shing Mun tiger of May 1965 has the characteristics of a well-planned hoax. Leopard also visited the Colony until fairly recently. The last sighting of a leopard was in 1957 and shortly afterwards one was shot 8 miles inland from Sha Tau Kok (probably the same individual). There are only a few tiger-cats or Chinese leopard cats surviving. There are probably none on Hong Kong Island.
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