The only trouble with this assumption is that a random shooting of the wolf population does next to nothing to improve the overall genetic health of animals. It does, however, vastly improve the trophy collection of the lucky shooter. Both scientists as well as the general population have agreed on this point: The only realistic way of improving the genetic pool would be to remove flawed cubs and to introduce new individual wolves into the breed. The first is practically undoable (since the only realistic way of finding out if a cub is indeed substandard genetic material is to kill it and do a full autopsy), but in order to sanction the event, the Swedish Hunters association agreed to the second. Something that they’re now backing out of, threatening to kill off the remaning wolves as well.

I won’t go into the public debate or any right or wrongs; because what Guillou so brilliantly describes in his article is the actual heart of the matter:

1. The hunters care nothing for the health of the animals: They covet the trophy alone.
2. In the rethoric employed by the Hunters Association is something infinately worse than any random bloodhunt: The ancient controversy between an everbleeding, dying, rural Sweden and the evergrowing urban population.

For the first point, there is nothing much to be said. Trophies are a fact of hunting. They are however, far less philosophical than they used to be. I will get back to that in a few paragraphs.

And as to the second, the articles in the Hunters Associations periodical, speeches and other public media are statistically biased to the point of outright lies and the rethoric is one seething with anger, humiliation and hate for the urban population of Sweden. The rurals accuse the urbanites of being “ecohuggers” and “idiots”, or even worse, “Stockholmers”, referring to the preposterous idea of living in the nation capital.

The rethoric is understandable, and forgiveable. Rural Sweden has fared exceedingly ill after the economy shifting towards industrialism around the 1950’s, thus leaving a culture based on agriculture, then a few years later moving on to a service economy and in the process almost completely eradicating any basis for economic growth in the rural areas. The best minds, and able hands, left for the cities, or other nations, the factories slowly bled out; what is left are those who would not, or could not adapt – and those violently opposed to the changing times. The conflict of the wolf shooting is not about ecology and it is not about the fate of a few animals, it is the cultural divide between an almost ancient and dying, rural culture – and the urban shift towards an urban one. If one would be that way inclined, it could even be called the rigor mortis of the rural subculture.

What further complicates the conflict is an almost neofeudal, Swedish tax structure. The proceeds and taxes earned in the three major urban areas are redistributed to keep the vast rural areas alive. In essence, levies from wealthy cities pay for investments, healthcare and other municipal expenses in parts of the country unable to sustain themselves. Too few people live rurally and those that do, are statistically at least, further detrimental to the state budget in various, less charming, ways. The system is a yoke put on urbanites and has done little to further the relations of the two groups. For all intents and purposes, this way of governing has furthered the economical divide, seeping into all areas of cohabitation.

Both rural and urban sides struggle with their identities. The ways of one are the camp jokes of another. Urbanites struggle with the reigns of economy in an accelerating pace, demanding an almost pervese attention (Lang’s Metropolis comes to mind); and the rurals struggle with the receeding end of that very same chain. If the past 50 years are indicative of anything I’d say the rurals are at the losing end. Economy isn’t a patient lover at all. The life support of the major cities will continue as long as there is anything to be gained and once even what small progress can be acheived will dwindle, there will no doubt be voices raised, impatiently, proclaiming in so many words, even if they will be more eloquently put: “Fucking die, already”.

A few final words on hunting, and the role of it in any modern society. Hunting, the sport of kings – is in as much ethical turbulence as are the two groups practicing it. The essence of hunting has changed greatly over just a few years. From survival to sport, from sport to… recreation. Because what is blatantly apparent is that hunters of today, care little for ecology or nature. Most of the modern hunters are too absorbed by their rifles than they are in forestry, or ethics. Historically, the best hunters are those that cared for nature and animal alike, understood the delicate balance and when it was their place to intervene – and when to step back. Hunting was as much a scholary activity as it was a necessity. You had to know something about an animal and its life in order to end it. In short, ethics, morality and ecology were in balance.

Today, in order to become a hunter, there are no such requirements. The process is easy and most of the emphasis is on the actual handling of the gun. The Hunter as archetype is dead and what has taken his place is a gleeful individual, much more at home in the NRA (National Rifle Association, the home of gun-toting “freedom-loving”, Americans who just cannot understand the concept of not shooting things) than in the forest. Ecology is biology, ethics and philosophy. These things take time to understand because they affect us in far deeper ways than an instruction in how to clean the muzzle of your rifle. The idea is that by the time you learn the ethics, and the system, you will no longer feel the need to drive out to the woods and kill something and then have a beer over its carcass. I suggest that anyone, absolutely anyone – who feels the need to become a hunter, should be made to undertake a lengthy education into the ecosystem that they’re so eager to pull bounty from. If, by the end of that education, preferrably completed in one of Swedens agricultural universities – that individual has fully understood what it truly means to hunt – then that person should be awarded the rank and license of hunter. I’m betting that we’d see far less hunters in the future than the roughly 270 000 individuals who have a license like this today.

A brilliant starting point for this journey, would be Josè Ortega y Gasset’s “Meditations on hunting”. While pointing out that hunting is in man’s nature, he is often misquoted by the bloodthirsty hunting mob of today as advocating what is a modern hunt. Far from it. What Ortega y gasset in essence writes about is the ethics of hunting and the responsibility of the hunt. This is not to be confused with easy pretexts to go and kill something. Finally – what the author presumably also knew, is that man changes and the premises for what being a man is, also change. Perhaps, we finally need to stop killing for fun.

Now, how about that, rurals?