German wild boars go on the rampage
January 29, 2017
Near Berlin's Tegel airport, an errant herd of wild boar attacked several people, injuring three on Saturday, police announced.
At about 2 p.m. the panicked herd attacked people at Kurt-Schumacher-Platz before bolting into the nearby Volkspark Rehberge, a 78-hectare (193 acres) lightly forested memorial garden.
There they attacked a woman and two men. By this stage police had arrived to control the situation.
Local media reported that it took authorities 18 shots to down one 200-kilogram boar, while the rest of the herd escaped.
Berlin media sounded the alarm on Twitter.
People also posted their stories of the wild boar rampage on Twitter.
The outer rings of Berlin have long had a reputation of being overrun by marauding wild boar. Especially in the colder months, many of the 4,000-6,000 Central European boar in Berlin leave the safety of the city's many forests and forage in the urban areas, sometimes causing chaos. Several attacks are reported each year.
Culls are sometimes organized by the forestry department to deal with the boar.
In the city of Siegen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, a wild boar entered the inner city at 4 p.m. on Saturday. The animal crossed a busy street and evaded police by jumping through the glass door of a closed hairdressing salon.
Police barricaded the business with a patrol car while a hunter entered the shop and killed the boar.
aw/rc (dpa)