By John Cairns

PUI O, Lantau Island, Hong Kong – Water buffalo and cattle, the largest land creatures living in Hong Kong, don't fit easily into the city's reputation as an overcrowded, modern metropolis. Any photo that shows one or more of the few remaining bovine residents always looks like it must have been taken elsewhere, maybe in northeast Thailand or Laos.

At just a few places on Lantau Island and in the New Territories, it's possible to stand on aromatic, green grass among these hardy animals and experience a kind of magic. For people who appreciate such animals, doing so conjures a sense of peacefulness and well-being that's unattainable in the concrete jungle.

“I love these creatures. They're nature's best gardeners,” said Ho Loy, director of the Lantau Buffalo Association (LBA) who guided me on a stroll across wetland pastures (behind the Pui O School) where many of the buffalo live. “They trim the grass every day and fertilize it too.”

When tourists or urban people notice the big animals, they hardly believe their eyes. “You see amazement in their expressions,” Loy said. “Their first words always are: ‘I can't believe that you have water buffalo here.’ For tourists, the buffalo create some of the strongest and best memories of Hong Kong. Tourists go away and talk about the buffalo a lot more than about shopping malls or tall buildings. These animals are a big asset.”

Despite working as “beasts of burden” on past Hong Kong farms, buffalo and cattle might have vanished long ago, except for conservation efforts by a few dedicated people. Led by volunteers, the LBA tries to preserve and manage the wild-cattle and water-buffalo herd numbers. It promotes responsible herd management, preserves the wetlands and ecosystems that serve as habitat and provides educational resources about the buffalo, cows and wetlands ecology.

“We try to preserve the existing spaces for them,” Loy said. “We see ecological value in the animals and where they live. There's a threat that these open spaces may be designated for property development. As conservationists, we constantly battle against the developers.”

Several hundred buffalo and cattle still graze in rural areas. About 60 buffalo and 70 cattle live on Lantau. Others stay near Sai Kung, Yuen Long and elsewhere in the New Territories.

“On Lantau, we have an opportunity to keep these animals,” Loy said. “We need to make the best of it and show the importance of animals so that the public and policy-makers understand. It's important to make Hong Kong more sustainable for people, animals and all of nature. After all, humans can't survive alone. We do need animals and nature.”

The remaining buffalo and cattle wander freely, mostly eating grass and other vegetation. “Some people try to say they're wild animals,” Loy said. “At most, they're semi-wild. Hong Kong has no wild cattle-animals. I see no potential for them to return to ‘wild’ status. There's not enough land for them to develop natural survival skills.

“Notice the absence of fences,” said Loy proudly, pointing across the pasture. The limited space near Pui O feeds Lantau's main herd of water buffalo, the “only nursing herd” in Hong Kong. “Any person can walk through here. Any buffalo can walk out.”

Why does 46-year-old Loy work so hard to defend these bovines? “It's a long story,” she said and started to tell it.

Hong Kong born and raised, Loy used to teach dance and lead a physical-theatre production company. “I moved to Lantau 18 years ago,” she recalls. “Previously, I lived only in urban areas, but I always felt that something was missing. On Lantau, I recognized that everything was greener, cleaner, more spacious and human-friendly. People can feel living energies here and see a variety of animals from buffalo to butterflies.”

A single mother (to a 12-year-old daughter), Loy also shares her home with various dogs and cats. For a time, she ran a bilingual community newspaper. Now much of her activity involves protecting the bovines. She drew inspiration from Marcus Tancock who preceded her as the LBA director.

When interacting with buffalo or cattle, Loy finds much to admire. “They connect me to nature,” she said. “Not only that, but they're very polite and give me more respect than most people do. When I meet them on the path, they're patient and willing to step aside to let me pass. They don't try to obstruct anyone. Not all humans have the same good qualities.

“Sometimes I've seen cattle having babies -- how the calves ‘land’ and how their mothers nurse them. It's really touching. Humans could learn from them.

“Also the buffalo are very good at respecting older generations and positions within herds. That's part of what I enjoy watching when I go into the fields to visit them. They know exactly what they're doing. They have certain patterns of movement and for sitting. They know when to get up and go, where and what to eat and who does what. They provide good study material of how societies can operate.”

At the heart of Pui O village, I met a friendly buffalo named Bruce who routinely leaves the pasture and strolls along the sidewalk to meet people. He enjoys hobnobbing with visitors or friends who stroke his nose and feed him snacks.

At the local veterinary clinic, Loy introduced me to Billy, a calf under medical treatment for wounds to an ear and a hip from the teeth of nasty dogs. Unconcerned about the injuries, Billy gobbled some bananas fed to him by a young girl who, like me, enjoyed visiting him.

“Mostly the buffalo and dogs get along alright,” Loy said. “The buffalo are very laid back, and most dogs don't bother them.”

Few of the bovines have human-style names. Some wear ear-tags for identification by numbers. “I do know some of them by their faces, personalities and horn shapes,” Loy said. “They're mostly nice.”

Normally the bovines and people (apart from local villagers) don't interact much. The animals like to be left alone, and people unfamiliar with them fear their bulk and huge horns. A big water buffalo can exceed 2,000 pounds, but most look significantly smaller. Typically, they live for 10-13 years.

“Both the water buffalo and cattle are bovine species,” Loy said. “The buffalo rely on wetlands, and the cattle don't. They have different behaviors and genetic patterns. They live differently and behave differently. They mature to different sizes, and their horns have different shapes and sizes. The buffalo (and their horns) grow larger.

“Cattle lose their horns and grow them back every few years. The buffalo don't do that. For the buffalo, every animal's horns are different. The patterns on them can be used for identification, like fingerprints on humans.”

More than three decades ago, farmers abandoned the ancestors of these animals. Super-strong water buffalo had plowed for wetland rice cultivation. Their droppings fertilized fields and gardens. The slightly smaller, mostly yellow cattle also plowed (on upland paddy fields) and supplied fertilizer. At a leading monastery, they gave fresh milk. On modern Lantau, rice production has given way to small vegetable plots. No one milks cows anymore. Apart from the surviving buffalo and cattle, the only tangible signs of Lantau's past rice farms are a few plows and other items of old equipment placed near footpaths or collected by history buffs.

“Water buffalo can't leave the wetlands,” Loy said. “Their skin needs a lot of moisture, and so they take mud-baths every day. They have issues with how they ventilate themselves too so they can't wander far. They stay close to fresh water or sea water.”

Cattle aren't as fussy about where they live. They can stay almost anywhere with adequate grass and warmth.

Buffalo also eat mostly grass. “We don't need to feed them regularly,” Loy said. “Usually the LBA offers them food only to attract their interest when we need to work with them (maybe to medicate them).”

The big animals also enjoy bananas, oranges and certain wild leaves. “Some Lantau villagers experiment by feeding them regularly,” Loy said.

Water buffalo may look their most majestic when arriving at the beach. “When a whole herd marches together onto the sand, it's breathtaking,” Loy said. “Where else in Hong Kong do 30 or 40 animals walk together in a line? City children who never see such a thing miss a lot from their childhoods.

“The buffalo can swim and dive, staying submerged for quite a long time. Sometimes they look almost like submarines. They even walk along underwater. A membrane in their noses blocks their nostrils to keep the water out. After holding their breath for a long time, they come up to breathe. What could be more thrilling than to swim at the beach and have such animals come to join you?”

Still, people unfamiliar with the big animals should avoid getting too close. “Don't approach them aggressively,” Loy said. Otherwise they may retaliate in fear.

“Too many Hong Kong people lack knowledge about animals. They wrongly think that dogs, cats and cattle all should behave similarly. Then they may view a water buffalo as a big, slow animal that should be easy to approach. They don't know certain things that they shouldn't do. The buffalo see anyone taller than them as a potential threat. If you're going close to them, stay low and move slowly. Don't make big noises. Buffalo get very irritated by high-pitched or intensive noises. They're sensitive to smells too, but no one knows exactly what smells bother them. When anyone comes to meet the buffalo with me, I advise against wearing perfume or brightly colored clothing. Since the buffalo like mud-baths, some mud on your body may protect you.”

In early 2011, a bull buffalo on Lantau charged and gored a man, tossing him “like a toy”. Loy believes the offending animal had been frightened earlier that day by other visitors from the city trying to get too friendly and behaving inappropriately. The injured man survived, but needed hospital treatment for leg wounds.

When people and buffalo come into conflict, Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department often decides to relocate or even “cull” (kill) some animals. The targeted creatures aren't always the same ones who threatened or attacked humans.

Calling certain animals “aggressive” or “dangerous” is “an excuse the government uses”, Loy said. “I don't see that the government even has an official definition of what aggressive behavior is. Officials use the word ‘aggressive’ whenever anyone makes a complaint. Sometimes people who aren't animal-friendly complain a lot. Anyone who gets annoyed when animals come too close always can make up reasons to complain.”

To defend the animals, Loy has been known to run onto government trucks trying to prevent buffalo from being loaded and taken away. “One main thing I try to do is to monitor how government crews handle the animals,” she said. “I don't want to see cruelty.”

When the government terminates bovines, it's often by injection. “They over-sedate them,” Loy said. “The government also has a policy of putting down animals regarded as sick or too old. I've only known of one old buffalo who died in nature, in a field. She was about 13 years old.”

In Loy's view, the buffalo and cattle aren't aggressive often or “in regular situations”. Once, a buffalo, intent on protecting another from unwanted medical attention, attacked Loy. Using head and horns, the big animal pinned her to the ground. Yet she sensed that he wanted to warn her, not inflict injury.

“He put his head on me and squashed me a little,” she said. “But he remained gentle, not using too much force. I had one hand on his horns, trying to stop him from pushing me more. With my other hand, I pulled out my mobile phone. When he saw the phone, he knocked it out of my hand onto the ground. So I thought, ‘how did he know to do that?’ I was amazed.

“People like to think that animals don't know anything. That's entirely wrong. They know what's going on around them all the time.

“Finally by pulling on the buffalo’s horns, I succeeded to stand up. He let me, but kept on staring as if to say, ‘You go away from here.’

“So I decided to agree with him and sent a mental message back: ‘Okay, I'm leaving now.’ And he let me go.”

Instead of the government killing innocent animals as a preventive measure, Loy recommends castrating them to calm them and guard against violent incidents. Since 2008, the LBA and doctors from a nearby veterinary clinic have castrated many of the male buffalo. It's also a birth-control measure.

“We do the procedure in the fields,” Loy said. “The animals see us all the time so it's no big difficulty for us to go to them and place a rope around their necks. We sedate them enough that they don't feel the pain or kick the veterinarian. Still, the animals know they're losing something and complain about it. Every time when we castrate one of them, I have tears in my eyes, but it's necessary.”

There's another reason why human friends of the buffalo take a dim view of construction projects that infringe on the limited land available to bovines. Increasingly, such “developments” force the animals into more regular contact with people. If the beasts linger too close to large villages, like Mui Wo, some officials and residents worry about potential conflicts. Others denounce “the nuisance” of bovine excrement and the animals’ tendency to block traffic by wandering onto roads.

The cattle have a stronger habit of standing on roads, especially at night, forcing Lantau drivers to stay alert. “Sometimes an entire herd does that,” Loy said. “Every year we lose some animals to traffic. It's their number-one cause of death.”

Obviously, property-hungry humans create a much bigger nuisance to the big animals than vice-versa. Alas, the burly critters lack any official channels to complain.

Meanwhile, the animals' human friends enjoy certain pleasures. “I love seeing the buffalo wander around,” said one woman. “It always cheers me up to see them munch away.”

According to another sympathizer, “Their parents were let go when farming stopped. They were left to multiply in the wild. Instead a reserve area should have been created for these once-domestic farm-helpers who never got paid properly.”