Overview
- In the early hours of March 13, a car struck a young male wolf near the Curslack ramp on the A25, killing the roughly 28-kilogram animal while the driver was uninjured.
- The carcass was recovered that night and is scheduled for transfer to the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin for DNA-based origin analysis.
- Authorities note that road collisions are the leading cause of wolf deaths in Germany, with 1,031 fatalities reported since the early 2000s and about 100 to 150 annually since 2020.
- Hamburg has monitored occasional wolf presence since 2013, logging 21 confirmed detections, including a recent photo-trap record in Duvenstedter Brook this year.
- The environmental authority urges immediate reporting of wildlife collisions to police and advises keeping distance, making noise, and not running if a wolf is encountered.