A Wolf Just Attacked a Woman in Germany. She Had Mistaken It for a Dog Trapped in a Shopping Center

German authorities confirmed that a woman was bitten by a wolf Monday, according to the Associated Press, marking the country’s first wolf attack in modern history. The attack occurred, of all places, near an IKEA store at a shopping center in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city. It also comes just a few weeks after lawmakers in the German Parliament voted to legalize wolf hunting there.

“There has not been such a case since the reintroduction [of wolves] in 1998,” a spokeswoman for the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation told the German Press Agency yesterday. 

Gray wolves were extinct in Germany during the preceding 150 years. The predators started naturally migrating back into the country from Poland during the ‘90s and have steadily reestablished themselves in recent decades. 

North German Broadcasting reports that the woman was trying to lead the wolf out of the shopping center, apparently thinking it was a dog, when it bit her in the face. She was taken to a hospital for stitches and then released.

The local police told NGB they captured the wolf Monday evening. Officers found the animal swimming in Inner Alster Lake and pulled it out with a noose. The urban hunting department then took charge of the wolf and transported it to the Klövensteen Wildlife Park, where it will be released back into the wild at a later date.

One wildlife manager who spoke with NGB said the wolf was a younger male that likely had to leave its pack and was looking for new territory. She noted that wolves “often travel up the Elbe River” from Lower Saxony, which lies just to the south of Hamburg.

Raising the Temperature on Germany’s Wolf Debate

Just like in the U.S., the return of gray wolves and the debate around how to manage them are sources of ongoing controversy in Germany. The recent attack in Hamburg comes as wolf populations are on the rise, and it occurred just 25 days after the lower house of German Parliament moved to legalize wolf hunting in the country. The legislation, which has yet to pass the upper house of Parliament, would establish a hunting season from July 1 to Oct. 31 in certain regions.

Read Next: A Wolf Attacked My Dog and Then Charged at Me

According to the government’s wolf report from 2024-2025, Lower Saxony has some of the highest wolf numbers of any German state, with around 54 packs. Nationwide, there were an estimated 219 packs and more than 1,500 individual wolves counted during that same time.  

This growing wolf population has led to concerns and calls for tighter management, especially among rural residents and livestock producers. The same government agency that tracks wolf populations notes that there were approximately 4,300 farm animals killed or injured by wolves in Germany in 2024 alone.

Wolves were responsible for a similar number of livestock depredations in 2022, which is also when the most high-profile wolf attack on an animal in Germany took place. That September, in Lower Saxony, a wolf killed a pony owned by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission and one of the most powerful political figures in the EU. The 30-year-old pony, named Dolly, was a cherished pet, and von der Leyen told reporters her family was in “horrible distress” after the incident.

Read Next: European Union Relaxes Protections for Livestock-Killing Wolves as Shepherds, Others Demand Action

The following year, in December 2023, the European Commission initiated a policy change to downgrade the international classification of gray wolves from “strictly protected” to “protected.” This change in wolf protections was made official in 2024, and it makes it easier for countries like Germany to manage their wolves, including through regulated hunting.