A woman was bitten in the face by a wolf on a busy shopping street in Hamburg on Monday evening – in what’s believed to be the first recorded attack on a person by a wolf in Germany since the animals started returning to the country decades ago
The incident happened on Grosse Bergstrasse in the Altona district, right near an inner-city IKEA store. According to local reports, the woman had tried to guide the confused-looking wolf away from the crowded area when it suddenly bit her and then ran off.
She was taken to hospital but has since been discharged.Police had already received several reports of the wolf being spotted in western Hamburg in the days leading up to the attack.Later that night, the animal was seen in the Binnenalster lake. Officers managed to pull it out of the water using a rope,
but it put up quite a fight. It took police about an hour, with officers using shields for protection, to finally catch it.The wolf is now safe and receiving veterinary care. Hamburg’s environment ministry says experts will soon decide what happens to the animal next.Wolves began making a comeback in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, having been absent from the country for around 150 years. They first returned from Poland and have since spread into forests across many German states.