Police chase boar living high on the hog in Berlin mall

A wild boar runs over a glade in a forest in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, Nov. 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A wild boar wandered into a Berlin shopping mall’s home decor shop on Friday, sparking a police response that drew in officers and veterinarians equipped with an anaesthetic gun, wooden shields and even a blowgun but ended peacefully.

Police said they were alerted to the porcine intruder around 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) when it slipped through sliding glass doors into the mall and started rummaging through the aisles, as staff quickly vacated the shop.

Berlin’s Tierpark zoo told AFP it deployed a team to the scene in the southeastern Koepenick district but quickly assessed “that sedating the animal was not possible due to the layout of the premises”.

Police said officers and the zoo team eventually decided it was best to drive the boar out by “constructing a path using wooden pallets”, adding that “the wild boar then returned to the forest, which we assume it came from”.

It was not the first time a wild boar has roamed built-up areas of the German capital, which is surrounded by woods. In mid-2023, a wild boar prowling the streets of southwestern Berlin sparked panic after it was briefly mistaken for a lioness.