Wild Animals in Germany: Mammals You Can See in the Wild

Germany’s wild mammals at a glance

Germany has roughly 100 wild mammal species, from bats and shrews to deer, seals and wolves. The table shows the larger ones people most want to see, with their recent trend.

Roe deer, red deer and other deer

The roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) is the deer most Germans see: a small, graceful deer about 63–67 cm (25–26 in) tall at the shoulder and usually 15–35 kg (35–75 lb), reddish-brown in summer and gray-brown in winter, with a white rump patch. It lives in woods, fields and hedgerows almost everywhere and often feeds in the open at dawn and dusk. Alarmed roe deer give a loud, dog-like bark.

The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is Germany’s largest common wild land mammal; stags can weigh 90–240 kg (200–530 lb). Its roaring autumn rut in September and October draws visitors to places such as the Müritz National Park. In several states, including Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, red deer are officially allowed to live only within designated red deer areas, so their range is patchy.

Germany also has fallow deer, introduced centuries ago, and smaller introduced populations of sika deer and mouflon, a wild sheep from Corsica and Sardinia. Wandering moose occasionally cross into eastern Germany from Poland and the Czech Republic, and a small free-roaming herd of European bison was released in the Rothaar Mountains of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2013.

Wild boar

The wild boar (Sus scrofa) has boomed in Germany since the 1980s, helped by mild winters, large maize fields and frequent years with heavy acorn and beechnut crops. In most of Europe, males average 75–100 kg (165–220 lb). Boar live in family groups led by females and root up soil for roots, bulbs, worms and grubs.

They have become regular visitors to suburbs and city parks, with Berlin famous for its urban boar. In September 2020 African swine fever, a viral disease deadly to pigs but harmless to people, was detected in wild boar in Brandenburg for the first time, and it has since affected boar in several eastern and western states.

Foxes, badgers and martens

The red fox is Germany’s most widespread carnivore, living everywhere from the Alps to city centers. The European badger digs large family burrows called setts in woodland edges and feeds mainly on earthworms. Stone martens often live in attics and barns and are notorious for chewing hoses and cables in parked cars, while pine martens prefer forests. Polecats, stoats and least weasels complete the family.

Gray wolves: Germany’s big comeback

Wolves were wiped out in Germany by the early 20th century. Animals from western Poland began to settle again in the 1990s, and in 2000 the first wild litter in over a century was born on a military training area in Upper Lusatia, Saxony. From there the gray wolf spread quickly across the open, game-rich north and east.

In the 2024/25 monitoring year the federal wolf center (DBBW) recorded 219 packs, 43 pairs and 14 territorial single wolves. Brandenburg, Saxony, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania hold most of them, and wolves are now spreading into the south and west. For the first time since their return, the number of territories did not grow. Traffic is the biggest known killer: 124 of the 163 dead wolves found that year died on roads. Attacks on sheep and other livestock remain the main source of conflict. See wolves in Europe for the wider picture.

Eurasian lynx

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) disappeared from Germany by the mid-1800s. Lynx returned to the Bavarian Forest after reintroductions on the Czech side of the border in the 1980s. In the Harz Mountains, 24 lynx were released between 2000 and 2006, and the first wild-born kittens followed in 2002. A third population has been established in the Palatinate Forest with lynx released from 2016.

Germany’s lynx population is still small, with an estimated 130 or so independent animals (adults and young that have left their mothers) in the early 2020s. Road deaths, illegal killing and the isolation of populations limit their growth.

European wildcat

The European wildcat (Felis silvestris) looks like a large, heavy tabby with a bushy, blunt tail ringed in black. It survived persecution in the forested uplands of western and central Germany, such as the Eifel, Hunsrück, Palatinate Forest, Harz and Hainich, and is now estimated at 6,000–8,000 animals. Since 2004 conservationists have planted green corridors of trees and shrubs between forests to help wildcats spread, and the species has recently been recorded north of the Elbe River. Unlike in Scotland, hybridization with domestic cats is still low in Germany.

Beavers and otters

Only about 200 Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) survived in Germany at the end of the 19th century, on the Elbe River in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. Protection and reintroductions, especially in Bavaria, have brought numbers above 40,000, and beavers now live along rivers in most of eastern and southern Germany and in growing western populations, even in cities. Their dams create wetlands rich in wildlife but sometimes flood farmland and roads.

The Eurasian otter has also recovered from its strongholds in eastern Germany and is spreading back along cleaner rivers in the west.

Introduced newcomers: raccoons, raccoon dogs and others

The raccoon is the best-known newcomer. Two pairs of pet raccoons were released at the Edersee reservoir in Hesse in 1934, and about 25 escaped from a fur farm east of Berlin in 1945. Their descendants now number more than a million, with the city of Kassel famous for its dense urban population. Read more in are there raccoons in Europe?

The raccoon dog, an East Asian canid released for fur in the western Soviet Union, has spread west into much of northern and eastern Germany. American mink and nutria (coypu) also live wild, especially along rivers and lakes. The raccoon dog is on the EU list of invasive species of concern.

The golden jackal is a natural newcomer that spread from southeastern Europe. It was first recorded in Germany in 1997 in Brandenburg, and the first confirmed breeding came in 2021 in Baden-Württemberg.

Hedgehogs, hares, squirrels and hamsters

The European hedgehog is still common in gardens and parks, but the IUCN moved it to Near Threatened in 2024 because of declines across Europe. European hares have declined in intensive farmland, while red squirrels, in red and dark brown forms, remain common because Germany has no introduced gray squirrels. The European hamster, a colorful farmland rodent, has become critically endangered and survives only in a few areas.

Bats

Germany has about 25 bat species, all protected. The tiny common pipistrelle hunts around streetlights and gardens, the large common noctule flies high over lakes and forests at dusk, and the greater mouse-eared bat forms big summer nursery colonies in church attics in the south.

Alpine and coastal mammals

In the Bavarian Alps, chamois, Alpine marmots and a few hundred Alpine ibex live above the tree line, especially in Berchtesgaden National Park. On the North Sea and Baltic coasts, harbor seals and gray seals rest on sandbanks of the Wadden Sea, and harbor porpoises hunt offshore.

Where to see wild mammals in Germany

• Bavarian Forest National Park: Germany’s first national park, with lynx, wolves and red deer, and large wildlife enclosures.
• Harz National Park: lynx, red deer and wildcats.
• Müritz National Park and Lusatia: red deer, beavers, otters and wolf country.
• Eifel and Hainich national parks: wildcats in old beech forests.
• Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve: Elbe beavers and otters.
• Wadden Sea national parks: seals on the sandbanks at low tide.

Watch from paths and hides, keep dogs on a leash in spring when deer and boar have young, and never feed wild animals.