The hunted hunters

De Jagade jägarna (The Hunted Hunters) is a book based on a court case about alleged wolf hunting in Lillhärdal in southern Härjedalen.

The book contains a detailed description of the case itself, but perhaps most interesting are the conclusions and concerns that arise from what happened in Lillhärdal in May 2012.

As well as being a long drawn-out court case, it describes how the wolf controversy has now reached the very heart of our legal system. Various authorities, in their zeal to protect the ever-growing wolf population, seem to be stretching the limits of their own mandates.

We've seen it before, in the case of the pediatrician at Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital and in the Thomas Quick case

With the county councils now granting themselves permission to put secret cameras in the forests, the protection of the wolf seems to be shifting to the hunting of the hunters. In a wolf territory, the hunter not only has to accept a declining wildlife population and the fear of losing a family member - the hunting dog. Now there is also the fear of being secretly photographed, with the threat of years of legal proceedings. This is regardless of whether there is any evidence of wolf hunting, or as in the Lillhärdal case, rather more evidence to the contrary.