When pensioner Willi Heimes was feeding his deer in their enclosure at the end of January, he noticed a trail of blood. After a short while, hikers came by and told him that they had discovered a carcass close to the fence.

Heimes went there and found a dead roe, he tells DW. "The hind had been shot, gutted and pulled over the fence. They left the noose. The edible innards were gone."

Heimes says that he is still in shock. He has been keeping red deer in the Bergisches Land region near Cologne for 40 years. It's his hobby, and he currently has 38 animals. Poaching? He had not seen that until now. "Why does someone do this?" Heimes asks. "To make money? From that little bit of meat?"

Heimes hopes the police will catch the poacher soon. Criminal investigators stopped by again, as a suspect had been filmed at night by surveillance cameras near the enclosure. Heimes is worried now: Will he shoot again?

"I'm not at all concerned about the economic damage," he says. "My only concern is that someone is walking around here with a weapon."

Up to five years in prison

When two police officers were shot and killed during a nighttime traffic control on a country road in Rhineland-Palatinate, the issue of poaching was suddenly the spotlight. The suspects may have opened fire on the police officers to cover up their illegal meat trade. Investigators found tons of game meat at one of the suspect's homes.

But large-scale poaching appears to be rare in Germany. Only a little more than 1,000 cases of poaching are registered by police each year. That's next to nothing compared with the more than a million deer and nearly 900,000 wild boar that are legally hunted in Germany every year.

However, many hunters suspect that there are far more cases of poaching in Germany than police statistics suggest. Torsten Reinwald, a hunter and spokesperson for the German hunting association, says it's a problem that teenagers often go out to the forests on a dare. "They set snares and catch rabbits or they actually shoot at deer with bows and arrows", he tells DW. "And we then find those dead animals with arrows sticking in their bodies. That's poaching, too."

In Germany it is also considered poaching when a driver hits and kills a wild animal and then puts the body in the trunk of his car and drives off. As there are 250,000 traffic accidents involving deer in Germany each year, this is likely the most common type of poaching.

Every type of poaching is a criminal offense in Germany. In most cases defendants do not end up in jail. In particularly serious cases, however, five years in prison are possible. That could apply to hunting during the closed season, if the meat is intended for sale or if several poachers hunt in a group carrying firearms – which is what the suspects in Rhineland-Palatinate are believed to have done.

Groups of poachers with firearms hunting in German forests at night, for Reinwald that seems unthinkable in Germany. "It is a completely different situation than in Africa, for example. In some regions there, poaching happens every day, so much so that some species are threatened by extinction." Gunfights between poachers and law enforcement officers may happen regularly elsewhere. "But this is new for Germany."

Rare species are in danger

Even in Germany, poaching threatens rare animal species such as the wolf, lynx or otter. The conservation organization WWF has reported that approximately one in ten wolves found dead were killed illegally, and demands more action to protect rare species.

Torsten Reinwald of the German hunting association would also like to see the authorities take tough action against poachers. "It's obviously an issue that we have to take seriously because there are always weapons involved."

Back in 2020, a hunting ground in the Eifel region in the far west of Germany became the scene of a Hollywood-style car chase. Gunshots had echoed through the night, 61-year old Jochen Ley, owner of a hunting ground in the area, tells DW. Ley's game warden drove off to check on things. He found a black pick-up truck with deer in the back and started chasing it down dirt roads, over meadows and embankments. But the suspected poacher escaped.

It was the first time in 30 years that a poacher had been discovered in the area, Ley says. "And he's still out there. He's known in hunting circles, but so far no one has been able to catch him in the act."

After the recent killing of police officers by suspected poachers, Ley hopes police pressure will increase. After all, he adds, anyone roaming the forests with illegal weapons poses a danger to humans, too.

Edited by Rina Goldenberg