No good deed goes unpunished, as they say—even when you’re a wild boar.
Earlier this month, photos of a naked German man chasing a wild boar through a park went viral, after the boar rummaged through his unattended stuff. She ate some of his pizza and stole his laptop bag, and bystander Adele Landauer caught it all in photos.
Videos by VICE
The incident went viral after Landauer posted them on Facebook and Instagram, after getting the unidentified man’s permission, she wrote in a social media post.
Now, there’s a hit out on Elsa’s head.
According to the Irish Times, Berlin’s chief forest ranger Katja Kammer told local broadcaster RBB that the boar and her piglets had been on a watch list for getting too comfortable with humans. With the man-ass seen around the world, the boar—which locals have named Elsa—is a target to be “withdrawn,” or shot.
“This wild boar and her two young are frequent visitors at Teufelssee… they have lost any instinct of shyness,” Kammer said. “It’s only luck that, to date, nothing serious has happened.”
A Change.org petition to “save the cheeky but peaceful sow from Teufelssee” has raised around 11,000 signatures to ask the Grunewald forestry officials in Berlin to spare the boar’s life. Even when the mother boar had “every reason” to attack the naked man who chased her down, she didn’t, the petition argues—and therefore, deserves to live.
According to the BBC, Germany’s “strong tradition of naturism” or Freikörperkultur—meaning “free body culture”—means that nude sunbathing in summertime is totally normal. But feeding wild animals human food and acclimating them to human interaction is always bad for wildlife, especially when a funny viral photos ends up getting an otherwise harmless boar killed.
Berlin forestry spokesman Mark Franusch told the Irish Times that removing Elsa was not an “immediate” priority, and because she has piglets following her around, officials can’t take her out yet, anyway. But in October, wild boar hunting season will begin.
Meanwhile, Landauer, a life coach, is still posting pictures of Elsa minding her business and hanging out at the beach. “I have a dream one day we all will live peacefully together. All the different nations, cultures, religions with all their different viewpoints of life,” she wrote in the Instagram caption of the latest video of Elsa and her piglets. “Maybe this scene shows how it could happen.”
Or maybe people should just stop letting wildlife eat pizza from their beach bags.
Since the nude man himself hasn’t spoken out, it’s not clear whether he was aware that giving Landauer permission to share the photos to Facebook meant images of his white ass chasing a wild pig would go viral all around the world, but they did. So Nude German Man, if you’re reading this, please reach out: samantha.cole@vice.com.
