Boar Rampage: One Went to Church, Another to the Market

A horde of boars had a wild time at the weekend, going on a rampage in the center of a German town. One of the wild pigs broke into a hardware store in the town of Lage, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and ran riot among the shelves. According to police, the animal behaved like "an elephant in a porcelain store."

One of the other wild boars got stuck -- and injured itself -- in railings outside a Catholic church and a third ploughed through a garden.

The town's police force quickly sent out officers in several patrol cars to quell the ruckus after distressed residents reported the rampaging invaders.

At about 3:30 p.m., officers spotted one of the boars smashing through the emergency exit of a home improvement store. After barricading the animal's escape route with a police car, a hunter was called to end the animal's rampage. It was shot several times at the check-out counter. A police spokesperson said in a statement: "It created substantial damage."

The other members of the horde, it appears, had a luckier escape. Despite intensive searches by officers and hunters, they disappeared without a trace.

Wild boars are becoming an increasingly common sight in Germany, as their numbers have been boosted by increases in the production of maize, which they like to eat. Boar-related property damage has likewise been escalating. Earlier this month, a boar chased police in a Frankfurt suburb before escaping. Last fall, a group of boar wreaked havoc in one of Europe's largest cemetaries just south of Berlin.

maw/dpa