Wolf hunting

There are few animals surrounded by as much superstition and ideas as the wolf. In folklore, they were usually looked upon as dangerous beings. This was also reflected in the law; in the medieval landscape laws the wolf was declared free to hunt and the commoner was expected to participate in the collective hunt for wolves.

During the late 18^th Century, more liberal hunting laws gave ordinary people the right to carry out more extensive hunting. This led to a rapid decline of wild animals and to survive the predators had to seek out domestic animals to a larger extent. This prompted an increasing conflict between man and wolf. The hunting for wolves increased dramatically and finally led to the extinction of the animal in the Region of Halland – probably as early as in the 1870’s.

There was a diversity of methods for hunting wolves: poisoned carcasses, trapping, pits, and drive hunting. The most spectacular of the methods was “Vargskäll” – “The wolf yell”. Great masses of people gathered in the woods with equipment such as spears, drums, and ratchets, to form human chains and drive the animal to a waiting shooter. During the hunt wolf nets and wolf patches were hung up in the landscape in order to drive the animal in a set direction.