Wolf in Bottrop sighted: turmoil in the neighborhood!

Wolf in Bottrop sighted: turmoil in the neighborhood!

In the night of March 20, 2025, two young men, Jonas Westerhoff and Julio Mancuso, were open to an amazing incident on Scharnhölzstraße in Bottrop-Batenbrock. They watched a wild animal that was probably a wolf. According to its descriptions, the animal moved confused across the street and ran towards Bolzplatz on Batenbrock Festplatz. Despite the promptly alarmed police, the wolf remained without a trace when the officials arrived. The original message about the sighting came from a video that was spread under your.bottrop on social media. The excitement and uncertainty about the situation is great, because wolves in urban areas are extremely rare.

wolves are shy and shy about people through the landscape, so that direct encounters hardly occur. The exchange of experts has already started: several media reports, including the waz , have dealt with the incident. However, a clear assessment of the type of animal is difficult. The animal could not have been a wolf because the behavior was atypical.

expert opinions and public reactions

The State Councilor Michaela Langer-Weninger (ÖVP) calls for caution in such situations and calls on the population and hunters to be vigilant and report information. This underlines how important secure information about wolf encounters are. The state of Upper Austria asks for reports in sight, ideally with photos or videos.

How many wolves are there in Germany?

In Germany, the number of wolves slowly increases again after they have been almost eradicated in the past centuries. According to the Federal Office for Nature Conservation now there are 184 wolf pack nationwide and 22 sedentary single wolves. In the wolf year 2022/2023, which ran from May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2023, a total of 1339 wolf individuals were documented.

This development shows the need for long -term maintenance of the wolves, which depends on adults, reproductive individuals. But the streets are dangerous: In the monitoring year 2022/2023, 159 dead wolves were documented, with 125 traffic accidents killed.

The viewing of the wolf in Bottrop raises questions, both with regard to the behavior of wolves and with regard to the safe togetherness of humans and animals. The authorities want to sensitize the population in order to better manage such situations.