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A wolf was spotted in the middle of Cologne (symbol picture)
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Bernd Thissen / dpa
When a wolf comes to Ehrenfeld: just under a month ago, a wolf was spotted in the middle of Cologne.
Now experts have found out where the animal came from.
The wolf had walked through the streets of the trendy Ehrenfeld district and other parts of the city on the night of May 19 and was photographed and filmed by some people.
Where the wolf came from was still unclear at the time.
The same applied to the question of whether he was responsible for four dead sheep in Cologne's northern Rheinaue the following night.
Now there is certainty for both.
It has been proven that the animal killed the sheep and injured four others, reported the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Environment.
The wolf could be determined by analyzing the saliva residues on the sheep: According to this, the male animal comes from the Alpine population, which is represented in Italy, France and Switzerland.
"The lone wolf had traveled a long way from the Alps to Cologne," Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser is quoted in the message.
"It's not unusual, because wolves can run 40 to 60 kilometers a day, depending on their physical condition, and peak performance can be even higher."
Wolves leave their parents' pack by the end of their second year of life at the latest and then wander far around, sometimes several hundred kilometers.
What made the wolf run to Cologne of all places is not known.
According to the Ministry of the Environment, there were two other known cases of wolves from the Alpine population that reached North Rhine-Westphalia in 2020.
One crossed the Rheinisch-Bergischen district and was later discovered in Lower Saxony in the area of the Elbe, another ran through the district of Viersen at the end of the year and from there reached the Dutch province of Barbant.
Where the "Cologne Wolf" is meanwhile is not known.
zob / dpa
