A wild boar wandered into a Berlin shopping mall’s home decor shop on Friday, sparking a police response that drew in officers and veterinarians equipped with a tranquilizer gun, shields and even a blowgun but ended peacefully.
Police said they were alerted to the porcine intruder around 9 am when it slipped through sliding glass doors into the mall and started rummaging through the aisles, as staff quickly vacated the shop.
Berlin’s Tierpark zoo told AFP it deployed a team to the scene in the southeastern Koepenick district but quickly assessed “that sedating the animal was not possible due to the layout of the premises.”
Berlin police released an image on social media, showing the wild boar roaming through a store.
Berlin Police
Officers used pallets and riot shields to divert the animal back outside after cordoning off the mall, a police spokesman told German news agency dpa.
Police said “the wild boar then returned to the forest, which we assume it came from.”
It was not the first time a wild boar has roamed built-up areas of the German capital, which is surrounded by woods. In July 2023, a wild boar prowling the streets of southwestern Berlin sparked panic after it was briefly mistaken for a lioness.
Germans have been told to be on the lookout for other wild animals over the years.
In May 2023, residents in the central city of Erfurt were jolted by the sight of a kangaroo hopping across a busy road after escaping from a private property.
In 2019, it took several days for a deadly cobra to be recaptured in the western town of Herne, where residents had been told to keep their windows closed and steer clear of tall grass.
In 2016, zookeepers shot dead a lion after it escaped from its enclosure in the eastern city of Leipzig and a tranquilizer failed to stop it.
