Wolf that bit woman in German mall likely dead, authorities say

“Based on available evidence, the animal is likely dead,” city environmental authority Bukea told AFP, confirming several news reports to that effect.

A few days after its capture following the mall incident, the animal was released into the wild but fitted with a tracking device.

Since then, it left Hamburg for a rural area more than 150 kilometres (90 miles) away, Bukea explained.

But the signal from the tracking collar “abruptly stopped” late last month, Bukea added, noting it considered “a malfunction or simple loss of the collar unlikely”.

Experts have “searched a wide area” several times based on the geolocation, but “without success,” the organisation added.

Regional public broadcaster NDR raised the possibility the animal could have been shot.

In the late March incident, the wolf bit a 65-year-old woman on the cheek and mouth, causing minor injury, as she tried to free it on seeing it had collided with a store window, Bild daily reported.

Experts suggested the wolf was a youngster which had become separated from its pack and was highly stressed.

The animal had been sighted several times in different parts of Hamburg in the days ahead of the attack.

After the incident it fled across the city before plunging into Hamburg’s Alster Lake, and then being captured.

Wolves had virtually disappeared from Germany by the mid-19th century, mainly due to rewards being offered for their capture and to habitat destruction.

However, some wolves from Poland began to settle in eastern Germany after reunification in 1990, amid strengthened wildlife protection measures.

An official study last year identified 219 wolf packs across Germany.

In December, the government approved a bill authorising their regular hunting in order to manage populations in areas densely populated by humans.

That move followed the European Union’s recent reclassification of the wolf from a “strictly protected species” to a “protected species”.