AMOT, Sweden—In February 2011, two people illegally killed a wolf on a frozen lake in central Sweden by chasing it with a snowmobile, running it over repeatedly, and finally bludgeoning the seriously injured animal to death with a makeshift club. Then they hid the carcass in a crevice and covered it with snow. It is a powerful illustration of the kind of hatred some people have for wolves in Sweden.
The wolf is easily Sweden’s most controversial animal, despite there only being about 300 of them in a country of 9 million people, that’s roughly the size of California.
The debate is heated over whether or not to tolerate wolves in a country that has a long history of killing them off. It is often portrayed as being a battle between urban conservationists who only care for animals, and heartless country hicks who are ready to hunt down every last canine menace.
Swedish officials who handle predator issues are routinely threatened and harassed. When regulated wolf hunting was controversially introduced in 2010, activists took to the forest to sabotage it. TV debates on the topic end in shouting matches.
Leif Holst, who runs a nature tourism operation with sled dogs outside the small village of Katrineberg, some 200 miles north of Stockholm, first discovered the tracks of the grisly hunt along with his wife Gullan. Holst is also regional director of an association working to preserve Swedish predator-animals.
