Studying hunting in Sweden Heberlein found the hunt reflected Swedish cultural values.  Discovering that about Sweden he got to see the deer hunt in Wisconsin reflects our cultural values, too.

“The Swedes are efficient. They take great pride in efficiency. They are a small country.  So they hunt moose with dogs. When you ask them why. They say, “It’s efficient. The moose don’t move around. So we need to have the dogs.”

In Wisconsin it’s not legal to use dogs to retrieve deer.  Using dogs for deer hunting  is considered unsporting. 

Another difference is Swedish hunters operate in teams, reflecting their more collective society.

“The direct translation of the word is team.  Just like a football team. Same word.  There’s a team leader who has  legal responsibilities.  If someone is hurt, if some law is broken, he is responsible as is the person who broke the law.  The team  is highly organized.  Everybody has a particular stand to go to.  The hunt doesn’t begin until everybody is on their stand.  The stands are either drawn at random or assigned by the team leader.  And once everybody is on their stand and checks in with the walkie talkie, the hunt begins.”

While there’s some cooperation on deer drives many Wisconsin deer hunters hunt alone.

Many Wisconsin hunters, too, like to boast about the size of the deer they kill. The newspapers  are filled with pictures of proud hunters posing with  heavy antlered bucks. Wisconsin hunters like to go down to the saloon and show it off. Buy whisky for everybody. And then take the big buck to the next place and enter it in two or three contests.

 But Swedish hunters are  more modest.

“When they would shoot a moose I could often not get to the moose and get a picture of the whole animal with rack. By the end of the day it was hung and made into meat.  And the trophy was just laying in a pile down in a makeshift butcher shop.”

The length of the hunt varies in Wisconsin and Sweden. In Wisconsin the most macho hunter gets on the stand very early before sunup and stays a half hour or more after the sun goes down.

Swedish hunts are shorter.

“I was struck by  how different this is.  The hunts are brief. Two to three hours.  And then the team comes together around a campfire and drinks coffee out of thermos, cooks sausage, and talks for an hour or so and they go to the next  hunt.”

“The early hunt begins in September. And the hunt was ending about five o’clock. I said, “Well,it doesn’t get dark until seventhirty.” Well yes, but if we wounded an animal it would be too dark to find it.”

Maybe the most profound difference between hunting cultures in Sweden and Wisconsin is the amount of training required to get a license.  In order to hunt in Sweden you need to pass a serious test and demonstrate proficiency.

‘’It’s a very good course.  It’s for adults. Not twelve year olds.  You take when you’re eighteen.  You learn forest ecology, the ecosystem.  You have to prove proficiency on both a standing moose and it moves.  They’ve got it on a track and it goes back and forth.  When I went there I took my 30/06 and showed proficiency on both standing and moving.”

According to Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine Wisconsin hunters wound and fail to recover about thirty percent the animals they shoot at. But in Sweden taking more than one shot to kill a moose is a great taboo. 

“You do not take shot until you know you have a killing shot.  Then you take that one shot. To be proficient you shouldn’t have to take more than one shot.  That 30/06 bullet should go through the boiler room.  And it should do what needs to be done quick and efficiently.  This animal shouldn’t suffer.”

Heberlein says there’s a strong concern for animal welfare in Sweden.  And so bow hunting, which often wounds animals, is not allowed.

 

I’m Nick Vander Puy for the Superior Broadcast Network. 

To read a story about hunting that Heberlein wrote entitled “The Gun, the Dog, and the Thermos”, please click here.