Hong Kong’s Strays Are Not a Problem: They’re a Mirror

Walk the quiet roads of Hong Kong’s New Territories at dawn. You might see them: a mangy cat darting across the pavement, a timid puppy sniffing for scraps near a deserted lot. Most people walk past without a thought. Some tag a charity on social media, well-intentioned, but rarely resulting in a solution.

Hong Kong loves pets. Studies show Hongkongers spend more on their dogs than almost anywhere else in the world. But that love is conditional. Designer cats and dogs? Absolutely. Strays? Not so much. Yet the “unwanted," the ones nobody chooses, are often the most loyal, loving, and resilient companions. Healthy, smart, disease-resistant, endlessly adaptable, they are waiting for someone to see their worth.

A society can often be judged by its stray population. Strays are mirrors of our collective compassion, or our indifference. Every abandoned puppy, every kitten born in a dumpster, every neglected senior dog tells a story of human failure. And yet, there is hope. Volunteers at TAILS Lantau act when the system does not. Underfunded and underappreciated, but never under-committed, we save lives, desex strays, and rehome animals. Every year, the stray population on Lantau Island shrinks, a progress worth fighting for.

This work is not pretty. It’s chasing terrified animals down muddy paths. Medicating sick kittens with trembling hands. Convincing an uninformed owner to surrender an animal rather than leave it tied up in the summer heat. Pleading with vet clinics for discounts. Lobbying for stronger animal welfare laws. Scrambling weekends to secure foster homes, because without them, there is nowhere for these animals to go. It’s spending every donation wisely, lying awake at night worrying about a dog recovering from surgery, or how we will pay for it. And it’s celebrating quietly when a once-scared animal curls up in a foster home and finally purrs or wags its tail.

Many people want a pet that is turnkey: healthy, trained, perfect. But nursing an animal through illness often builds the strongest bonds. Right now, we have kittens with severe viral infections that may require eye removal. Finding a foster willing to administer eye drops, monitor them, and provide care is nearly impossible. People often step in only after the hard part is over. But is it really that hard to care when it counts most?

Too often, people don’t want to see these animals on the streets, but they also don’t want to help solve the problem.

One recent example brings this reality into sharp focus. One of our accounting volunteers, usually behind a desk and seldom on the front line found a severely injured dog (not a stray but a missing pet) on her morning commute. Passersby stopped to take photos or post online. Only she acted. She rushed the dog to a vet before heading to work. The dog didn’t survive. She was left understandably shaken, confronting trauma she had not expected that morning. Perhaps if one of the earlier passersby had helped, the dog would have had a chance. Imagine the burden we could lift, and the lives we could save, if more people stepped forward, even in small ways. Action saves lives. Indifference costs them.

This is why awareness matters. Sharing our mission, questioning what “perfect pet” really means, supporting foster homes, volunteering, or donating: these are actions that save lives. TAILS Lantau is not a government initiative. We are not a corporate PR campaign. We are volunteers, ordinary people with full-time jobs, families, and lives, running a charity that refuses to look away. We rescue abandoned puppies and kittens, rehabilitate them, and find them homes. We desex strays to prevent more animals from being born into precarious lives on the streets. We do this because someone has to. Because very few will. And because it is worth it.

So the next time you see a stray cat or dog, don’t look away, and perhaps ask yourself how you can help. When a foster is needed, step forward. When a life is at risk, act. Consider opening your home, your time, and your heart. Please support our work to desex, rehabilitate, and rehome. Hong Kong’s strays don’t need more spectators; they need more people willing to act.

We are not glamorous. We are not perfect. But we are TAILS Lantau. And every life we save proves that courage, compassion, and commitment are stronger than neglect. Every tail that wags, every purr that rises from fear, every rescued life is a testament: change is possible, and it starts with hearts willing to act. One scrappy stray at a time, we are shaping a kinder, braver Hong Kong.