Police in Hamburg said a wolf attacked a woman on Monday, then moved toward the Binnenalster lake. According to a Bild report, the woman was bitten in her faces. Officers used a lasso to capture the animal and later transferred it to a wildlife park.
The incident occurred near an IKEA about 4 kilometers from the city center. It followed several days of sightings believed to involve the same animal since Saturday. Germany's Federal Agency for Nature Conservation described it as the first recorded attack on a person since wolves reappeared in Germany in the late 1990s, according to Deutsche Welle.
The fire service said the woman was taken to a Hamburg hospital, DPA reported. Hamburg’s regional government noted that wolves generally avoid contact with people and dogs.
Very rare
Experts say attacks on humans are very rare, and healthy wolves usually keep their distance. Environmental officials indicated the animal in Hamburg was likely a young wolf in the dispersal phase that became disoriented by the urban environment and was trying to find a way out.
Authorities have documented 21 confirmed wolf sightings in Hamburg since 2013, including a wolf killed in a highway collision in mid-March. Last week the Bundesrat approved a law that makes hunting wolves easier, as the EU last year downgraded the species’ protection status from “strictly protected” to “protected,” amid concerns among farmers about livestock safety, according to Deutsche Welle.