Year of the Pig 2019

[GeneChing]

China’s box office takes world-record US$1.66 billion in February as Lunar New Year hits like The Wandering Earth pack cinemas
Chinese theatres generated 11.1 billion yuan in ticket sales, with space-exploration film The Wandering Earth proving the biggest draw
Pearl Liu
Updated: Tuesday, 5 Mar, 2019 6:03am


A scene from Chinese sci-fi movie The Wandering Earth. Photo: China Film Group Corporation

China’s box office receipts soared to a world-record 11.1 billion yuan (US$1.66 billion) in February as film fans flocked to cinemas to catch The Wandering Earth and other blockbusters during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The sales figure, provided by Maoyan Entertainment, China’s biggest movie ticketing app, is the highest ever recorded in a single month anywhere, and beats the previous record of 10.1 billion yuan set by China in the same month a year earlier.
It was well over three times the total revenue of North American theatres in February, which was US$478.5 million (3.2 billion yuan) according to Box Office Mojo.
The ticket revenue was generated by 12 films during the month, with by far the biggest boost coming from the holiday period from February 4 to 10. Traditionally a time for friends and family to come together, the Lunar New Year has become something of a golden period for film releases in China.
The total box office during the festivities, contributed by eight movies, reached 5.8 billion yuan, inching up slightly from 5.74 billion yuan in 2018, according to data from Maoyan.
By far the biggest draw was the Chinese space-exploration film, The Wandering Earth, a surprise box-office hit, which has raked in 4.45 billion yuan since its Lunar New Year debut.
“The success of the film signals that Chinese audiences have become more discerning, which has elevated the Chinese movie market to a more diversified and mature stage,” said Wu Chaoze, an analyst with China Securities who expects to see healthy growth of the market.
The movie, adapted from a novella by Hugo award-winning sci-fi author Liu Cixin and produced by China Film Group Corporation, became China’s second highest-grossing film after the 2017 action movie Wolf Warrior 2, which earned 5.68 billion yuan.
IMAX to show more Chinese-language films after sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth sets box office record
Starring popular comedian Huang Bo and Glee actor Matthew Morrison, Crazy Alien ranked the second most popular film in February, taking 2.18 billion yuan. That was followed by Pegasus, directed and written by the famous
China is already the second largest movie market in the world after the US, with box office proceeds reaching 60.98 billion yuan in 2018, up 9 per cent from the previous year.
China’s box office takings in January came to 3.37 billion yuan. By comparison, North American cinemas took US$385.6 million in January (2.6 billion yuan), according to Box Office Mojo.

THREADS
Wandering Earth
Spring Festival
Chollywood rising

[GeneChing]

HK Wild Boars for Year of the Pig

To confront a wild boar invasion, Hong Kong turns to birth control
By ALICE SU
MAR 19, 2019 | 3:00 AM
| HONG KONG


A man walks past wild boars in Hong Kong's Aberdeen Park in January. (Anthony Wallace / AFP/ Getty Images)
Out of the darkness appeared a snout.

“Fei zhu! Fat pig!” 8-year-old Shino Chen shouted to her younger brother as she jumped up and down and pointed at a wild boar.

The hairy black pig, which must have weighed at least 150 pounds, grunted and snuffled through a flimsy, old fence along the sidewalk. The children tiptoed toward the animal then sprinted back to their father’s side.

Kenneth Chen, 44, and his children visit the boars almost every night. All they have to do is step out of their apartment here in the neighborhood of Tai Wai, located on the fringes of an ever-expanding metropolis.

“I bring my kids to see a natural habitat because they seldom get to see live animals in Hong Kong,” Chen said.

Hong Kong’s 7.4 million residents spend most of their days rushing between high-rises, metro stations, tiny apartments and air-conditioned offices. People occupy less than a quarter of the 426-square-mile region, making its urban core one of the most densely populated places in the world.

The rest of Hong Kong belongs to monkeys, snakes, porcupines, boars and other wildlife.

The city is a concrete jungle in the middle of an actual jungle.

Now, as urban areas sprawl into the surrounding hills, Hong Kong is struggling to contain a wild boar problem.

A man walks past a wild boar in Hong Kong's Aberdeen Park. (Anthony Wallace / AFP / Getty Images)

The pigs are everywhere: sprinting down the highway, digging into dumpsters, falling through the ceiling of a children’s clothing store, sauntering into metro stations, taking over barbecues, confronting police at the airport, even swimming across the balmy bays of Hong Kong Island.

No one has conducted a census to determine the actual number of wild boars in Hong Kong. But encounters reported to local authorities have more than doubled in the last five years, from 294 in 2013 to 679 in the first 10 months of 2018 alone.

There have also been injuries: A 70-year-old man was hospitalized last week after he threw a stone at a wild boar and the animal retaliated by biting him.

The classic solution for boar overpopulation in most places, including California, is hunting. Hong Kong once licensed hunters to kill boars, especially in rural areas where farmers often complained about the animals uprooting their crops.

Boars have also provoked anger for lurking around cemeteries, waiting to eat food that people leave on graves to honor deceased relatives in accordance with Chinese tradition.

But Hong Kong’s government suspended boar hunting in 2017 in response to an outcry by animal rights activists.

Roni Wong, the 35-year-old founder of the Hong Kong Wild Boar Concern Group, has spearheaded public confrontations with hunters, shouting at them to desist from harming the pigs.

“It is very cruel, not civilized behavior to do that,” Wong explained.

He says that humans and boars can peacefully coexist as long as people follow a few basic rules: “We always educate the public, don’t feed the wild boars or make them angry. Just leave them and they won’t attack.”

On the other side of the debate are activists who say defenders of the boars are naive.

“They actually have absolutely no idea how dangerous these animals are,” said Wesley Ho, spokesman for Feral Pig Hong Kong, a group formed last year to demand stronger action against the pigs.


Hong Kong residents take a photo in front of a wild boar at a park. (Vincent Yu / Associated Press)

Killing boars isn’t wrong when it’s necessary for protection, he said.

“They may not attack 100 times, but the 101st time, they could, and those attacks could be fatal,” Ho said. “No matter what, human lives are the most precious thing. They come first in any case.”

He said many Hong Kongers are afraid to go camping or have picnics, because gluttonous boars are encroaching on human space and stealing food. “Looking at them, they’re so fat,” he said. “How hungry can they be?”

Searching for a compromise, politicians have suggested different tactics for the boar problem, including introducing natural predators into Hong Kong or sending the boars to nearby islands.

But wild boars are strong swimmers, and their predators — tigers and wolves, among other carnivores — wouldn't exactly fit the urban landscape either.

For now, the city’s solution is birth control.

A team of veterinarians recently launched a two-year pilot sterilization program that starts with tracking down boars and shooting them with tranquilizer darts.

It takes 15 minutes for the darts to kick in, giving the hogs ample time to freak out before they collapse.

“Sometimes it’s in the middle of the city center, like a big pig in a small area and it’s very challenging,” said Karthi Martelli, one of the vets.

Then the females are injected with a 3-year contraceptive and, along with the males, released back into Hong Kong’s country parks.

It’s not a perfect system, Martelli acknowledged. But so far nobody has invented a more humane option.

“Can you imagine caging a [330-pound] wild boar?” she said. “They have tusks. There is no real cage that can hold them for a few days. So we need to come up with a method of sterilization that’s minimally invasive.”

The biggest problem in Hong Kong is not that boars or humans are hurting each other, she said, but that too many people find the pigs adorable and decide to feed them.

It doesn’t help that 2019 is the Chinese Year of the Pig and that some consider boar sightings a sign of good luck and prosperity.

“It was really cute once upon a time, but I mean, wild pigs running loose in a city center is not very exciting anymore,” Martelli said.

Her husband, Paolo Martelli, who is also a veterinarian, pointed out that the invading species is the human, not the boar.

“They’ve always been here,” he said.

Now the boars are eating more, reproducing more, and living an unhealthy urbanized life, Karthi Martelli added: “It’s a man-made problem but the pigs are paying the price.”

Her advice: The best way of protecting animal and human alike is to disengage.

But that is becoming harder as development presses into the wild lands.

With more people moving to Hong Kong from other parts of China, developers built 21,000 new homes last year, the most in 14 years.

Many were in the New Territories, a largely rural area that stretches north to mainland China. New train routes are also under construction, carving deeper into areas once inhabited only by wildlife.

Tai Wai, which is in the New Territories, was a farming village until the late 1970s. There are signs warning people not to bother the animals, but not everybody obeys.

As the Chen family marveled at one boar, another local resident, 36-year-old Wai-ling Tang, came walking down the street when she was startled by another boar wiggling toward the fence, which was only about 50 feet long and had a boar-sized hole at the bottom.

Tang gasped and jumped to the side, arcing wide around the sidewalk.

“They’re too close,” Tang said. “They should move back up the mountain.”

The boars seemed to be getting bolder every day, at times wandering into the road.

It didn’t help that her husband occasionally fed them cheap apples from the supermarket. Tang was not happy about that.

“He treats the pigs better than he treats me!” she said.

[GeneChing]

Pig Steals Campers Beer, Gets Drunk & Starts a Fight With a Cow
By Doug Williams
Publish Date: Apr 24, 2019



Some folks get extra cheerful when they’ve had a few too many pints of lager, and some folks get a little cranky or downright depressed. Still others lose all sense of propriety and good manners, and get sloppy and silly with anyone in their midst.

But who knew that pigs – yup, that’s right, pigs – could be among the ranks of those who get ill-mannered and mean spirited when they’ve had a few?

That’s exactly what happened in Australia in 2013, when a pig, a wild pig that is, got into the sauce, got drunk and started a fight with a barnyard buddy – a cow.

It all started when some careless campers left out their supply of hooch – 18 cans of beer, to be precise – and the errant pig decided to help himself to the sudsy stash.

The campers at Port Hedland, near the DeGrey River, were tucked away in their tents for the night when, the next thing they knew, the feral porker was snout-deep into their beer.


“Swino” Following his rampage he decided to swim out into the middle of a river before collapsing drunk under a tree and falling asleep. Credit Merida

It soon started exhibiting bad manners and loutish behaviour, including picking on a nearby cow. After slurping down the liquid gold, this little piggy went to the garbage bins and began rooting around for a late night snack.

When he was finally finished boozing it up, eating, and generally causing pandemonium at the campsite, he took a dip in the river and then passed out for a post-gorge snooze under a nearby tree.

One stunned camper told ABC News, “It was in the middle of the night, and it was these people opposite us (who) heard this crunching of the can, and they got their torch out and shone it on the pig and there he was, crunching away at their cans.”

Furthermore, the witness to these porcine shenanigans said, “Then he went and raided their rubbish…then there were some other people camped right on the edge of the river, and they saw him running around their vehicle being chased by a cow. Apparently, the pig showed up several nights in a row, causing chaos and helping himself to anything he could find to “pig out” on.

“It was coming…for a couple of days, but we didn’t see it this morning or last night,” said the witness, who gave only her first name, Merida, to the TV station.

But while the beast was showing up, it was very entertaining, the camper said. “It was going around and around, and then it went into the river and swam across to the middle… the people that were camped on the river went across and crept up on it, and it was hiding, and sleeping under a big log right on the edge of the water.”

Unfortunately, the pig, whom Australians had nicknamed “Swino,” came to an inglorious end not long after his drunken outburst at the campground. A roadwork employee confirmed for the website Gawker that he had been found dead, the victim of a collision with a vehicle.

He was found not far from the campsite at which he had created such havoc. The worker, Fionna Findley, was sure it was “Swino” because of the unusual markings he had on his ears.

It’s an all too common fate for wild pigs in Australia, who are considered an invasive species and are not usually welcome, their amusing antics notwithstanding.

According to an article in the Guardian, “feral pigs are considered an invasive pest in many parts of Australia, owing to the diseases they carry, which can infect livestock. They also damage crops and compete with natural species for food.”

Poor “Swino” may not be mourned by officials in Australia, but his drunken rampages will live forever online. All the little guy wanted was a cold brew and a wee snack, but when the pig tried drunkenly to cross the road, the cars were just too much for him.

This is how we should all approach the Year of the Pig...

[GeneChing]

JULY 12, 2019 / 4:06 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO
China vows to tackle dead pig scam amid swine fever epidemic
2 MIN READ


FILE PHOTO: Piglets are seen by a sow at a pig farm in Zhoukou, Henan province, China June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

BEIJING (Reuters) - Criminal gangs in China are faking outbreaks of African swine fever on farms free of the disease and forcing farmers to sell their healthy pigs at sharply lower prices, the agriculture ministry said on Friday.

The gangs are taking advantage of a highly contagious disease that has spread across much of the country and disrupted the world’s biggest pork market.

The scam involves dumping dead pigs on farms and then spreading rumors that the farms are infected with African swine fever, which is often fatal for pigs but harmless for humans.

The gangs then pressure farmers to sell their hogs at lower prices, violating farmers’ rights and affecting normal pig production, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement.

The ministry did not give more details but it urged anyone who witnessed such activities to alert the authorities.

“All localities should be vigilant and actively guard against it,” it said.

Up to half of China’s breeding pigs have either died from African swine fever or been slaughtered because of the spreading disease, twice as many as officially acknowledged, Reuters reported last month.

Reporting by Tom Daly; editing by Darren Schuettler

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!!
Year of the Pig 2019

[GeneChing]

A miserable Year of the Pig for China’s hogs is godsend for American farmers
Outlook for China’s hog farming sector is bleak, as the overall herd size is forecast to fall 20 per cent this year and a further 10 per cent next year
US pork exports to China doubled in the second quarter to 60,898 tonnes from a year earlier
Eric Ng
Published: 2:30am, 17 Aug, 2019


Illustration by SCMP

In China, pigs symbolise wealth. And 2019, being the Year of the Pig, was supposed to be a great year to make money. Instead, the nation’s 26 million hog farmers are battling the deadly African swine fever epidemic that is in its second year now.
The virus, harmless to humans, has spread across 32 of the nation’s 34 administrative regions since the outbreak was first reported in August 2018, affecting a large portion of the nation’s 348 million strong swine inventory, according to Rabobank.
“We estimate China’s current herd loss is 40 per cent year on year, which may expand to over 50 per cent by year-end,” the Dutch bank said in a report last month. “We expect an additional 10 to 15 per cent decline in both herd and pork production in 2020.”
The outbreak, which has wiped out 20 per cent of the planet’s hog herd, is pushing the Chinese government to look for imports from the US, Europe and Brazil, and substitutes such as beef, poultry, fish and even plant-based protein.


Piglets at a farm in Yiyang county, in China’s central Henan province. Photo: AFP

The highly contagious disease that kills all pigs and wild boars it infects was originally restricted to Africa. In 2007, it was first seen in Georgia at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. It has since spread westwards to eastern and central Europe and eastward to Asia, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
After infecting hogs in China last year, it has moved this year into farms in Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. There is no cure.
While vaccine candidates are being evaluated in laboratories in several nations including China, a cure is still several years away, said Dirk Pfeiffer, a professor at City University’s Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences in Hong Kong.
Mainland China had lost 26.7 per cent of its breeding sows by the end of June from a year earlier based on the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ tally.
The effect of a major decline in new pig births began to surface this summer, after hog supply initially rose and suppressed pork prices before sick pigs were culled to contain the epidemic.
Hog prices have risen 80 per cent this month from their lows in February to around 19 yuan a catty (US$2.70 for 600 grams). The prices are up some 46 per cent before the epidemic broke out.
As pork – a staple in China – is the leading driver of food prices, consumer price inflation rose a higher than expected 2.8 per cent last month and could breach 3 per cent in the months ahead, Nomura economists said in a note.


SCMP Graphics

This complicates the task of policymakers in Beijing who are already dealing with slowing economic growth amid an escalating trade war with the US.
China, which produces and consumes roughly half of the world’s pork, has been largely self-sufficient before the epidemic.
But the Chinese hog farming sector’s outlook is bleak, as the overall herd size is forecast to fall 20 per cent this year and a further 10 per cent next year, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture.
A 6.2 per cent year on year fall in domestic hog supply in the first half meant the slaughtering and meat processing industry imported 818,702 tonnes of pork – 26.3 per cent higher year on year – to meet demand, according to government statistics.
Even the US, the world’s second largest pork producer and the largest exporter that is in the midst of a trade war with China, has helped to plug the supply gap in the past few months. Exports to China in the second quarter doubled year-on-year to 60,898 tonnes, according to the US Meat Export Federation.


SCMP Graphics

This was made possible by a sharp increase in prices in China and depressed US prices because of excess supply, which helped to offset a 62 per cent import duty slapped by Beijing on US pork exports.
Meanwhile, US production is expected to grow 5.5 per cent year on year in the second half, thanks to a large breeding herd and higher productivity, according to Rabobank’s forecast.
This is bodes well for Hong Kong-listed WH Group, the world’s largest pork producer, which has been caught in the middle of the trade war.
Besides controlling China’s largest hog slaughtering and packaged pork facilities, WH also owns Virginia-based Smithfield Foods – the top US hog producer and pork processor – which it acquired in 2013.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

WH Group chairman Wan Long (centre) said his company would increase pork imports from Europe and South America to hedge the risk of Chinese tariffs on US exports. Photo: Jonathan Wong

WH Group chairman Wan Long said on Tuesday to ensure it has enough supply to meet Chinese demand, the firm would increase imports from Europe and South America to hedge the risk of Chinese tariffs on US pork.
At the same time, Smithfield’s chief financial officer Glenn Nunziata said that while rising Chinese price premium over US prices is favourable for more fresh pork exports to China, the firm will also work on expanding sales to Mexico, Japan and South Korea as a backup.
A de-escalating of tensions would certainly help WH Group and other US pork suppliers.
But the trade appeared to have hit a massive hurdle this month when Beijing retaliated against US President Donald Trump’s move to impose 10 per cent tariff on US$300 billion by suspending purchase of US agricultural products.


Some of Smithfield Foods’ pork products, which is owned by Hong Kong-listed WH Group. Photo: Reuters

David Ortega, an agricultural economist with Michigan State University, said that the US, as the world’s top pork exporter, could nevertheless help satisfy Chinese demand.
“The rise in domestic Chinese pork prices can offset some of the tariff’s impact, but there is a lot of uncertainty as the trade negotiation is fairly fluid … other pork exporters like the EU and Brazil are positioning themselves to meet Chinese demand,” Ortega said.
Canada, another major pork exporter, has sent 217,193 tonnes to China in the first six months, up 50 per cent from last year, according to Canada’s Agriculture and Agri-Food Department.
However, since June 25 China has stopped accepting meat from Canada after a pork shipment was found to contain ractopamine, a banned feed additive.
The Canadian government said the shipment probably came from a third country and the certificate might have been falsified.


Relations between China and Canada have cooled since Huawei Technologies’ CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver last December. Photo: The Canadian Press via AP

Relations between Canada and China rapidly soured last December after Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was detained on US charges relating to alleged violation of sanctions on Iran.
Other nations have also cashed in on opportunities.
Exports from the European Union – led by Germany, Spain and Denmark – in the year’s first five months surged 52 per cent year on year to 432,293 tonnes, while exports from Brazil in the first half gained 28.9 per cent to 92,188 tonnes, according to Darin Friedrichs, a Shanghai-based analyst at commodities brokerage INTL FCStone.
He expected the US to be the biggest potential source of additional pork supply to China as Canada has been banned and Europe only has limited extra supply, adding that negotiations for more supply from Brazil were ongoing.
However, even as China increases pork imports, he said there were bottlenecks that need to be addressed.
“A lot of the infrastructure isn’t built for frozen or chilled pork … it is for live hog that is killed close to the market,” he said.
Besides pork, China has also lifted chicken and beef imports by around 50 per cent in the first half from a year ago.
Friedrichs said that in the long term, small pig farms were expected to be phased out, while larger ones will deepen vertical integration into downstream slaughtering and processing so that hogs can avoid exposure to the virus.
This was likely to speed up industry consolidation, he added, noting Beijing has been offering farmers in northeast China subsidies to build larger facilities integrating breeding and slaughtering.


Darin Friedrichs, a Shanghai-based analyst at commodities brokerage INTL FCStone, says China’s pig farming sector will see consolidation. Photo: Handout

For leading Chinese companies that have capacity to expand, the future looks bright.
Shenzhen-listed Muyuan Foodstuff, China’s second largest pork producer that sold 11 million heads of hogs last year, said in July that it expected to post a net profit of between 376 million yuan and 396 million yuan in the second quarter on the back of higher prices, after a loss of 145 million yuan in the first quarter.
The epidemic has not derailed its aggressive target to boost production to 14 million heads this year, according to a report from brokerage Changjiang Securities.
Still, Pfeiffer of City University, said it will be a long road to recovery for the industry because of the sheer density of farms in China and poor biosecurity behaviour in the entire chain right from farmers to slaughterhouse staff.
“It would be a miracle if African swine fever can be controlled, let alone eradicated, within the next five to 10 years,” he said.

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!!
Year of the Pig 2019
Trade War

[GeneChing]

Thought this was the year of the earth pig...

Opinion
The year of being water – a Chinese astrological reading of Hong Kong in a challenging hour
It has been a turbulent Year of the Pig for Hong Kong. But believe it or not, an era of tender loving governance may be just round the corner
Foong Woei Wan
Published: 10:30am, 24 Aug, 2019


Protesters on the march during a rally in Hong Kong on August 18. The water represented by a Pig year could have been a boon for Hong Kong, a Wood Dragon, but there is such a thing as too much water. Photo: AFP

A violent storm blows through Hong Kong with an unprecedented intensity, leaving a trail of broken glass, blocked roads and traffic disruptions, and the government comes under fire for failing to manage the situation.
That would be Super Typhoon Mangkhut, which hit the city on September 16 last year – a Pig day with an unusually forceful element of water, according to the Chinese almanac. But it could as easily be the protest actions that have engulfed Hong Kong this year, which happens to be a Pig year with an underlying element of water.
I am neither a fortune-teller nor a feng shui expert. I’m just a civilian who takes a geeky interest in Chinese cosmology, its poetic possibilities and its understanding of the interconnection of all things. Much ink has been spilled on how Hong Kong should move forward, but perhaps it would be useful to start from the beginning and see the city through the prism of ba zi, the age-old practice of analysing the eight characters denoting a birth time.
In Chinese astrology, hours, days, months, years and even decades follow the zodiac cycle. Hong Kong was reborn as a special administrative region of China on July 1, 1997, a Wood Dragon day, which makes it a wood sign. More precisely, it is a tree growing in wet, fertile earth, and its birth chart is a picture of a thriving forest: trees, a little stream, soil, sparks, starlight, sunshine.
When you are a wood sign, a suitable amount of water makes your world go round – it is mother’s milk, love and luck. Wood fuels fire or light, which is your productivity, and fire produces ash or earth, which is your money.
For a tree planted in the withering heat of summer, Hong Kong is in an enviable position. Although this Wood Dragon is flanked in the ba zi chart by a Wood Rat, a lucky tree that is even closer to the stream, there is enough water to go around and keep everyone fairly happy. (Could the other tree be Singapore or some other city? Your guess is as good as mine.) Besides, Hong Kong is capable. It keeps a little ecosystem running by tapping into water, radiating heat and producing earth to sink roots into. So far so viable, right?
But we need to talk about metal: an element that is virtually non-existent in Hong Kong’s chart, yet is making its presence felt in the city’s life. Metal symbolises structure. With regard to a tree, it is a controlling element that could take the form of an axe or shears; it could be a woodcutter or a gardener; it could be a boss.
Hong Kong is, by nature, a free spirit. In the forest it was planted in, there was no danger of being cut down for firewood or even having its leaves trimmed. Moreover, the fire in Hong Kong’s chart keeps it safe. Fire has no fear of metal, just as a resourceful employee has no fear of a stressful boss.
Yet, the water in Hong Kong’s chart needs metal. Metal is the surface on which water forms, just as order becomes a support for liveability.
Here, Hong Kong faces a paradox. In the Chinese zodiac, the Monkey and the Rooster represent big and small metal objects like axe blades and shears, respectively. By the alchemical logic of Chinese cosmology, it is the Monkey, not the Rooster, that bonds with the Dragon and Rat in Hong Kong’s chart to form more water – more luck to feed into the city.
However, think again of the axe-swinging woodcutter and the tree-pruning gardener. One is efficient, the other is patient. One wants the forest to thrive so there is more wood to be cut and more money to be made; the other wants the trees to thrive. Who would be a better boss?
Hong Kong has been in a Monkey luck cycle since 2009, but is moving into a Rooster decade next year. A gentler era might be just round the corner.
And what of this year? Why hasn’t it felt like a lucky year, despite the powerful presence of water symbolised by the Pig? Well, for a tree, real or imagined, there can be such a thing as too much water. In Chinese cosmology, water is a metaphor for the fluidity of thought, but also the rush of fear. However, fear is not Hong Kong’s style. I, for one, choose to believe the city can brainstorm its way out of this year.

Foong Woei Wan is a production editor at the Post

THREADS
Year of the Pig 2019
Chinese Zodiac

[GeneChing]

African swine fever: Boar with virus found in demilitarised zone
6 hours ago


EPA
More than six million pigs have been culled in Asia after the virus was discovered

A boar with African swine fever has been found dead in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas.

The virus was only discovered in South Korea recently, and there was speculation it arrived via pigs crossing the heavily-guarded DMZ.

North Korea first recorded ASF in May, and the South made great efforts to keep it out, including border fences.

Despite its name, the DMZ is one of the world's most fortified places.

It is a 4km-wide (2.5 miles) strip of land, laden with landmines, that is a buffer zone between North and South Korea.

More than 10,000 pigs have died or been culled in the South since ASF was discovered. More than six million pigs have been culled overall in Asia.

What is African swine fever?

The virus is not dangerous to humans, but is highly contagious - and incurable - in boars and pigs. According to the UN, the fatality rate is "up to 100%".

It emerged in East Africa in the early 1990s, moved through sub-Saharan Africa, and has also been recorded in Europe.

In August 2018, China - which has half the world's pigs, and where pork is often a staple food - confirmed an outbreak of ASF.

Since then, more than one million pigs have been culled in China, plus more than five million in Vietnam. Farmers in China have been promised compensation for culled pigs worth a minimum of 80% of the market price.

The number of pigs is down by about 40% in China, the AFP news agency reported, and the price of pork is up by at least half.

China has sold 30,000 tonnes from its pork reserves in an effort to increase supply and hold down prices.

Mongolia, the Philippines, Laos, have also culled tens of thousands of pigs in total.

EPA
Animal rights activists in Seoul called for an end to the cull on Wednesday

What is the situation in North and South Korea?

The first case of ASF was recorded in North Korea in May. The scale of the outbreak is not known, but South Korea believes the north raises around 2.6m pigs across 14 state-run farms.

Kim Jun-young, from the Korean Veterinary Medical Association in the south, said it was possible the virus had spread through the North, either through the sale of infected meat, or vultures eating infected carcasses.

In June, Seoul said the disease was "highly likely" to enter the country from the North and ordered fences to be built at farms along the border. The South offered quarantine and medical assistance to the North, but had no response.

The South Korean military was authorised to kill any wild boars seen crossing the DMZ.

Despite the precautions, South Korea reported its first case on 17 September - with the total now at 13 - and has culled around 15,000 pigs in response. There are around 6,700 pig farms in South Korea.

Officials are braced for a further spread of ASF with the arrival Typhoon Mitag, which has already led to deaths of six people in the south.

It's fascinating how Swine Fever has flourished in the Year of the Pig. Makes me wonder what next year will bring. Year of the Rat. Black plague maybe?

[GeneChing]

China is breeding giant pigs the size of polar bears to cope with supply plunge after African swine fever


A student feeds pigs at a farm next to a primary school in Xuanwei, Yunnan province, China, on Dec 22, 2018. PHOTO: REUTERS
PUBLISHEDOCT 6, 2019, 10:18 AM SGT

BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - In a farm deep in the southern region of China lives a very big pig that is as heavy as a polar bear.

The 500kg animal is part of a herd that is being bred to become giant swine. At slaughter, some of the pigs can sell for more than 10,000 yuan (S$1,900), over three times higher than the average monthly disposable income in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province where Mr Pang Cong, the farm's owner, lives.

While Mr Pang's pigs may be an extreme example of the lengths that farmers are going to fill China's swelling pork shortage problem, the idea that bigger is better has been spreading across the country, home to the world's most voracious consumers of the meat.

High pork prices in the north-eastern province of Jilin is prompting farmers to raise pigs to reach an average weight of 175kg to 200kg, higher than the normal weight of 125kg.

They want to raise them "as big as possible", said Mr Zhao Hailin, a hog farmer in the region.

The trend is not limited to small farms either. Major protein producers in China, including Wens Foodstuffs Group, the country's top pig breeder, Cofco Meat Holdings and Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group say they are trying to increase the average weight of their pigs. Big farms are focusing on boosting the heft by at least 14 per cent, said Mr Lin Guofa, a senior analyst with consulting firm Bric Agriculture Group.

The average weight of pigs at slaughter at some large-scale farms has climbed to as much as 140kg, compared with about 110kg normally, Mr Lin said. That could boost profits by more than 30 per cent, he said.

With African swine fever decimating the nation's hog herd - in half, by some estimates - prices of pork have soared to record levels, leading the government to urge farmers to boost production to temper inflation.

Chinese Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua warned that the supply situation will be extremely severe through to the first half of 2020. China will face a pork shortage of 10 million tonnes this year, more than what is available in global trade, meaning it needs to increase production domestically, Mr Hu said.

During a recent visit to major livestock provinces of Shandong, Hebei and Henan, Mr Hu urged local governments to resume pig production as soon possible, with a target of returning to normal levels next year.

Still, many farmers are wary about restocking swine after being hurt by an earlier outbreak. Also, piglet and breeding sow prices have surged, making it more expensive for backyard farms to rebuild their herds. Increasing the size of pigs they already own may be the next best step.

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!!
Year of the Pig 2019

[GeneChing]

Business
Kim Jong Un May Be Hiding a Hog Apocalypse From the World
By Heesu Lee
October 12, 2019, 2:00 PM PDT Updated on October 13, 2019, 2:21 AM PDT
African swine fever is said to have spread across North Korea
Virus risks becoming endemic, dispersing to neighboring states


Pigs at a farm in Paju on Sept. 17. Photographer: Yelim Lee/AFP via Getty Images

By official accounts, the pig contagion wreaking havoc across Eastern Asia has virtually skipped over North Korea, with a single outbreak reported there in May. But wayward feral pigs have stoked concern that Kim Jong Un’s reclusive state is hiding an African swine fever disaster.

Five wild boars were found dead in or near border areas separating the two countries this month before being tested positive for the viral hemorrhagic disease, officials in South Korea said. The finding reflects the freedom with which animals roam the 4-kilometer (2.5 mile) wide buffer zone that divides the nations and creates an involuntary park and refuge for fauna.

It also hints at a spillover of the deadly virus from North Korea, where unofficial reports indicate the disease is spreading out of control. South Korea has deployed helicopters to disinfect parts of the 250-kilometer-long border-barrier, near which more than a dozen outbreaks have occurred on farms since the virus was first reported there a month ago.

African swine fever has spread to almost all areas of North Korea, and pigs in the western province of North Pyongan have been “wiped out,” said Lee Hye-hoon, who chairs the National Assembly’s intelligence committee, citing South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

The virus killed 22 hogs in May on a cooperative farm about 260 kilometers north of Pyongyang, near the border with China, North Korea’s agriculture ministry said in a May 30 report to the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE.

But since then, there have been no follow-up reports to the Paris-based veterinary body, and scant coverage of the event in state media.

UN Delegate

The Food and Agriculture Organization has no information beyond the report received by the OIE, said Wantanee Kalpravidh, the United Nations agency’s Bangkok-based regional manager of the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases. The FAO is awaiting approval to send a delegate to North Korea, she said in a text message Friday.

Widespread transmission of African swine fever, which isn’t known to harm humans but kills most pigs in a week, may put North Korea’s food security in graver jeopardy.

Crop production there is forecast to be smaller than usual for the rest of 2019 due to below-average rainfall and low water supplies for irrigation, the FAO said last month. About 40% of the population, or 10.1 million people, are estimated to be food-insecure and in urgent need of food assistance, according to results from an UN assessment conducted last April.

Worse Hunger

African swine fever will worsen hunger and malnutrition, said Cho Chunghi, who fled North Korea in 2011 after spending a decade working for the government’s animal disease control program. Many North Korean households raise pigs to earn money to buy rice.

Hunger Pains

The number of North Koreans suffering from malnutrition is rising

“Pork accounts for about 80% of North Korea’s protein consumption and with global sanctions taking place, it’s going to be hard for the country to find an alternative protein source,” said Cho, who now works as a researcher at Good Farmers, a Seoul-based non-governmental organization that supports developing nations to generate profit through agricultural activities.


South Korean quarantine officials control a road near a farm in Paju on Sept. 17.Photographer: Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images

“The virus is extremely destructive as people are now unable to make money through raising pigs, while the country’s economy is restrained,” he said.

Pigs raised by individual farms outnumber those on state-owned and collective farms, which will make it almost impossible to halt the spread, especially given North Korea’s inexperience preventing and mitigating epidemics in animals, Cho said.

Russia, China

This lack of capacity is a threat to the entire Korean Peninsula, where the virus could become endemic, or generally present. That would make it more difficult to stamp out the disease through the usual steps of quarantining and culling diseased and vulnerable livestock. From there, it could also re-enter neighboring China and Russia.

South Korea has culled 154,653 pigs at 94 farms as of Oct. 11, according to the nation’s agriculture ministry. Routine tests for the virus on wild boars were introduced before Pyongyang reported the outbreak, the Ministry of Environment said in an Oct. 9 statement. Now, streams and soil near the border are also being tested.

The country has repeatedly asked Pyongyang to join a collective effort to fight the transmission, but its northern neighbor hasn’t responded.

“The fact that North Korea has reported the outbreak to an international organization suggests the situation is probably getting out of their hands,” said Ahn Chan-il, a former North Korean soldier who defected in 1979 and now heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies. “It’s an apocalypse in the making.”

(Updates number of cases in 2nd paragraph)

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!!
Year of the Pig 2019

[GeneChing]

Wild boar becomes frozen in fear after stumbling onto one of China’s infamous glass walkways
It's not only us humans who are terrified of these things
by Alex Linder November 5, 2019 in News



A young wild boar was recently spotted regretting its life decisions after finding itself standing on one of China’s glass walkways.

In video from a scenic spot outside of the Zhejiang city of Hangzhou, the poor animal is seen lying, frozen in fear, on the transparent walkway, scrunched up as close as possible to the cliff wall, presumably trying to stop itself from looking at the ground, some 230 meters below.

Eventually, officers from the local forestry bureau arrived to rescue the boar and take it away from this terrifying invention of man.

While designed to attract and scare humans, China’s glass bridges have also freaked out animals including another wild boar outside of the Guangdong city of Qingyuan last year.

Presumably this most recent boar had been reading the news and knew that China has recently closed dozens of its transparent walkways for being “unsafe.”

Now I'm imagining being on this bridge with a wild boar...

THREADS
Chinese Bridges
Year of the Pig 2019

[GeneChing]

Add Another Animal to the List of Tool Users: Pigs
A chance discovery brings new interest in porcine intelligence
By Karinna Hurley on November 12, 2019


Credit: Getty Images

Part of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, the Jardin des Plantes, on the left bank of the Seine River, hosts a collection of galleries and gardens. A couple of miles away, the larger museum also includes the Museum of Mankind, which is in part, an exploration of what it means to be human. There, like in many other museums worldwide, you can view a collection of stone tools used by the earliest humans. Tool use was long believed to be unique to our species—a defining feature, like language. Utilizing objects to achieve goals is not just a demonstration of advanced cognitive capabilities; it is largely through our symbolic and material tools that we share and transmit culture.

In 1960 primatologist Jane Goodall observed wild chimpanzees making and using tools. A connection between humans and other animals, in how we think and learn, was captivating news. Since then, scientists have gone on to establish tool use in a relatively small number of other species. And observations of learning to use a tool from other group members, rather than instinctively, have been even more rare—until now.

The Jardin des Plantes is also home to a special couple, Priscilla and Billie. Along with at least one of their daughters, these Visayan warty pigs—residents of the garden’s zoo—are the first in any pig species to be identified using tools and, even more remarkably, to apparently transmit this behavior through social learning.

The discovery was made by chance by ecologist Meredith Root-Bernstein, who was watching the family from outside their enclosure. Priscilla, working on building a nest, picked up a piece of bark in her mouth and used it to aid her digging. For six weeks Root-Bernstein frequently returned to the zoo to try to again catch her in the act. Although she didn’t do so, she did notice the digging tool moved among different areas of the enclosure and always near a recently constructed nest. Intrigued, Root-Bernstein, together with her colleagues, set up a series of observations to understand if Priscilla and the other pigs were indeed using sticks and bark as tools and, if so, under what conditions. The results from the project were published in September.

For the initial study, the researchers asked if they could observe the pigs using stick tools to help them dig and forage for food. They set up two conditions rotating over nine days: one where the pigs’ daily meals were placed next to a pile of dry leaves and one where they were mixed together with the leaves. For a third, control condition, the food was simply set out as usual. No clear instances of tool use were observed across these different feeding conditions. So the authors waited until the next nest-building season to see if they could instead observe tool use in the original context.

For two weeks, members of the research team, video cameras in hand, returned to the zoo in the afternoon (prime nest-building time) and observed the pigs for around two hours. On three occasions, Priscilla was recorded using a stick or piece of bark as a tool. Each time, the behavior was related to constructing a nest and, moreover, was specifically seen at the end of an established sequence in the building process. Once, one of Priscilla’s daughters was also recorded using a tool. After she eventually dropped the stick, Billie picked it up and also, but clumsily, attempted a digging action . Could the problem for Billie have been that the stick was hard to pick-up and/or dig with?

In the final study, Root-Bernstein and her colleagues put a variety of spatulas in the enclosure to see if perhaps the pigs would take advantage of easier-to-use tools. They also observed, more systematically, the pigs’ social dynamics, as well as the stages of nest building. Priscilla was clearly seen using a tool seven more times, two of which were with a spatula. There were also a few other possible but more ambiguous instances for both her and her daughters.

During this period, the scientists also tracked more than 70 agonistic interactions between individuals, establishing Priscilla as the least dominant female. This result is significant because in other species, it is usually not the dominant members who are credited with innovation. Across observations, Priscilla seemed to be the tool-use star, leading the authors to believe that she can be credited with first using the bark and sticks as tools, a behavior that was then social transmitted to the other family members. Of course, there are different possibilities: for example, Priscilla, who was not Parisian-born, might have learned tool use from the pigs in her original birthplace. In any case, more research is needed to see if this unique behavior can be seen in other captive and wild pigs. Despite their reputation as lazy, research has established that pigs are actually highly intelligent. And as this study shows, when it comes to our understanding of their cognitive and social abilities, the opposite of Porky Pig’s famous last line is true: that’s not all folks!

I must say that I've enjoyed this run of pig news this year and am strangely looking forward to doing the same for the Year of the Rat. I should start that thread soon...

[GeneChing]

‘Waiter, there’s excrement in my pig intestine,’ Chinese diner complains
Offered about US$70 in compensation after finding nasty surprise in rice noodles, the customer holds out for US$4,000
He challenges pork supplier’s manager to eat the offending material for the sum he was offered, after firm admits fault
Mandy Zuo
Published: 8:44pm, 16 Dec, 2019


Wang discusses compensation with restaurant staff, who are shown a piece of the pig intestine containing excrement. Photo: Handout

A restaurant customer in northeastern China is demanding higher compensation after he was served pig intestine filled with excrement at a well-known chain then offered a sum he considered inadequate, according to news video app PearVideo.
The diner, identified only by his surname Wang, was enjoying a pot of rice noodles with pig intestine on Friday when he found a piece that was tougher to chew, he said.
He complained to staff at the restaurant, a branch of Axiang Rice Noodles in a mall in Changchun, Jilin province, and it was established that there were pieces of excrement in the meal.
An unnamed manager from the restaurant’s supplier told PearVideo in Sunday’s report that the supplier’s staff had failed to clean the intestine properly and that it would take full responsibility.
The manager telephoned Wang, offering to compensate him with an amount equivalent to 10 times the value of the dish, in line with consumer rights regulations – which would give Wang up to 500 yuan (US$72).
But Wang said he felt insulted by the offer and asked for 30,000 yuan (US$4,300). “I’d like to invite their boss to come over and have a try – I can pay him a few hundred yuan for every piece of excrement he eats,” Wang said.
The supplier, a small pork business in eastern China, said it could not afford the amount Wang was asking for, especially with business suffering after an African swine fever epidemic that has decimated China’s hog herd.
“He asked for 30,000 yuan, and later 20,000 yuan,” the manager said. “This year pork prices have been so high that we have barely made any profits. Under such circumstances, such a sum of compensation would be a big blow to a small business.”
The report included a clip of Wang’s earlier complaint to a restaurant manager, alongside a piece of pig intestine containing a dark filling.
“I want an apology,” Wang told PearVideo. “And if you do apologise, you should apologise to all consumers nationwide.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Man served with pig faeces wants more compensation

There's about a month left of the Year of the Pig, then on to the Year of the Rat. This thread has had a good run.

THREADS
Bacon!!!!!!
Year of the Pig 2019

[GeneChing]

As we are just about to transition to the Year of the Rat, here's a last Year of the Pig gem at a theme park no less.

Chongqing theme park apologizes after forcing pig to bungee jump
The park said the pig made it out of the ordeal unscathed before being sent to the slaughterhouse
by Alex Linder January 20, 2020 in News



The management of a tourist spot in Chongqing has issued a half-hearted apologized after causing Chinese netizens to squeal in anger by making a pig into an unwilling bungee jumper.

Video from the Meixin Red Wine Town theme park out in the city’s Fuling district shows the 100 kg porker being shoved off the 68-meter-high bungee platform and screaming in terror on the way down. Close-up footage shows that the animal was essentially hog-tied and wrapped in what would seem to be a purple cape.

While pigs may enjoy diving, it seems like bungee-jumping is not their thing.

The stunt took place on Saturday, on the bungee jump attraction’s opening day. It was evidently not merely an inhumane attempt at finally making a pig fly, but also a reference to plummetting pork prices and a commemoration for the end of the Year of the Pig.

Management offered this explanation while apologizing for failing to put enough consideration into the event, adding that the pig was not hurt in the jump and was promptly sent off to the slaughterhouse afterward.