This thesis discusses the dress code during the Pitted Ware culture on the Swedish island of Gotland. Eight Pitted Ware grave-fields have been analyzed; only 74 skeletons have been identified with some sort of ornament that could have been attached to clothes. The grave-fields are rich in finds and in people nearly every age group is present. The analysis has shown that there are clear differences between the genders. The female always has some sort of seal tooth ornament around her waist and thighs.

In this study I analysed how burning affects sprouting ability and survival of oak (Quercus robur) during the first season after a burn in southern Sweden. The study consisted of two separate field tests; in the first, two 300 m2- plots in western oak dominated forest were burned to analyze the fire behavior and the immediate mortality of oak and beech seedlings defined as individuals (> 20cm of height). At the end of the season almost 50% of the oak seedlings had resprouted while the beech seedlings had 100% mortality. An attempt to investigate the effect of the burn of artificially sown acorns was totally ruined by wild boar grouting before any conclusive results could be seen. In the second test the resprouting ability of oaks of varying diameters (average BHD 7-9 cm, range 2-42 cm) was examined one season after a prescribed burn in southeastern Sweden.

This multiple use forestry plan is made on the property Basunda which is located in the southern parts of the province Östergötland. The owners of the property today are Jonas and Ulrik Saanum, but it has been in the family since their grandfather bought it 1933. There is a slaughterhouse on the property in which they take care of domestic cattle and animals from the forest. Jonas and Ulrik are also dedicated hunters. These are the two reasons to why the focus is wildlife and wildlife management. The question at issue of this work is simplified: what demands does the wildlife have; and how will the owners be able to fulfill these, what changes in the forest management must be made and will these changes result in a different budget, compared to the ordinary forest management. This work is based from a freshly made forestry management plan. I based my fieldwork on this plan, but made my own management proposals, that would benefit the game.

The concerning issue of declining number of hunters in North America is also apparent in Europe and Sweden. When the bulk of research found on human dimensions and hunting participation has almost exclusively been done in the United States, this report seeks to add to the needed knowledge on a national level focusing on the causes of hunter declines related to social factors within Sweden. Using hunter data reaching from commune, county to National level, this report describes the correlation between a number of variables and the hunting participation in Sweden.The typical Swedish hunter lives in an area with low population density, the person usually has higher education, the living situation is stable with no recent moving and there is relatively good access to forest land. Persons with weaker connection to the Swedish culture such as foreign citizens, people with foreign background and people born outside ?the Nordic countries? are less likely to start hunt or participate in hunting.A strong relationship was found between the favorite game, moose (Alces alces), and the amount of hunters participating in the hunting.

Warthogs live under natural conditions in matriarchal groups, bachelor groups and yearling groups. Just like all pig species do warthogs have a complex behaviour repertoire. The semi-wild warthog population at Kichwa Tembo Lodge, outside Masai Mara National Reserve, lives in a fenced area with access to food all over the year and is protected from predators. The aim of this study was to observe the male warthogs? mating behaviour and their hierarchy during the mating season.

Pigs in Swedish organic production systems have been shown to have more findings of arthritis at slaughter, compared to pigs in conventional pig production. With this in mind a study was performed, to primary, investigate variation in exterior, gait and weight gain between sire breeds and, secondly, to investigate variation between herds, season, gender, age and assessment occasion on these recordings. Swedish commercial hybrids, crosses between Norwegian Landrace and Swedish Yorkshire were inseminated with either Hampshire or Duroc as terminal sire. All the pigs had known pedigree as each semen dose contained sperms from one individual boar. All piglets were individually tagged closely after birth, and exterior and gait assessment were performed at two separate occasions, early and late during the fattening period.

The concerning issue of declining number of hunters in North America is also apparent in Europe and Sweden. When the bulk of research found on human dimensions and hunting participation has almost exclusively been done in the United States, this report seeks to add to the needed knowledge on a national level focusing on the causes of hunter declines related to social factors within Sweden. Using hunter data reaching from commune, county to National level, this report describes the correlation between a number of variables and the hunting participation in Sweden.The typical Swedish hunter lives in an area with low population density, the person usually has higher education, the living situation is stable with no recent moving and there is relatively good access to forest land. Persons with weaker connection to the Swedish culture such as foreign citizens, people with foreign background and people born outside ?the Nordic countries? are less likely to start hunt or participate in hunting.A strong relationship was found between the favorite game, moose (Alces alces), and the amount of hunters participating in the hunting.

Vildsvinstammen har ökat snabbt i södra och centrala Sverige sedan några individer rymde ifrån fångenskap på 1970-talet. Vildsvin har aptit för jordbruksgrödor vilket resulterar i en konkurrens om dessa grödor mellan arterna människan och vildsvin i en s.k. interspecifik konkurrens. Detta utgör i sin tur en konflikt mellan jordbrukare och vildsvin. Denna konflikt verkar även förvärras av jägares förvaltningsmetoder som, enligt lantbrukare, innefattar ett bristande jakttryck och utfodring i för stor skala.

During the last ten- fifteen years the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) population in southern Sweden has increased considerably. This area has a high density of both people and roads and have a higher roe deer (main prey of lynx) density than the rest of the country. Movement patterns such as how long animals utilize their kills and how far they travel from their kills between revisits is unknown for lynx in southern Sweden. The aim of this study was to examine how different factors affected the time lynx used their kills and the distances they travelled from the kill between revisits. The data was prepared and calculated using ArcGIS and the study is based on 98 ungulate kills and 12 lynx individuals.

Relationship between social behaviour, feeding behaviour and performance of boars using single-space feeders A study on the behavioural patterns of growing boars is presented. The study was preformed at Quality Genetics? boar testing station Månseryd in Sweden. The boars were purebred Yorkshire, Hampshire or Landrace, born in nine different nucleus farms. The study is based on two batches of boars, with 63 and 69 boars respectively.

For this essay, 12 liters of cremated bones from the Viking age grave mound RAÄ Berga 134:1 in Trotteslöv, Berga parish, Småland have been osteologically analysed.  The aim with this paper concerned questions as sex, age, number of individuals and animal species in the grave. Further questions that have been investigated are the relationship between the osteological sexdetermination and artifacts as well as which role animals played in burial rituals and as grave goods.The grave contained a middle-aged woman and a number of sacrificed animals: two horses, two dogs, three birds, a boar and a cat. The bones were fragile and very fragmented. One of the birds was determined as a bird of prey, and that together with findings of horses and dogs indicates hunting with bird of prey, an activity performed only by powerful and wealthy individuals.  The woman was buried in a mound of notable size, and with common grave goods for the time period: combs, beads, bronze and iron items. An unusual finding was textile which indicates high status. The number of sacrificed animal species also suggests that the grave belonged to a powerful individual. During the Viking age animals generally played an important role in grave rituals and as items to be used by their master in the next life.

At the end of April 1986 reactor number 4 of the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl explod-ed and large amounts of radioactive particles were then released into the atmosphere due to both the explosion as well as the consecutive fire of the graphite core. A cloud of radioac-tivity was spread over the northern hemisphere, including Sweden, due to the prevailing wind directions. The radioactive particles were washed out from the cloud by rain and snowfall in some areas of Sweden and deposited on the ground. The deposited radionu-clides, primarily cesium and iodine isotopes, were later absorbed into the soil and taken up by the roots of the plants. Some of these radionuclides, like 137Cs, still persist in some of the terrestrial ecosystems at relatively high concentrations which lead to contamination of the meat of moose, roe deer and wild boar even today.The two municipalities Heby and Uppsala, in the eastern part of central Sweden, experi-enced a relatively large deposition of 137Cs which resulted in high levels of 137Cs in moose and other game.

Detection of leukocytes in semen from boars is part of the routine control of semen quality. Leukocytes in semen can cause damage to spermatozoa that leads to impaired fertilization. In the artificial insemination (AI) industry there are standard routines for the quality control of the boars and of the neat semen before use. Since 2001, Quality Genetics has not done the leukocyte examination on semen samples from boars which are used for the production of pigs for slaughter. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of leukocytes in semen from AI-boars. The questions addressed were whether there are boars that have leukocytes in their semen and how frequently it occurs and, moreover, if there are differences between breeds, or even between individuals whose semen was checked before use in AI-dose production compared to those which were not. The study included a total of 135 AI-boars, of which 67 were Hampshire, 35 Yorkshire and 33 Landrace, all belonging to Quality Genetics AI-station in Hållsta.

Pigs are often mentioned as relatively intelligent animals when compared to other nonhuman species. Despite this knowledge, the vast majority of pigs are kept under conditions that lack opportunities to satisfy their cognitive needs. Therefore, a need to evaluate the present scientific studies about pig cognition was acknowledged, in order to evaluate to what extent the knowledge is applied in the husbandry of finishing pigs. If a considerable lack of application was determined, suggestions about how to use the obtained information to improve pig welfare were also to be made. A synthesis of the present literature was made, and it could be concluded that a considerable amount of studies had been carried out in the present area. The pigs of today appear to have the same behavioural and cognitive needs as their ancestor, the wild boar.

Populationerna av både vildsvin (Sus scrofa) och varg (Canis lupus) ökar i Sverige. Då deras utbredningsområden först nyligen har börjat överlappa finns i det närmaste inga data på vargars predation på vildsvin i Sverige. Då detta är av intresse för den framtida debatten kring hur populationerna bör skötas, är syftet i denna studie att undersöka vargars predation och vildsvins beteende i Europa för att kunna dra paralleller till hur de två populationerna kan tänkas komma interagera i Sverige. Att göra en studie kring ett rovdjurs val av byte är problematiskt eftersom så många variabler kan tänkas påverka, i kombination med mätmetoder som ofta inte är de mest exakta eftersom det handlar om vilda djur. I jämförelser mellan olika studier måste man dessutom väga in skillnader i val av metod och analys, så att komma med definitiva slutsatser i frågan är inte rimligt. Särskilt eftersom älg, som nuvarande är svenska vargars huvudsakliga föda, inte är så vanligt förekommande i Europa och jämförelser istället får utgå ifrån hur vildsvin föredras i förhållande till hjort. Vargars diet skiljer sig vida mellan de studier från Europa som undersökts, även mellan relativt närbelägna områden.