Police said late Monday that a wolf bit and injured a woman in Hamburg, an uncommon encounter with the typically shy species. The attack occurred near an Ikea roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the city center. After the incident the animal headed for the Binnenalster lake and entered the water, where officers used a snare to capture it.
Authorities believe the same wolf had been moving through the city since at least Saturday, with multiple sightings reported across Hamburg — from a suburban rail stop to a neighborhood about 11 kilometers from the site of the attack. Environmental officials say the animal is likely a young dispersing wolf, a life stage when individuals travel long distances to find territory. Disoriented by the dense urban environment, it probably wandered into the city by accident while seeking a route out. The wolf has been taken to a wildlife park.
According to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, this is the first recorded wolf attack on a person in Germany since wolves began returning to the country in the late 1990s. Wolves had been absent from Germany for about 150 years after being hunted to extinction by the early 20th century. Beginning around 1998, they began migrating west from Poland into eastern Germany, aided by legal protections and expanding habitats. Their return has been hailed as a conservation success, but it has also created tensions, particularly among farmers concerned about livestock losses.
Policy changes reflect those tensions: last week the upper house of Germany’s parliament approved legislation intended to make it easier to cull problem wolves, and the European Union downgraded the species from “strictly protected” to “protected” in a vote last year.
Experts emphasize that attacks on humans are exceedingly rare. Healthy wolves generally avoid people and flee when they encounter them. Research by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research indicates that most wolf incidents involving people are associated with rabies, deliberate provocation, or habituation — when animals lose their fear of humans after being fed or finding food near settlements.
Since 2013, Hamburg has recorded 21 confirmed wolf sightings. The most recent prior incident saw a wolf killed in mid-March after being struck by a vehicle.