Animals in Germany

Germany sits in the heart of Europe and is the fourth largest country in the European Union, about 357,000 square kilometers, with 83.5 million people, more than any other member. Even so, its cities and farmland leave plenty of room for nature: about a third of the country is forest. From north to south the land rises from the dunes, mudflats and islands of the North Sea and the Baltic, across a wide plain of fields, heaths and lakes, through the wooded hills of the Harz, the Black Forest and the Bavarian Forest, to the Alps, where the Zugspitze reaches 2,962 meters. The climate is temperate, mild and wet near the coast and colder inland, with snowy winters in the mountains. For wildlife watching, spring and autumn are the best seasons, when birds pass through on migration and deer are most active.

For centuries farming and forestry shaped almost every corner of the country, and by the 20th century the large predators had been hunted out. Germany created its first national park, the Bavarian Forest, in 1970, and today it has 16, the newest being Hunsrück Hochwald in 2015. The German and Dutch Wadden Sea became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009 for its tidal flats full of birds and seals, and five old beech forests joined the list in 2011. The strip of land along the former border between East and West Germany, nearly 1,400 kilometers long, is now the Green Belt, a corridor of wild habitat where animals can move freely. Wolves came back on their own, with the first pack settling in Saxony in 2000, and the 2024 to 2025 monitoring year counted 219 packs.

Tourism keeps breaking records, with 497.5 million overnight stays in 2025, most of them by Germans exploring their own country. Visitors head for Berlin and the castles of Bavaria, hike in the Alps and the Black Forest, and spend the summer on the beaches of Rügen and the North Sea islands, where boats take people out to see seals on the sandbanks. Wildlife follows these contrasts: seals and huge flocks of waterbirds on the coast, cranes and storks across the northern plains, deer, wild cats and wolves in the forests, and eagles over the lakes and the high mountains.

Germany is a safe country when it comes to wildlife, and serious incidents with wild animals are rare. The animal people actually meet most often is the wild boar, which lives in forests and fields and even in parks and gardens on the edge of Berlin. Boars usually run away, but a sow with piglets in spring or a wounded animal can charge, so keep your distance and keep dogs on a leash. Boars and deer also cause many road accidents, especially at dawn and dusk in autumn, when drivers should slow down near forests. Wolves have spread across much of the country, but they avoid people and attacks on humans are practically unknown; their conflict is with sheep and goat farmers. Lynx and wild cats are shy and harmless to people, and bison live in fenced reserves, where visitors must stay on the paths.

Germany has two kinds of venomous snake, both vipers. The more common one lives on heaths, moors and forest edges in many regions, while the other survives only in a small area of the southern Black Forest. Both are shy and bite only when stepped on or handled. Bites are rarely dangerous for healthy adults, but anyone who is bitten should see a doctor, and children and older people need care quickly.

Germany's best known animals are easier to find than many people expect, as long as you know where to look. Gray wolves now live across much of the north and east, from Lusatia in Saxony and Brandenburg to the heaths of Lower Saxony, although most visitors only find their tracks. The Eurasian lynx is back in the Harz, where lynx were released between 2000 and 2006, and in the Palatinate Forest, which received lynx from Slovakia and Switzerland between 2016 and 2020; it also roams the Bavarian Forest along the Czech border. Red deer live in the big forests, and in September and October the roaring of the stags during the rut carries through the Harz, the Eifel and the Bavarian Forest. The easiest place to see European bison is the Döberitzer Heide, about 30 kilometers from Berlin, where a herd of around 130 roams a large fenced wilderness area with guided ranger walks. The European wildcat hunts in the beech woods of Hainich National Park in Thuringia, and the European adder suns itself on heaths and moors in the north. White tailed eagles nest around the lakes of the Müritz region, and in Rühstädt, in Brandenburg, about 30 pairs of storks nest on the roofs of a single village. Hedgehogs are still common in gardens and parks, yet in 2024 the IUCN moved them to near threatened because their numbers are falling.