The First Day of the Great Swedish Wolf Hunt

Very seldomly do I venture into the political or party political arena when I write, but today I cannot remain silent. I live in a country that prides itself for its great humanism, its progressiveness wrapped in eco-green  and its defense of the vulnerable and the downtrodden.  Perhaps these values still ring true in some ears, but in mine there is a cacophony of clanging cymbals and a melody corrupted by discord.  There are many disharmonious notes in the contemporary tune of the frozen realm in the north, but few are as insidious and alarming as the one currently played with such fervour: the wolf cull. It’s not a cull, by the way. It’s carnage.

Hunters, men armed with guns and dogs, have been licensed to kill 75 wild wolves, an estimated 16.3 % of the Swedish wolf population. There are approximately 460 wolves in Sweden, of the species Scandinavian wolf, which is listed as a severely endangered species. These wolves are spread over a country with an area of 450.295 square kilometres which ranks as Europe’s fifth largest. How can that be too many? How can they possibly be a threat to humans or to human livestock? One politician announced in the media today that he personally saw no need for Sweden to have a wolf population at all. That’s an interesting assertion and one which was left unopposed by SVT’s journalists. But perhaps they should have trekked into the great forests of Svealand, somewhere in north-western Värmland or in Orsa Finnmark in Dalarna, and sought Old Greyleg for a comment. I am certain that his retort would have been unequivocal: “We wolves do not see any need for our habitat to contain homo sapiens. They pillage and burn, kill our kind and others for pleasure, and leave nothing but a wasteland in their wake.”

Man and wolf have always contended for primacy, for access to the finest game, and many Swedes falsely believe that the wolf is an enemy. In fact, wolves were hunted to extinction in Scandinavia, and it was not until a few lone individuals wandered in from Russia that the  wolf population gained a new foothold on the peninsula.  But if Swedes bothered to think a little deeper and delve into the dark recess of their own interiors they would discover that the wolf is not the enemy. He is a guardian of the forest, and a maintainer of nordic biodiversity. He is a natural part of the ecosystem, and plays an important role in the old belief system.  Rather it is our own human greed for power and resources that pushes us ever further into what was once wilderness, the hunting grounds of the wolf, and leads to direct confrontation with packs. A flock of unprotected sheep in a wolf habitat is an invitation to an easy meal, much in the same manner as feeding the robins in my garden invites my two cats to a free-for-all killing spree. The fault does not fall on the wolf, a wild predator acting in accordance to his nature, but rather on the human shepard who didn’t think and failed to properly protect the flock.  And protection does not necessarily entail culling the wolf- there are creative ways to protect livestock from canine and wolf  attacks which leaves the predator unscathed.  

The wind in Scandinavia sweeps through the great forests, across tundra and  mountains, over the lakes and grasslands, across seas playing  a melancholy tune in mol. It always has. And the voice of the wolf, the lonely and plaintive howl, has risen to greet it. They belong here, the wolves.  Hate, Sköll och Månegarm are part of this land, the predators at the apex of the food chain, and the guardians of Scandinavian biodiversity. May the ancient spirits of the land, and the troll and knytt of the forests, rise to protect you, Brother and Sister Wolf. And may you multiply and thrive all across this land.