Unexpected visitors: wildlife in the city
You don’t have to go into the wild to see foxes, raccoons or wild boars in Germany. These wild animals regularly visit towns and cities. And then there is the odd elk that might just walk into the building.
So an elks walks into an office…
Not the start of a bad joke, but certainly a silly situation for this moose on the loose. The confused young elk had wandered into an office building in Dresden in eastern Germany on Monday. The 800-kilogram animal broke through a glass door and got stuck between a wall and a window. There, he waited calmly for several hours, just around lunchtime, blocking the way to the building’s canteen.
Return to the wild
After a five-hour standoff, police and local zookeepers sedated the young bull with two arrows shot right into his bottom. The elk was then loaded into a container and taken back into the woods. The incident has inspired puns aplenty about the "deer colleague" who probably came from neighboring Poland. For wildlife experts, it is also sign that the species might re-establish itself in Germany.
Raccoons on the run
While elk are still a rare sight in German cities - or forests, for that matter - many other wild animals have decided to enter the human world for good. The raccoon, a North American native, was released into the wild near Kassel in 1934. Then nature took its course. Today, a few hundred thousand raccoons live in Germany, many roaming through residential neighborhoods like this guy in Berlin.
Wild boar alarm
Not all wild animals are welcome guests. Wild boars regularly cause a stir among home owners in suburbia. The boars can dig up the ground in minutes, causing damage to well-kept gardens. Their numbers have increased substantially over the last 20 years. It is estimated that in Berlin alone, 10,000 wild boars use their sensitive snouts in search of an alternative to acorns and beechnuts.
Rural exodus
The faunal drift to the cities has a number of reasons. First of all, the human habitat tends to be warmer than the wild. Animals will also find food here and be safer from hunters. Secondly, many natural habitats have been turned into agricultural deserts that no longer provide food and shelter. Lastly, urban developments continue to sprawl: often man comes to beast, not vice versa.
A bear with a problem
The encounter of man and beast can, of course, go badly wrong. Bruno the bear became Germany’s most famous fugitive in 2006 when he crossed the Alps and entered Bavaria. After seven weeks of roaming freely, killing sheep, domestic rabbits and one odd guinea pig, Bruno was shot dead. The stuffed animal is now on display at the Museum Mensch und Natur (Man and Nature) in Munich.